Maxine Ethel Thompson

Dr. Maxine Ethel Thompson, the sixth of eight children of Artie Mae and Mervin McKinley Vann Sr., was born in Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday, June 17, 1951.  Affectionately known as “Tina,” and “Grandma” to others, Dr. Maxine transitioned peacefully on Sunday, March 5, 2023.  At 71 years of age, she passed over to the ancestors with her daughter, Tamaira Johnson, by her side.

Dr. Thompson was baptized at age 8 at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church. However, as an adult she became a Jehovah’s Witness.  She practiced ministry by elevating minority literacy with the love of books.  She rekindled a passion for writing later in life, but she caught up for lost time by amassing an impressive body of work.  As a longtime resident of Inglewood, California, Dr. Thompson became known for her community activism, minority literacy projects and for writing multiple best-selling books.

Dr. Thompson attended Detroit Public Schools’ McMillan Elementary and Southwestern High. As a junior, she became the first Black student to integrate St. Francis Central High in Traverse City, MI. She lived with sculptress Verna Bartnick and her family in the all-white community as part of a student exchange in the 1967-68 school year. Verna mentored and encouraged Dr. Thompson’s writing talent during this tumultuous time where she was one of only three Black  students, amid a backdrop of social upheaval and unrest of the 1960s.  Her time there overlapped with Dr. King’s assassination and uprisings that inspired her book Lineage: A Memoir (Amazon: 2019).

Maxine graduated from Oak Park High School in 1969. She earned her B.A. degree with honors in English from Wayne State University in 1973, and went on to be Awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree in Humanities at Loyola Marymount University by R.O.S.E Ministries Worldwide.

Dr. Thompson married Horace Thompson Jr. in 1971. Their marriage endured a fifty-year union until Horace’s death in 2020.  She was a mother to four children, Michelle Burroughs, Horace, Tamaira, and Aaron Thompson. This well educated and accomplished wife/mother/author was not simply satisfied with her already impressive credentials. She sought out more from life and emerged as a literary giant.

Dr. Thompson was a pioneer all her life. As a social worker for 23 years in Detroit and Los Angeles, where the family moved in the 1980s, she worked hard to reunite families torn apart by addiction. Inspired by the many stories of the families she encountered, Dr. Thompson returned to the  love of writing. Her first short story, Valley of the Shadow, won $1,000 in Ebony magazine’s first writing contest. Maxine’s 1995 debut novel, The Ebony Tree, (a 1997 PEN Award winner) was inspired by her mom Artie Mae and the family’s life in Detroit’s Delray. Dr. Thompson would go on to write 16 other books and become a celebrated literary agent, ghostwriter and editor, who shepherded many Black authors’ books onto best-sellers lists such as The New York Times, Essence, USA Today and Black Expressions Book Club. Maxine championed reparations for Black people and used her books, nonprofit organization, and The Dr. Maxine Thompson Show podcast on artistfirst.com to further that cause.  Ever the trailblazer, she was podcasting 20 years before the term came into vogue.

Dr. Thompson was preceded in her passage by: her parents, Artie Mae and Mervin Vann Sr.; her husband, Horace Thompson Jr.; her daughter, Michelle Burroughs; two sisters,  Jacqueline and Nancy Vann; brother, Mervin Vann  Jr.; in-laws: Anna, Linda, Raymond, and Dezjore Thompson, Jean (Robert) Jordan.

She leaves to cherish her memory a large family including her children: Horace Maurice (Minnie) Thompson III, Tamaira Johnson and Aaron Thompson Sr.; siblings: Michael (Andrea Rose), Mark (Dr. Artie), David (Thelma) Vann Sr., and Sonya (Shawn) Vann DeLoach; in-laws: Charlotte Vann, Mary (Frazier) Kimpson, Sheila (Larry) Thompson, Johnny Johnson; paternal aunts, Ethelyn Madison and Cynthia Woods; grandchildren, Brandon Thompson, Brianna Samms, Reginald Darius and Dylan Burroughs; Journee and Aaron Thompson Jr., Elijah Bledsoe, and David Brinson, Joey and Gia Huff; Quincy, Keston, Joey, Daniel, Johnny, and Marcus Johnson; great-grandchildren: Brennan, Braxton, and Ava Samms and a host of nieces, nephews, many cousins and dear friends, especially her literary mentor, whom she called mother-sister-friend, Dr. Rosie Milligan.

Memorial Recording Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1crbrYsIV5gUmk4Iwl2AKtnqc0Ud6iqz-/view?usp=drivesdk