Melvin Beaunorus Tolson (February 6, 1898 – August 29, 1966) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Modernist poetModernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature in the English language, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases of the critic setting the...
, educator, columnist, and politician. His work concentrated on the experience of
African AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s and includes several long historical poems. His work was influenced by his study of the
Harlem RenaissanceThe Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
, although he spent nearly all of his career in
TexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
and
OklahomaOklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
. In 1947
LiberiaLiberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
named Tolson its
poet laureateA poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
.
Early life and education
Born in
Moberly, MissouriMoberly is a city in Randolph County, Missouri, United States. According to the 2008 census bureau estimate, the population was 14,227. The city was incorporated 1868. The Moberly Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Randolph County....
, Tolson was one of four children of Reverend Alonzo Tolson, a Methodist minister, and Lera (Hurt) Tolson, a seamstress of African-
CreekThe Muscogee , also known as the Creek or Creeks, are a Native American people traditionally from the southeastern United States. Mvskoke is their name in traditional spelling. The modern Muscogee live primarily in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida...
ancestry. Alonzo Tolson was also of mixed race, the son of an enslaved woman and her white master. He served at various churches in the Missouri and
IowaIowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
area until settling longer in
Kansas CityThe Kansas City Metropolitan Area is a fifteen-county metropolitan area that is anchored by Kansas City, Missouri and is bisected by the border between the states of Missouri and Kansas. As of the 2010 Census, the metropolitan area has a population of 2,035,334. The metropolitan area is the...
. Reverend Tolson studied throughout his life to add to the limited education he had first received, even taking
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
,
GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Hebrew by correspondence courses. Both parents emphasized education for their children.
Melvin Tolson graduated from Lincoln High School in Kansas City in 1919. He enrolled at
Fisk UniversityFisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...
but transferred to Lincoln University, Pennsylvania the next year for financial reasons. Tolson graduated with honors in 1924. He became a member of the
Omega Psi PhiOmega Psi Phi is a fraternity and is the first African-American national fraternal organization to be founded at a historically black college. Omega Psi Phi was founded on November 17, 1911, at Howard University in Washington, D.C.. The founders were three Howard University juniors, Edgar Amos...
fraternity.
Marriage and family
In 1922, Melvin Tolson married Ruth Southall of
Charlottesville, VirginiaCharlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...
, whom he had met as a student at Lincoln University. Their first child was Melvin Beaunorus Tolson, Jr., who, as an adult, became a professor at the
University of OklahomaThe University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...
. He was followed by Arthur Lincoln, who as an adult became a professor at
Southern UniversitySouthern University and A&M College is a historically black college located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Baton Rouge campus is located on Scott’s Bluff overlooking the Mississippi River in the northern section...
; Wiley Wilson; and Ruth Marie Tolson. All children were born by 1928.
Career
In 1930-31 Tolson took a leave of absence from teaching to study for a
Master's degreeA master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
at
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. His thesis project, "The Harlem Group of Negro Writers", was based on his extensive interviews with members of the
Harlem RenaissanceThe Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
. His poetry was strongly influenced by his time in New York. He completed his work and was awarded the master's degree in 1940.
After graduation, Tolson and his wife moved to
Marshall, TexasMarshall is a city in Harrison County in the northeastern corner of Texas. Marshall is a major cultural and educational center in East Texas and the tri-state area. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Marshall was about 23,523...
, where he taught
speechCommunication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...
and
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
at
Wiley CollegeWiley College is a four-year, private, historically black, liberal arts college located on the west side of Marshall, Texas. Founded in 1873 by the Methodist Episcopal Church's Bishop Isaac Wiley and certified in 1882 by the Freedman's Aid Society, it is notable as one of the oldest predominantly...
(1924–1947). The small, historically black Methodist Episcopal college had a high reputation among blacks in
the SouthThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
and Tolson became one of its stars.
In addition to teaching English, Tolson used his high energies in several directions at Wiley. He built an award-winning
debate teamDebate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...
, the Wiley Forensic Society. During their tour in 1935, they broke through the color barrier and competed against the
University of Southern CaliforniaThe University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
, which they defeated. There he also co-founded the black intercollegiate Southern Association of Dramatic and Speech Arts, and directed the theater club. In addition, he coached the junior varsity football team.
Tolson mentored students such as
James L. Farmer, Jr.James Leonard Farmer, Jr. was a civil rights activist and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He was the initiator and organizer of the 1961 Freedom Ride, which eventually led to the desegregation of inter-state transportation in the United States.In 1942, Farmer co-founded the Committee...
and
Heman SweattSweatt v. Painter, , was a U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully proved lack of equality, in favor of a black applicant, the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was also influential in the landmark case of Brown v...
, who later became civil rights activists. He encouraged his students not only to be well-rounded people but also to stand up for their rights. This was a controversial position in the segregated U.S. South of the early and mid-20th century.
In 1947 Tolson began teaching at
Langston UniversityLangston University is an institution of higher learning located in Langston, Oklahoma, USA. It is the only historically black college in the state, and the westernmost historically black college in the United States...
