SOURCE: Henderson, Stephen E. “Sterling Brown: 1901-1989.” In African American Writers, edited by Lea Baechler and A. Walton Litz, pp. 45-55. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1991.

In the following essay, Henderson offers an overview of Brown's life and career.

Sterling Allen Brown, a pioneering and gifted poet, a seminal scholar, a brilliant critic, a master teacher, and mentor to hundreds, is generally acknowledged as the dean of African American literature. He was born in Washington, D.C., on 1 May 1901, the youngest of the six children (and the only son) of Rev. Sterling Nelson Brown, minister of Lincoln Temple Congregational Church and professor of religion at Howard University, and of Adelaide Allen Brown, who had been valedictorian of her class at Fisk University.

Brown received an excellent education both in the classroom and outside it. He heard learned discourse in his father's church and at home, where he was...