Sterling Allen Brown (May 1, 1901 – January 13, 1989) was an American professor,

folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

, and

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. ...

. He chiefly studied black culture of the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

and was a professor at

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...

for most of his career. Brown was the first Poet Laureate of the District of Columbia.

Early life and education

Brown was born May 1, 1901 on the campus of Howard University in Washington D.C., where his father, Sterling N. Brown, a former slave, was a prominent minister and professor at Howard University Divinity School. His mother Grace Adelaide Brown, who had been the valedictorian of her class at

Fisk University Fisk University is a private historically black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1866 and its campus is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1930, Fisk was the first Africa ...

, taught in D.C. public schools for more than 50 years. Both his parents grew up in

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...

and often shared stories with Brown and his sister Mary Edna Brown (a founder of Delta Sigma Theta sorority) about famous leaders such as

Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...

and

Booker T. Washington Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...

. Brown's early childhood was spent on a farm on Whiskey Bottom Road in

Howard County, Maryland Howard County is located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2010 census, the population was 287,085. As of the 2020 census its population rose to 328,200. Its county seat is Ellicott City. Howard County is included in the Baltimore-C ...

. He was educated at Waterford Oaks Elementary and Dunbar High School, where he graduated as the top student. He received a scholarship to attend

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kille ...

in Massachusetts. Graduating from Williams

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

in 1922, he continued his studies at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

, receiving an MA in English a year later. That same year of 1923, he was hired as an English lecturer at

Virginia Theological Seminary and College Virginia University of Lynchburg is a private historically black Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia. The university is accredited by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools and offers instruction and degrees, ...

Lynchburg, Virginia Lynchburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. First settled in 1757 by ferry owner John Lynch, the city's population was 79,009 at the 2020 census. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mounta ...

, a position he held for the next three years. He never pursued a doctorate degree, but several colleges gave him honorary doctorates. Brown won the Graves Prize for his essay "The Comic Spirit in Shakespeare and Moliere" during his senior year at Williams.

Marriage and family

Brown married Daisy Turnbull in 1927 and they adopted a son, Johnathon L. Dennis. Daisy was an occasional muse for Brown; his poems "Long Track Blues" and "Against That Day" were inspired by her.

Academic career

Brown began his teaching career with positions at several universities, including Lincoln University and

, before returning to Howard in 1929. He was a professor there for 40 years. Brown's poetry used the South for its setting and chronicled the experiences of enslaved African-American people. In his creative work, Brown often imitated southern African-American speech, using "variant spellings and apostrophes to mark dropped consonants". He taught and wrote about

African-American literature African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of slave narratives, African ...

and

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, rangin ...

. He was a pioneer in the appreciation of this genre. He had an "active, imaginative mind" when writing and "a natural gift for dialogue, description and narration". Brown was known for introducing his students to concepts in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, which, along with

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...

spirituals Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the ex ...

and other forms of black music, formed an integral component of his poetry. He was a speaker at the famous

From Spirituals to Swing ''From Spirituals to Swing'' was the title of two concerts presented by John Hammond in Carnegie Hall on 23 December 1938 and 24 December 1939. The concerts included performances by Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson, ...

concerts, and his introduction can be heard on the recordings made of the performances. In addition to his career at Howard University, Brown served as a visiting professor at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

Atlanta University Clark Atlanta University (CAU or Clark Atlanta) is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Atlanta is the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the Southern United States. F ...

, and

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

. Some of his notable students include

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, '' The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' S ...

, Kwame Ture ( Stokely Carmichael),

Kwame Nkrumah Kwame Nkrumah (born 21 September 190927 April 1972) was a Ghanaian politician, political theorist, and revolutionary. He was the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, having led the Gold Coast to independence from Britain in 1957. An ...

Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell (; born June 30, 1930) is an American author, economist, political commentator and academic who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. With widely published commentary and books—and as a guest on TV and radio—he becam ...

Ossie Davis Raiford Chatman "Ossie" Davis (December 18, 1917 – February 4, 2005) was an American actor, director, writer, and activist. He was married to Ruby Dee, with whom he frequently performed, until his death. He and his wife were named to the NAACP ...

