Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was a teacher, author, and poet. Her writing often dealt with the struggles of the people in her community and her own personal celebrations. She had begun writing and publishing as a teenager, achieving national fame for her 1945 collection A Street in Bronzeville. In 1950, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Annie Allen.
Brooks was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas, and raised on the south side of Chicago. Her father, David Anderson Brooks, was a janitor for a store, and her mother, Keziah Wilm Brooks, was a teacher and concert pianist. When Brooks was six weeks old, her family moved to Chicago, which remained her home for the rest of her life. She started her education at Forestville Elementary School. Gwendolyn went to three different high schools: the prestigious integrated Hyde Park High School, then transferred to the all-black Wendell Philips High School, and finished her schooling at the integrated Englewood High School. The racial injustices she faced at these schools shaped her understanding of the prejudice and bias in the United States and influenced her writing. Her parents supported her passion for reading and writing. She published her first poem, "Eventide", at 13, which appeared in American Childhood; by 17 she frequently published poems in The Chicago Defender. In 1936, she graduated from Wilson Junior College, now known as Kennedy King College.
By 1947, Brooks participated in poetry workshops. One of the most influential was run by Inez Cunningham Stark, an affluent white woman. It was in these workshops that Brook started to find her voice and improve her technique. In 1944, she achieved a long standing goal. Two of her poems were published in Poetry magazine's November issue. She published her first poetry book, "A Street in Bronzeville", in 1945, with the support of Richard Wright, who was asked his opinion by the editors. The book instantly received critical acclaim and received a review by Paul Engle that Brooks said initiated her reputation. She received her first Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946, and was included as one of the "Ten Young Women of the Year" in Madamoiselle magazine. Brooks' second book, "Annie Allen", was awarded the 1950 Pullitzer Prize and Poetry magazine's Eunice Tietjens Prize. In 1953, she published her first narrative book, "Maud Martha". In 1967, she attended the second Black Writers' Conference. Her experience at the conference inspired many of her literary activities. She taught creative writing to some of Chicago's Blackstone Rangers, one of Chicago's most violent and sophisticated street gangs. In 1968, she published her poem "In the Mecca", which was nominated for the National Book Award for Poetry.
In 1939, Brooks married her husband, Henry Lowington Blakely, Jr. They had two children, Henry Lowington Blakely III, born October 10th 1940, and Nora Brooks Blakely, born September 8th 1951. Her husband, who had served in the U.S. Marine Corps, died in 1996. Brooks died in 2000, at the age of 83. Her daughter is a literary editor and agent, and manages the use of her mother's work.