Kahlil Gibran Artist and Poet

Kahlil Gibran in the U.S.: A Symbol of Unity

Poet and artist Kahlil Gibran’s legacy of “unity in diversity” established

his place in American history as an inspiration to those seeking to improve the common good. He is remembered in many U.S. cities and states.

Monuments in Boston and Washington celebrate his cultural prominence. The U.S. Congress established a memorial garden to Gibran in Washington, which then-President George H.W. Bush dedicated in 1991. A memorial plaque, created by a young rela-tive of Gibran, stands in Boston’s Copley Square.

Gibran’s standing as an intellectual is preserved at the University of Maryland. The Center for Heritage Resource Studies created the Kahlil Gibran chair for values and peace as an ongoing program emerging from the Kahlil Gibran Research and Studies Project in 1999.

To recognize work that “promotes inclusion, cultural understanding and cooperation across ethnic, racial and religious lines” around the country, the Arab American Institute Foundation estab-lished the Kahlil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Awards in 1999.

Much of Gibran’s work expresses themes of unity, but he is best known for his poetic masterpiece, The Prophet, a book of 26 essays about life and the human condi-tion that interweaves his Arab and Christian influences. The collection has been translated into more than 40 languages since being published in 1923. Gibran died in New York in April 1931.

Gibran had come to the United States from what is now north-ern Lebanon with his mother, two sisters and half-brother in 1895 at age 12 to escape pov-erty and live with an uncle in the Syrian neighborhood of Boston’s South End. He went to public school to learn English, and a teacher who noticed his drawings brought him to Fred Holland Day, a Boston art-ist. Day introduced Gibran to art,

literature and Mary Elizabeth Haskell, who was to be his patron until the completion of The Prophet.

Haskell carried Gibran’s legacy farther south when she donated her collection of nearly 100 original works of Gibran’s art to the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, in 1950. Her gift is the largest public collec-tion of Gibran’s visual art in the United States, including five oils and numerous works on paper.

Before her death in 1964, Haskell donated their personal correspon-dence spanning 23 years, nearly 600 letters, to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. In one of his letters, Gibran summa-rized the meaning of The Prophet: “The whole Prophet is saying one thing: ‘you are far far greater than you know — and all is well.’”

Embassy of the United States of America PROMINENT ARAB AMERICANS

Below: Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia; Telfair Museums Archives, Arch_74; Photography credit: Daniel L. Grantham, Jr., Graphic Communication; Top: Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia; Gift of Mary Haskell Minis, 1950.8.1; Photography credit: David J. Kaminsky

Rashid Abdu, Physician

Ahmed Ahmed, Comedian

Moustapha Akkad, Film Director

Michael DeBakey, Heart Surgeon

Farouk El-Baz, Geologist

Gaida, Singer

Kahlil Gibran, Artist and Poet

Joseph Haiek, Publisher

Salma Hayek, Actress

Casey Kasem, Radio Broadcaster

DJ Khaled, Rap Music Artist

Khalid Khannouchi, Marathon Runner

Ferial Masry, Community Activist

Christa McAuliffe, Teacher in Space

Naomi Shihab Nye, Author

Ameen Rihani, Poet

Edward Said, Author and Activist

Kareem Salama, Singer

Betty Shamieh, Playwright

Rashida Tlaib, Politician

Elias Zerhouni, Medical Vanguard

Ahmed Zewail, Chemist

Prominent Arab Americans

U N I T E D S TA T E S D E P A R T M E N T O F S TA T EB U R E A U O F I N T E R N A T I O N A L I N F O R M A T I O N P R O G R A M S

Prominent Arab Americans Featured in This Series

El-Baz

Gaida

DeBakey

Akkad

Abdu

Ahmed

Gibran

Haiek

Khaled

Rihani

Shamieh

Shihab Nye

Kasem

Zewail

McAuliffe

Said

Zerhouni

Masry

Hayek

Tlaib

Khannouchi

Salama

Revised May, 2012