Throughout her career Gwendolyn Brooks has been committed to a political vision of black liberty and equality while refusing to sacrifice the complexity and sheer beauty of her art. In light of her achievement she has become considered by many to be one of the most significant poets of the twentieth century. For a body of work that draws from various traditions, but is circumscribed by none, Brooks has been widely recognized. With her volume of poems Annie Allen (1949), she became in 1950 the first African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize. She was named poet laureate of the state of Illinois in 1978 and consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress. In 1987 Brooks became the first black woman to be elected an honorary fellow of the Modern Language Association. In 1994 she was chosen to deliver the Jefferson Lecture of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the highest honor...