Gwendolyn Brooks: The Poet Who Made Black City Life Literature

“We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

— Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks was first Black Pulitzer poetry winner

Who Was Gwendolyn Brooks?

Gwendolyn Brooks was a poet, writer, and teacher whose work captured the everyday lives, struggles, and beauty of Black communities in America. In 1950, she became the first Black person to win a Pulitzer Prize, but her influence extends far beyond awards.

Brooks wrote about ordinary people with extraordinary honesty. Her poems made Black city life visible, complex, and worthy of serious literature at a time when it was often ignored or dismissed.

Early Life, Education, and Chicago Roots

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas, and moved to Chicago when she was just weeks old during the Great Migration. She would later describe herself as an “organic Chicagoan,” a city that shaped both her voice and her worldview.

She attended several Chicago public schools, including Hyde Park High School, before transferring to Wendell Phillips High School in Bronzeville, a predominantly Black and integrated school. She later completed her education at Englewood High School.

Brooks went on to graduate from a two-year program at Wilson Junior College, now known as Kennedy-King College, in 1936. She chose not to pursue a four-year college degree, believing it was not necessary for her growth as a writer.

Her mother, Keziah Brooks, a teacher and classically trained pianist, strongly encouraged her literary ambitions. By age 11, Brooks was writing poems daily. Her first poem was published when she was just 13, and as a teenager she regularly published work in the Chicago Defender.

A Literary Career That Changed American Poetry

Brooks’ first poetry collection, A Street in Bronzeville (1945), focused on life in Chicago’s South Side and immediately established her as a powerful new voice in American literature.

In 1950, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Annie Allen, a poetry collection that chronicles the life of a Black girl growing up in Bronzeville, navigating childhood, adulthood, love, war, and racial injustice.

She also wrote the novel Maud Martha, a series of short sketches exploring the inner life of a Black woman negotiating identity, marriage, and self-worth.

Mentorship, Activism, and Teaching

Brooks believed deeply in community and mentorship. In the early 1940s, she participated in poetry workshops organized by Inez Cunningham Stark, which helped her refine her craft. Even Langston Hughes attended one of Brooks’ readings and heard her perform “The Ballad of Pearl May Lee.”

She later taught creative writing across Chicago, including to members of the Blackstone Rangers, emphasizing the power of language as expression, survival, and resistance.

Brooks taught at institutions including the University of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, Chicago State University, Northeastern Illinois University, Columbia University, and the University of Wisconsin.

She was also active in the NAACP, serving as publicity director for the Chicago Youth Council.

Personal Life

Among friends and family, Brooks was affectionately known as “Gwendie.”

In 1939, she married Henry Lowington Blakely Jr. The couple had two children, Henry Lowington Blakely III and Nora Blakely. Brooks also mentored her son’s fiancée, Kathleen Hardiman, encouraging her interest in poetry.

Honors, Recognition, and Later Work

Brooks’ later poetry became more politically direct, reflecting the urgency of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Her 1969 book Riot responded to the unrest following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Her many honors include:

• The Pulitzer Prize for Annie Allen

• A Guggenheim Fellowship

• Being named one of Mademoiselle magazine’s “Ten Women of the Year”

• Induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1976

• The Order of Lincoln, Illinois’ highest honor, in 1997

• The National Medal of Arts

She also became the first Black woman to serve as Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress, a role now known as Poet Laureate.

Death and Legacy

Gwendolyn Brooks died on December 3, 2000, at the age of 83 in Chicago, the city she called home. She is buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois.

Her legacy lives on in classrooms, libraries, and communities where her words continue to give voice to lives too often overlooked.

Why Gwendolyn Brooks Still Matters

Gwendolyn Brooks showed the world that Black urban life was not marginal. It was literature. It was history. It was worthy of deep attention and care.

She didn’t write to impress institutions.She wrote to tell the truth.

And that is why she still matters.