Remembering The Great Poet Gwendolyn Brooks At 100
In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African-American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Hers was a Pulitzer in poetry, specifically for a volume titled Annie Allen that chronicled the life of an ordinary black girl who grows up in the Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago's famous South Side.
Brooks was in her living room when she learned she'd won, she recalled in a Library of Congress interview, and it was growing dark. She didn't turn on the lights, because she knew what would happen. Money was tight, and the bill hadn't been paid.
She also knew that her Pulitzer made her something of a unicorn, and began to worry about what was going to happen when word got out.
"The next day, reporters came, photographers came," she recalled. "And I was absolutely petrified. I wasn't going to
