Gwendolyn brooks childhood

1. Biography of Gwendolyn Brooks
2. Early Life and Education
3. Emerging Poet
4. Recognition and Awards
5. Personal Life and Legacy

Biography of Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks was an American poet, the first African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize. In 1968, she was named the poet laureate of Illinois, and in 1985, the poet laureate of the United States and the official consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress. She was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas. Her parents were David Anderson Brooks and Keziah Wims. Her mother used to be a school teacher before leaving teaching for the sake of her family and children. Her father had to abandon his dream of becoming a doctor and work as a janitor since he couldn't afford medical school. Gwendolyn's paternal grandfather was a runaway slave who joined the Union forces during the Civil War. When she was just a month and a half old, her family moved to Chicago, Illinois. This migration of around six million African Americans from the South to the Northeast, Midwest, and West over half a century would later be known as the Great Migration.

Early Life and Education

Gwendolyn, affectionately called Gwendie by close friends, had a stable and loving family life, although she had to face racial prejudices in her neighborhood and schools. She attended Hyde Park High School, the main white high school in the city, before transferring to Wendell Phillips, a school exclusively for African Americans. Later, she attended the racially integrated Englewood High School, and in 1936, she graduated from Wilson Junior College. These four schools gave her an understanding of the racial dynamics in the city, which would later influence her works.

Emerging Poet

Brooks published her first poem in a children's magazine at the age of 13. By the time she turned 16, she had accumulated about 75 published poems. At 17, she attempted to secure a job as the leading poet of "Lights and Shadows," a poetry column in the African American newspaper, the Chicago Defender. Although her poetry ranged in style from traditional ballads and sonnets to the use of blues rhythms and "white verse," her subjects often revolved around people from the poorer areas of the city. After her unsuccessful attempt to secure a job at the Chicago Defender, Brooks held several jobs as a typist.

Recognition and Awards

By 1941, Brooks began participating in poetry seminars, with one of the most influential being organized by Inez Cunningham Stark, a wealthy woman with a strong literary inclination. Soon, Brooks' poems started to be taken seriously, and in 1943, she received a poetry award at a Midwest writers' conference. Her first poetry collection, "A Street in Bronzeville" (1945), received immediate critical acclaim. The poetess received her first Guggenheim Fellowship and was listed in "Ten Young Women of the Year" by Mademoiselle magazine. After the release of her second collection, "Annie Allen" (1950), she became the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in poetry and received the Eunice Tietjens Prize. When President John F. Kennedy invited her to read her works at the Library of Congress Poetry Festival in 1962, Brooks began a new career in teaching. She taught at Columbia College Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago State University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Personal Life and Legacy

In 1939, Gwendolyn Brooks married Henry Lowington Blakely. They had two children, a son named after his father born on October 10, 1940, and a daughter, Nora Blakely, born in 1951. Gwendolyn Brooks passed away on December 3, 2000, at the age of 83 in her home in South Chicago. In 1988, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 1994, she was invited to deliver the Jefferson Lectures, one of the highest honors for a writer or poet in American literature. In 1995, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts and became the first Woman of the Year elected by the Harvard Black Men's Forum. Alongside other awards and honors she received throughout her career, Brooks held over 75 honorary degrees from colleges and universities worldwide.