To identify the enemy is to free the mind.

Awards and honors
John Hay Whitney Fellow 1965-66
Woodrow Wilson Foundation Grant 1968
Indiana University Writers Conference Award 1970
First Annual Poetry Award Black Academy of Arts and Letters 1970
Copeland Fellow Amherst College 1980
National Endowment for the Arts grant 1981-82
Photo put on Ugandan postage stamp 1997
Nominated for a Grammy Award for the liner notes Mari Evans wrote for The Long Road Back To Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music 2002 African American Legacy Project of Northwest Ohio Legend Honoree 2007. The second stanza reads: “I am a black woman tall as a cypress strong beyond all definition still defying place and time and circumstance assailed impervious indestructible. One called "When In Rome" is taught in many high schools and college English classes.

Mari Evans (born July 16 1923 in Toledo Ohio) is an African-American poet living in Indianapolis.