I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded by English colonists in 1630, it is one of the oldest cities in the USA. Within walking distance of my home, there are numerous historic landmarks. If you want to see where George Washington rallied his troops, where eight US presidents went to college, or where frozen orange juice was invented, come to Cambridge. Plaques announcing the importance of a particular house, street or public figure are part of the everyday scenery. For most Cantabridians, they’re no more worthy of notice than the neon sign over the local Seven-Eleven.
In the course of my morning walk, I must have passed the house around the corner a thousand times before I stopped to read its historic marker. Pauline Hopkins, the sign read. Author, Editor, and Publisher. 1856-1930. The face staring back at me from the sign was that of a black woman in her mid-thirties. Clear-eyed and confident, she wore an expensive dress, a fashionable hat, and a no-nonsense expression.
While living in this humble frame home, Pauline Hopkins fought for social justice as an editor, musician, biographer, and novelist. Reading the marker, I felt an immediate sense of kinship. Like Hopkins, I am a black woman, musician, and writer. How was it that I had never even heard of this woman?
I hurried home to order a copy of Lois Brown’s comprehensive biography of Hopkins’ life and times. I learned Pauline Hopkins was the first black woman to edit a magazine. Her fiery editorials in the Colored American addressed issues of social justice, racial discrimination, and women’s rights. When she was fired from her position by advocates of Booker T. Washington’s more moderate approach to the civil rights struggle, she responded by starting her own publishing company.
At the age of twenty, Pauline Hopkins wrote and performed in a musical titled The Underground Railroad, which toured the country for nearly two years. I am a professional musician, and well aware of how much talent, ambition, and hard work it would have taken to mount such a production. It blew my mind to learn that she accomplished this feat in 1880, just eighteen years after slavery ended.
These days, Pauline Hopkins is best known for her writing. Her three novels explore class conflict, interracial relationships, and color prejudice among blacks - the same themes I wrote about in my two memoirs, Damn Near White and They Raised Me Up. As a writer of crime fiction, I was amazed to discover Pauline Hopkins’ 1903 story Tamia Gordon is considered to be the first detective story ever published by a black woman.
That this woman lived literally around the corner from me was starting to feel like more than just a coincidence. I’ve been fascinated by spirituality, mysticism, and the occult for as long as I can remember. So, apparently, was Hopkins. Her controversial novel, Of One Blood, is filled with references to haunted houses, ghosts, magic, and mysticism.
As a practicing psychic medium, I talk to the dead regularly. It, therefore, should not surprise you to learn I’ve added Pauline Hopkins to my host of Spirit Guides. Whenever I’m struggling with a writing problem, I stop by her house to have a little chat. I stand in front of her sign, pour out my troubles, and ask for help.
Without fail, a new idea or inspiration will pop into my head in the next day or two.
Call me superstitious if you like. Tell me I am imagining things. Perhaps you are right. But I wouldn’t bet on it if I were you.
Carolyn Marie Wilkins is a Reiki master, a psychic medium, and a Professor at Berklee College of Music Online. She is the author of Murder At The Wham Bam Club, the first in a three-book series in her Psychics and Soul Food Series. 
The novel features the crime-fighting exploits of Nola Ann Jackson, an African American war widow, psychic, and caterer, who struggles to find true love in a lawless Midwestern town at the height of the Roaring Twenties. Let The Murderer Say Amen, the second book in this series, will be released by Kensington Publications in July 2026.
Carolyn’s other novels, Death at a Séance, Melody for Murder, and Mojo for Murder, are available from Pen-L Publications.
