Gwendolyn Brooks


(June 7, 1917-Dec. 3, 2000) 

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

Brooks was raised and educated on the South Side, taught at several local colleges, and set much of her poetry in the city. With the publication of A Street in Bronzeville in 1945, Brooks won a Guggenheim Fellowship, became one of Mademoiselle’s “Ten Young Women of the Year,” and generally triggered an avalanche of praise that would continue unabated until her death. With Annie Allen, in 1950, Brooks became the first African-American to capture a Pulitzer Prize; she was poet laureate of Illinois and the United States; she was named National Endowment for the Arts’ Jefferson Lecturer; is a member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame; and has four Illinois schools and a library named in her honor. In conjunction with her 80th birthday in 1997, Mayor Richard Mr. Daley declared Gwendolyn Brooks Week, at which 80 performers and writers from around the world presented her gifts.

2010 Inductee: Named on 8 Ballot(s)

Gwendolyn Brooks At Amazon
Gwendolyn Brooks At Barnes and Noble
Gwendolyn Brooks At Borders

New York Times Obituary

Gwendolyn Brooks Papers at Bancroft Library, UC-Berkley

Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University

National Women’s Hall of Fame