, a historically black college in
Langston, OklahomaLangston is a town in Logan County, Oklahoma, United States, and is part of the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,670 at the 2000 census...
, where he worked for the next 17 years. He was a dramatist and director of the
Dust BowlThe Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...
Theater at the university. One of his students at Langston was
Nathan HareNathan Hare was the first person hired to coordinate a black studies program in the United States, at San Francisco State University in 1968.-Early life and education:...
, the black studies pioneer who became the founding publisher of the journal
The Black Scholar.
In 1947
LiberiaLiberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
appointed Tolson its Poet Laureate. In 1953 he completed a major epic poem in honor of the nation's centennial, the
Libretto for the Republic of Liberia.
Tolson entered local politics and served three terms as
mayorIn many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Langston from 1954 to 1960.
In 1947, Tolson was accused of reportedly having been active in the late 1930s of organizing farm laborers and tenant farmers (though the nature of his activities is unclear) and of having radical leftist associations. The film,
The Great Debaters, portrays him as having been a possible Communist. In the film, Tolson's arrest for union organizing galvanizes the town of Marshall, Texas's black community.
Tolson was a man of impressive intellect who created poetry that was “funny, witty, humoristic, slapstick, rude, cruel, bitter, and hilarious,” as reviewer
Karl ShapiroKarl Jay Shapiro was an American poet. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.-Biography:...
described the
Harlem Gallery. The poet
Langston HughesJames Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
described him as “no highbrow. Students revere him and love him. Kids from the cotton fields like him. Cow punchers understand him ... He’s a great talker.”
In 1965, Tolson was appointed to a two-year term at Tuskegee Institute, where he was Avalon Poet. He died after
cancerCancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
surgery in
Dallas, TexasDallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, on August 29, 1966. He was buried in
Guthrie, OklahomaGuthrie is a city in and the county seat of Logan County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City Metroplex. The population was 9,925 at the 2000 census.Guthrie was the territorial and later the first state capital for Oklahoma...
.
Literary works
From 1930 on, Tolson began writing poetry. He also wrote two plays by 1937, although he did not continue to work in this genre.
In 1941, he published his poem "Dark Symphony" in
Atlantic Monthly. Some critics believe it is his greatest work, in which he compared and contrasted African-American and European-American history.
In 1944 Tolson published his first poetry collection
Rendezvous with America, which includes
Dark Symphony. He was especially interested in historic events which had fallen into obscurity.
In the late 1940s, after he left his teaching position at Wiley,
the Washington Tribune hired Tolson to write a weekly column, which he called
Cabbage and Caviar.
Tolson's
Libretto for the Republic of Liberia (1953), another major work, is in the form of an
epic poemAn epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
in an eight-part,
rhapsodic sequence. It is considered a major modernist work.
Tolson's final work to appear in his lifetime, the long poem
Harlem Gallery, was published in 1965. The poem consists of several sections, each beginning with a letter of the
Greek alphabetThe Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. The poem concentrates on African-American life. It was a striking change from his first works, and was composed in a jazz style with quick changes and intellectually dense, rich allusions.
In 1979 a collection of Tolson's poetry was published posthumously, titled
A Gallery of Harlem Portraits. These were poems written during his year in
New YorkNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. They represented a mixture of various styles, including short narratives in free verse. This collection was influenced by the loose form of
Edgar Lee MastersEdgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist...
'
Spoon River Anthology. An urban, racially diverse and culturally rich community is presented in
A Gallery of Harlem Portraits.
With increasing interest in Tolson and his literary period, in 1999 the
University of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
published a collection of his poetry entitled
Harlem Gallery and Other Poems of Melvin B. Tolson, edited by Raymond Nelson.
Tolson's papers are housed at the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
.
In media
Tolson is a central character in the movie
The Great DebatersThe Great Debaters is a 2007 American biopic period drama film directed by and starring two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington and produced by Oprah Winfrey and her production company, Harpo Productions...
(2007), directed by and starring
Denzel WashingtonDenzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...
in the role of Tolson.
Oprah WinfreyOprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
produced the film, based on Wiley College's debate with
University of Southern CaliforniaThe University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
(USC). (In the movie, the team debates Harvard, not USC).
Legacy and honors
- Fellowship to Columbia University, 1930–31
- 1954, appointed permanent fellow in poetry and drama at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is a writers' conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont...
at Middlebury CollegeMiddlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...
in Middlebury, Vermont.
- 1964, elected to the New York Herald Tribune book-review board, and the District of Columbia presented him with a citation and Award for Cultural Achievement in the Fine Arts.
- 1964, grant from the National Institute
- 1966, annual poetry award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 1970, Langston University founded the Melvin B. Tolson Black Heritage Center in his honor, to collect material of Africans, African Americans, and the African diaspora.
- 2004, inducted posthumously into Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame.
- 2007, a movie biopic, The Great Debaters, based on his work with debate students at a predominantly black college, Wiley College, Marshall, Texas, was released.
External links