21 pages • 42 minutes read
Gwendolyn BrooksThe Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1957A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Journalistic Context
The Chicago Defender newspaper plays an important role in Brooks’s poem, as well as in her life. It was founded specifically for Black readers in 1905 by Robert S. Abbot and had many subscribers outside of Chicago. The Chicago Defender took up a strong stance against racism and supported the Great Migration movement: the movement of Black people from southern states to northern states, especially to Chicago. In addition to publishing poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, the Chicago Defender employed Langston Hughes as a columnist. In 2019, the Chicago Defender moved away from print media and focused on circulating news through their online publication.
Brooks was interviewed by Martha Satz for the Southwest Review journal, and the title of the piece, “Honest Reporting,” highlights the importance of newspapers and reporting to Brooks. She says, “That’s the ideal—to put down exactly what is there to be reported, honestly [...] I have felt that maybe I could have left that last line out because that is really going beyond reportage into something that I privately think” (Satz, Martha. “Honest Reporting.” Southwest Review, 1989). In Brooks’s poem, the assumed persona of a reporter mirrors what Brooks believed was the goal of poetry about social issues. She regretted some of the more allusive and symbolic parts of the poem (those that reference the Bible), favoring journalistic ethics.
Historical Context
The reporter—the “Man” sent to Little Rock—in Brooks’s poem is likely based on the real-life figure of L. Alex Wilson. When he reported on the Little Rock Nine, he was beaten by a white mob. The Little Rock Nine refers to the first Black students who were able to enroll at Little Rock Central High School in the fall of 1957. This was three years after the Supreme Court case, Brown v. The Board of Education, where racial segregation in schools was determined to be unconstitutional. The governor of Arkansas ordered the state’s National Guard to block the nine students from entering the school. A federal judge ordered their removal, but the National Guard and an angry mob returned to block the students from entering the school a few days later.
After another order from a federal judge, 16 days later, the students again attempted to enter the school, escorted by the Little Rock Police. They encountered another angry mob and could not finish out the school day in safety. On September 25, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the National Guard, putting it under his direct control, and sent additional federal troops to Little Rock. National Guard and Army soldiers accompanied the nine students, who were finally able to attend classes regularly. However, they continued to be harassed and threatened by white students.
Related Titles
By Gwendolyn Brooks
