William Edward Burghardt Du Bois entered the world on February 23, 1868, in the small, rolling hills of Great Barrington, Massachusetts—a town where the air carried the crisp scent of New England pines and the quiet rhythms of rural life. Born into a family of mixed African, Dutch, and French Huguenot heritage, he was the son of Alfred Du Bois, a restless barber and laborer of Haitian descent who soon vanished from t…
“The power of the ballot we need in sheer self-defense,—else what shall save us from a second slavery?”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
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
