“Medgar Evers”

Though perhaps most widely known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Allen, the African American poet Gwendolyn Brooks published more than 20 books throughout her lifetime, supported civil rights and political causes, and mentored a generation of African American poets and publishers. This work was included in Brooks’s In the Mecca (1968), along with the narrative poem “In the Mecca” and several shorter works that addressed the contemporary moment. Written about the civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who was murdered in his home in 1963, this poem shares a page opening with “Malcolm X” in the published work. In this typescript version, the tribute stands alone, save for Brooks’s signature.