Donald Goines was born to a Catholic, middle-class Black family in Detroit in the early 20th century.

A man of humble beginnings, he discovered his love of writing early while watching the comings and goings at the laundry his parents ran – an upbringing that would lead to him having a major impact on Black Street literature in his adult years.

His work isn’t glamorous.

They’re stories of survival, betrayal, addiction, and above all else…the resilience of the human spirit.

Donald Goines wasn’t the kind of man who walked the easy path.

Unlike most of his literary peers, he never even finished school, instead lying about his age to enlist in the U.S. Air Force.

It was a time period rife with struggle for Goines, and after developing a heroin addiction during his service, he returned home to Detroit dejected and downtrodden.

What followed was a cycle of crime, prison, and hustling just to keep a roof over his head, but everything changed for Goines when he encountered the infamous Iceberg Slim during a prison stint and was encouraged by him to try his hand at writing as a method of transmuting his pain into power.

It was the moment that everything changed.

Donald Goines’ pen was on fire between 1971 and 1974, a time period that saw him publish an impressive sixteen novels in total:
“Dopefiend” (1971)
“Whoreson” (1972)
“Black Gangster” (1972)
“Black Girl Lost” (1974)

He also published under the pseudonym Al C. Clark, releasing a four-book saga about a revolutionary force in the ghetto he called the Kenyatta series in 1974, the first of which was entitled “Crime Partners.”

As for his prose, Goines was hard hitting, urgent, and utterly unapologetic in how he portrayed street life and the addiction, violence, structural decay, and class struggle that came along with it.

Tragically, Donald Goines and his common-law wife Shirley Sailor were murdered in cold blood in their apartment on October 21, 1974.

Today, the case remains unsolved, but theories continue to circulate: was it a matter of an unpaid debt? Did Goines have enemies that felt exposed by his body of work and wanted retaliation?

Regardless of the motivation behind it, Donald Goines’ death left a lasting mark on Detroit’s literary world, especially since it sounds exactly like a plot out of  the very world he documented.

Even though he’s been deceased for decades, he will never be forgotten.

Victoria Jackson (Editor In Chief)

Victoria Jackson is a lifelong student and sharp-eyed documentarian of all things Detroit, from its rich musical roots and cultural icons to its shifting neighborhoods, storied architecture, and underground legends. With her finger firmly on the pulse of both the city’s vibrant past and its rapidly unfolding future, she brings a deeply personal, historically grounded lens to every piece she writes.

Published on: October 11, 2025