Gwendolyn Brooks
| Gwendolyn Brooks | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks June 7, 1917 Topeka, Kansas, US |
| Died | December 3, 2000 (aged 83) Chicago, Illinois, US |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1930–2000 |
| Notable works | A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, Winnie |
| Notable awards |
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1950) Robert Frost Medal (1989) |
| Spouse | Henry Lowington Blakely, Jr. (m. 1939) |
| Children | Henry Blakely, III, and Nora Blakely |
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won many awards for her work and influence, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen making her the first African American to receive that award.
Throughout her career Brooks received many more honors. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968, a position held until her death, and what is now the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress for the 1985–86 term .
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas, and died on December 3, 2000 in Chicago, IL. She was the first child of David Anderson Brooks and Keziah (Wims) Brooks. Her father was a janitor for a music company who had hoped to pursue a career as a doctor but sacrificed that aspiration to get married and raise a family. Her mother was a school teacher as well as a concert pianist trained in classical music. Family lore held that her paternal grandfather had escaped slavery to join the Union forces during the American Civil War.
When Brooks was six weeks old, her family moved to Chicago during the Great Migration; from then on, Chicago remained her home. According to biographer Kenny Jackson Williams, Brooks first attended a prestigious integrated high school in the city with a predominantly white student body, Hyde Park High School, transferred to the all-black Wendell Phillips High School, and then moved to the integrated Englewood High School. After completing high school, she graduated in 1936 from Wilson Junior College, now known as Kennedy-King College. Due to the social dynamics of the various schools, in conjunction with time period in which she attended them, Brooks faced racial injustice that over time contributed to her understanding of the prejudice and bias in established systems and dominant institutions in her own surroundings as well as ever relevant mindset of the country.
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