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Gwendolyn Brooks
1917–2000
Born Topeka, Kansas
"Blackness is what I know best. I want to talk about it, with definitive illustration," remarked the poet Gwendolyn Brooks. From her sensitive autobiographical novella Maud Martha (1953) to her popular rhythmic poem "We Real Cool" (1959), she poignantly portrayed Black urban working-class life in Chicago. Her first collection of poems, A Street in Bronzeville (1945), presents complex Black characters who are both limited by their circumstances and are active agents of their own destiny. Brooks became the first African American writer to receive the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950 and went on to earn election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1976.
Sara S. Miller (1924–2016)
Bronze, 1994 |