Sterling Allen Brown grew up on the campus of Howard University, where his father was a professor and prominent minister, and went on to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College before earning his master's degree from Harvard University. He began his teaching career at Virginia Seminary and Lincoln University before joining the faculty of Howard University in 1929, where he would remain for the next four decades.
Brown's landmark 1932 poetry collection, Southern Road, drew deeply on the rhythms of Black folk speech, blues, and spirituals, capturing the voices and experiences of working-class Black Southerners with a authenticity and craft that distinguished him from some of his Harlem Renaissance contemporaries. His scholarship on Black literature and folk culture, including his influential work as national editor of Negro affairs for the Federal Writers' Project during the Great Depression, helped establish African American literature and folklore as serious fields of academic study.
As a professor at Howard University for 40 years, Brown taught and mentored generations of students who went on to become major figures in American literature and civil rights, including Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, and Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael). Though relatively underrecognised during much of his career compared to some contemporaries, Brown experienced a significant resurgence of critical attention and honour in his later years, including being named Washington, D.C.'s first Poet Laureate in 1984, five years before his death.
- Published Southern Road, a landmark collection blending poetry with Black folk speech and blues traditions
- Taught at Howard University for 40 years, mentoring students including Toni Morrison and Amiri Baraka
- Served as national editor of Negro affairs for the Federal Writers' Project
- Named the first Poet Laureate of Washington, D.C., 1984
- Helped establish African American literature and folklore as serious fields of academic study
- Root your art in authentic voice.. His poetry drew directly on the rhythms of Black folk speech rather than more conventional literary forms of his era.
- Teaching multiplies influence across generations.. His four decades at Howard shaped the careers of students who became major literary and political figures themselves.
- Build the academic field you want to see.. His scholarship helped establish African American literature and folklore as legitimate, serious areas of study.
- Recognition can arrive late, but still arrive fully.. His most significant public honours came in the final years of his long career.