, and

Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous bo ...

( LeRoi Jones). In 1969, Brown retired from his faculty position at Howard and turned full-time to poetry.

Literary career

In 1932, Brown published his first book of poetry ''Southern Road''. It was a collection of poems, many with rural themes, and treated the simple lives of poor, black, country folk with poignancy and dignity. Brown's work included pieces of authentic dialect and structures as well as formal work. Despite the success of this book, he struggled to find a publisher for the follow-up, ''No Hiding Place''. His poetic work was influenced in content, form and cadence by African-American music, including work songs, blues and jazz. Like that of

Jean Toomer Jean Toomer (born Nathan Pinchback Toomer; December 26, 1894 – March 30, 1967) was an American poet and novelist commonly associated with the Harlem Renaissance, though he actively resisted the association, and with modernism. His reputatio ...

Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on hoodoo. The most popular of her four n ...

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, H ...

and other black writers of the period, his work often dealt with race and class in the United States. He was deeply interested in a folk-based culture, which he considered most authentic. Brown is considered part of the

Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...

artistic tradition, although he spent the majority of his life in the Brookland neighborhood of Northeast Washington, D.C.

Honors

In 1979, the District of Columbia declared May 1, his birthday, ''Sterling A. Brown Day''.Imogene Zachery
"A Literary Tribute to Sterling A. Brown"
''Howard University'', accessed April 15, 2008. His ''Collected Poems'' won the

Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...

in the early 1980s for the best collection of poetry published that year.Sterling A. Brown, ''The Literacy Encyclopedia''
accessed April 15, 2008. In 1984, the District of Columbia named him its first

poet laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch ...

, a position he held until his death from

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

at the age of 88. The Friends of Libraries USA in 1997 named Founders Hall at Howard University a Literary Landmark, the first so designated in Washington, DC. The home where Brown resided is located in the Brookland section of Northeast Washington, DC. An engraved plaque and a sign created by the

DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH) is an agency of the District of Columbia government. As of October 2022, the Interim Executive Director is David Markey. CAH was created as an outgrowth of the U.S. Congress Act that established ...

are featured in front of the house."Brookland History Lives! Sterling Brown House"
The Brookland Bridge, September 1, 2012.

Works

*''Southern Road'', Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932 (original poetry) *''Negro Poetry'' (literary criticism) *''The Negro in American Fiction'', Bronze booklet - no. 6 (1937), published by The Associates in Negro Folk Education (Washington, D.C.) *''Negro Poetry and Drama: and the Negro in American fiction'', Bronze booklet no. 7 (1937), published by The Associates in Negro Folk Education (Washington, D.C.) *''The Negro Caravan'', 1941, co-editor with Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses Lee (anthology of African-American literature) *''The Last Ride of Wild Bill'' (poetry) * (1st edition 1980) *''The Poetry of Sterling Brown'', recorded 1946-1973, released on

Smithsonian Folkways Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was fo ...

, 1995 * *
Old Lem
' (Poem) "Old Lem" was put to music by

Carla Olson Carla Olson (born July 3, 1952) is a Los Angeles-based songwriter, performer and record producer. Biography Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Olson moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1978 where she formed the Textones, whose debut album ''M ...

with the permission of Sterling Brown’s estate. The resulting song is called "Justice" and was recorded by Olson, backed by former member of The Rolling Stones Mick Taylor and former member of the Faces Ian McLagan along Jesse Sublett on bass and Rick Hemmert on drums.

References

External links

A Literary Tribute to Sterling A. BrownSterling A. Brown at The Academy of American Poets
*
The Poetry of Sterling Brown
at

* FBI files on Sterling Brown
Sterling A. Brown papers
at Williams College Archives & Special Collections {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Sterling Allen 1901 births 1989 deaths African-American academics African-American poets American literary critics Journalists from Washington, D.C. Deaths from leukemia Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Fisk University faculty Howard University faculty Williams College alumni Writers from Washington, D.C. Poets Laureate of the District of Columbia Harlem Renaissance 20th-century American poets 20th-century American non-fiction writers Dunbar High School (Washington, D.C.) alumni 20th-century African-American writers