Gail Lumet Buckley, the daughter of the late Lena Horne and a journalist and writer, who wrote two books concerning the historical past of her Black middle-class household, died on July 18. She was 86.
Her daughter Jenny Lumet, a screenwriter and producer, instructed The New York Instances she died at her house in Santa Monica, California, as a consequence of coronary heart failure.
Born on Dec. 21, 1937, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Buckley grew up in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Relatively than observe her in her mom’s footsteps in Hollywood, she went on to earn a bachelor’s diploma from Radcliffe Faculty in Massachusetts in 1959.
She spent a while working in Paris as an intern at Marie Claire journal earlier than returning to america, serving as a counselor with the Nationwide Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro College students.
Buckley was then employed at Life journal in 1962. Later in her journalism profession, she additionally wrote contributing articles for The New York Instances, The Los Angeles Instances, The Each day Information of New York and Vogue.
It was in 1986 when she wrote her first e book, The Hornes: An American Household, after discovering tons of of artifacts in an outdated trunk that belonged to her relations relationship again six generations.
“All of it unfolded like a detective story — here’s what was taking place in 1875, there’s what went on in 1895,” she instructed the Los Angeles Instances when The Hornes was printed. “After which to learn Black American historical past, as I did extensively, and put that on prime of it; that’s an thrilling expertise.”
Three many years later, she revisited her household’s historical past with The Black Calhouns: From Civil Battle to Civil Rights With One African American Household. The e book centered on historic occasions and political actions that impacted two sides of her household: one which lived via Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow in Atlanta, and the opposite that skilled the Harlem Renaissance in New York Metropolis.
She additionally printed American Patriots: The Story of Blacks within the Navy From the Revolution to Desert Storm in 2001, for which she acquired the Robert F. Kennedy Guide Award the 12 months after.
Her most up-to-date e book, Radical Sanctity: Race and Radical Ladies within the American Catholic Church, was printed in 2023. It targeted on Katharine Drexel, Dorothy Day, Catherine de Hueck Doherty and Sister Thea Bowman.
Buckley was married to director Sidney Lumet (who died in 2011) for 14 years after they met in 1963. They share two daughters, Jenny and Amy Lumet.
Further survivors embody her two grandchildren. She was additionally married to journalist Kevin Buckley for 38 years however he died in 2021.