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Gwendolyn Brooks is born in Topeka, Kansas
She is born to Keziah Corinne Wims and David Anderson Brooks. -
Gwendolyn Brooks begins submitting her poetry for publication.
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Brooks publishes her first poem "Eventide" in the American Childhood magazine.
“I felt that I had to write. Even if I had never been published, I knew that I would go on writing, enjoying it and experiencing the challenge.” -Gwendolyn Brooks -
Meets Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson.
Brooks was influenced by both of these writers to pursue poetry. -
Brooks graduates from Englewood High School.
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Brooks graduates from Wilson Junior College.
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Marries Henry Lowington Blakely II and moves to Chicago's South Side.
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Her son, Henry Junior is born.
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Her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville, is published.
"No white poet of her quality is so undervalued, so unpardonably unread. She ought to be widely appreciated...as one of our most remarkable woman poets..." -James M. Johnson of Ramparts (In response to A Street in Bronzeville. -
Her second book of poetry, Annie Allen, is published.
This won Poetry Magazine's Eunice Tietjens Prize. -
Brooks wins the Pulitzer Prize for her writing. She was the first African American to win this award.
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Brooks gives birth to a daughter, Nora Blakely
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Brooks publishes her only novel, Maud Martha
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Bronzeville Boys and Girls is published
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Brooks publishes The Bean Eaters
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Brooks is invited by JFK to read at the LIbrary of Congress.
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Brooks publishes her third book of poetry, Selected Poems
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Brooks attends Fisk University Second Black Writer's Conference.
"Brooks became one of the most visible articulators of "the black aesthetic"". -William Blakely 1967 -
Brooks publishes In the Mecca
This is considered one of her first poems to feature a stronger sense of political activism. "Not only has she combined a strong commitment to racial identity and equality with a mastery of poetic techniques, but she has also managed to bridge the gap between the academic poets of her generation in the 1940s and the young black militant witers of the 1960s". -George E. Kent (In response to In the Mecca) -
Brooks is named Poet Laureate of Illinois
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Riot is published.
One of Brooks' earliest, more politicall active poems that discusses the riots in Chicago after the assasination of Martin Luther King Jr. -
Brooks is appointed as the 29th Consultant in the Library of Congress
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Brooks is inducted into the Woman's Hall of Fame
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Brooks becomes a Jefferson Lecturer from the National Endowment for the Humanities Lifetime Achievement Award. Brooks wins the medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters by the National Book Foundation.
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Brooks receives the National Medal of Art and recieves the Lincoln Laureate Award.
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Brooks is inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent.
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Brooks passes away from cancer.
