On this date in 1916, Novelist Frank Garvin Yerby, winner of the O. Henry short story award winner, born on this date. He was the first African American to write a best-selling novel and to have a book purchased by a Hollywood studio for a film adaptation. During his career, Frank wrote thirty-three novels and sold more than fifty-five million hardback and paperback books worldwide. Yerby’s first literary success came in 1944, when he received the O. Henry Memorial Award for his short story “Health Card.” Yerby also went on to write, “The Foxes of Harrow,” which focuses on the racial inequities faced by an African American soldier and his wife.