Born in 1876 amid the lingering shadows of slavery in Tennessee, Charles Frederick White entered a world still scarred by the chains his parents had worn. The oldest of ten children born to formerly enslaved parents, he carried the weight of their hard-won freedom from the very beginning. His family soon migrated northward to Springfield, Illinois, seeking better opportunities in a state that had once sheltered Abrah…
“This same person has absolutely no prejudice towards any human being on account of race, color or creed”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Devotional Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Anger, Sorrow, Despair
Benjamin Griffith Brawley entered the world on April 22, 1882, in Columbia, South Carolina, during a time when the South was still grappling with the aftershocks of Reconstruction and the hardening grip of Jim Crow. The second eldest of nine children born to the Reverend Edward McKnight Brawley and Margaret Saphronia Dickerson Brawley, he grew up in a household that prized education, faith, and quiet dignity amid rac…
“Literature should be not only history but prophecy, not only the record of our striving but also the mirror of our hopes and dreams. The Negro himself is the supreme challenge to American literature.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing
