Lillie Patterson

Lillie Patterson (May 3, 1917 – March 11, 1999) was an American writer who worked as a school and college librarian in Baltimore, Maryland.[1] She wrote 17 books for children and young adults including Martin Luther King, Jr.: Man of Peace about Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.[2] It won the very first Coretta Scott King Award. She also wrote books about the Statue of Liberty, Coretta Scott King, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington.[1][3]

She grew up listening to her grandmother telling stories in Hilton Head, South Carolina.[1]

Patterson was African-American. She received a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia in the 1940s and a graduate degree in library services from the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. in the 1950s. She also studied at the Johns Hopkins University and New York University.[1] In 1963 she received the Living Maker of Negro History Award from the Iota Phi Lambda sorority. She also won a Professional Award from the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs in Baltimore and the Helen Keating Award in 1985 from the Church and Synagogue Library Association.[1]