My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 109

In 1968 Abraham Chapman released
Black Voices. This anthology of black
literature would become a very popular
book in the curriculum of newly
created black studies programs.
In Black Voices, Chapman includes 9
poems by Brown. Here we find
the poems “Southern Cop” and
“The Ballad of Joe Meek” two poems
in which police violence is the central
theme. In 2014 these poems seem to
echo the sad news we continue to hear
across the country in which incidents
take place between police and black
youth. At the same time it illustrates
that Brown’s work remains timely and
extremely important.

108

Sterling Brown was one of several
elders who changed my life between
1969 and 1984. The others were
Stephen Henderson, C.L.R. James,
Arthur P. Davis and Leon Damas.
There are a few memorable moments
during my student days at Howard
that involved Brown. One took place
when I was selling copies of The Black
Collegian magazine. I remember
going into Brown’s third floor office
in Founders Library and asking if he
wanted a copy. Brown purchased 4
issues. It would be much later that I
realized he was helping me out- he
was being supportive. He was placing
money in my pocket. This small
gesture speaks loudly of a generation
of black men who are in fact pillars
of their community.

I also liked Brown’s style. He was a poet
who wore a jacket and tie. Like Leon
Damas — one of the founders of the
Negritude Movement — these men
dressed the part of intellectuals. They
were men of letters. How they smoked
a pipe or cigarette was often done with
a jazz musician’s cool. Think of Miles
or Lester Young. Think of Brown’s
friendship with Duke Ellington.
It was Brown’s pipe that in May 1972
was the reason for Steve Jones’ and
my visit to Brown’s Northeast home.
Jones who resided next door to me
in Cook Hall dormitory was close
to Margaret Burroughs who ran the
DuSable Museum in Chicago.
Burroughs instructed Jones to visit
Brown to see if he might donate
something to her museum. In the
early ‘70s I was working in the
African American Studies Reading
Room and had access to video tape
equipment. On May 4 and 14, 1972
(not 1978 as mentioned in Robert
O’Meally annotated bibliography)
I recorded Brown.

These early recordings of Brown and
the documenting of his life would have
a significant impact on my mentor
Stephen Henderson. Henderson, who
had taught at Morehouse in Atlanta
and had also been connected with the
Institute of the Black World, came
to Howard around 1970. He joined the
Department of Afro-American Studies
and taught two courses that I took,
“Blues, Soul and Black Identity” and
“Problems of the Black Aesthetic.”
Henderson had just published his
groundbreaking anthology Understanding
The New Black Poetry and had a deep
respect for and interest in Brown’s work
because of its connection to the blues.
Henderson’s essay “The Heavy Blues of
Sterling Brown: A Study of Craft and
Tradition” is included in After Winter:
The Art and Life of Sterling A. Brown
edited by John Edgar Tidwell and
Steven C. Tracy.
Upon accepting the directorship of the
Institute for the Arts and Humanities
at Howard in 1973, Henderson
encouraged a more systematic study
and documentation of Sterling Brown’s
life. This consisted of Brown coming
out of retirement and becoming
the Senior Research Associate at the
Institute. I was chosen to be the Junior
Research Associate. From 1973 to 1974
I would video tape a number of Brown’s
readings, lectures and interviews.