When she was a young girl growing up on the South Side, Gwendolyn Brooks would sit on her back porch and write, her daughter said.
It was in that quiet space that Brooks could let her mind float away and she could focus on her words, said Nora Brooks Blakely.
Brooks grew up to become the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, the first to serve as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress. For more than 30 years she was the state’s poet laureate.
And on Thursday, Brooks will become the first Chicago-based black poet honored with a statue and memorial in a Chicago public park. The statue of Brooks is part of a larger installation that includes a replica symbolizing her porch along with a pathway of stones engraved with lines from her poems. The entire installation will be unveiled at the North Kenwood park on South Greenwood Avenue that carries her name.
“This project would have been so important to her,” said Blakely, who oversees an organization that, among other things, manages her mother’s estate. “Years before she passed, her name was carved into the Illinois State Library. I remember, when they had the ceremony, Mama came out and just looked at her name carved in stone. I got emotional seeing her so deeply affected.
“Now, her actual likeness is in bronze, in a place for young people to access,” Blakely said. “This would have been one of the most important moments for her in her life.”
The unveiling bookends a celebration honoring Brooks’ 100th birthday. As part of that centennial, there were gatherings of nationally acclaimed poets, exhibits, live readings and school programs, and even the performance of an original play about Brooks’ life. In addition, Blakely released a book, “Seasons,” that compiles some of Brooks’ most famous writings along with some of her previously unpublished works.
The statue installation comes at a time when the accomplishments of pioneering women, African-Americans and other minorities are increasingly being recognized with memorials, statues and public works of art. In Chicago, for example, there are memorials that honor women like Jane Addams — but few statues or busts that present an actual image of notable women.
There is no official directory, but the statue of Brooks is believed to be only the second statue or bust of an African-American woman in the city. A bust of Georgiana Rose Simpson, who was the first black woman to earn a doctorate from the University of Chicago, was unveiled last year at the Reynolds Club, the university’s student center.
The Brooks installation project was initiated by the sculptor Margot McMahon more than two years ago. She was at a planning meeting for the Our Miss Brooks 100 celebration when the participants started brainstorming on how they would like to see Brooks honored and McMahon offered the idea of a statue.
“I was just hoping to let Chicagoans know who Gwendolyn Brooks is and her huge contributions to the literary world,” said McMahon, who lives in Oak Park and sits on the board of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.
“Her impact was through her generosity to share with many people the vision that a writer can create social change,” McMahon said. “Her combination of activism and art changed the world.”
After that first meeting, McMahon was approached by Blakely who told her about the North Kenwood park named for Brooks and that it would be an appropriate place for a statue of her. From there, the two women began working on the project.
For McMahon, that meant studying the writings, legacy, reputation and photographs of Brooks to decide just how to present her in a sculpture. McMahon interviewed Blakely, who described her mother’s passions, sense of humor and motivations.
Brooks was born in 1917 in Topeka, Kan., but her family migrated to the segregated South Side when she was a baby. She started writing poetry when she was 7, and she was only a teenager when her poems were published in American Childhood and the Chicago Defender, garnering her widespread attention.
Brooks centered her poems on the black experience and used her voice and platform to shine a light on black Americans whose lives were often overlooked and marginalized. Her first collection of poetry made her a darling among literary critics. In 1950, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for “Annie Allen,” a collection of works about a black girl growing into womanhood while wrestling with racism, sexism, poverty and loss.
As Brooks gained international support and fame for her writing, in Chicago, she was known for her literary activism and devotion to mentoring young writers. She lectured and groomed schoolchildren and worked to ensure other black poets were heard and given a spotlight. She shared her resources and her audience. At the height of her literary success, she decided to forgo larger publishing houses to have her works released by small, black publishers, so that they could benefit.
In addition, Brooks taught creative writing courses to local residents and carved out a reputation for her generosity. She has been honored with schools, cultural centers and parks bearing her name, and her face appears on a postage stamp.
The bronze sculpture depicts an older Brooks from the waist up and sits on a platform. Her hair is in her signature cropped Afro, and she stares ahead with an expression of curiosity on her face.
“Her fingers are on her temple as if she divining the idea from her mind,” McMahon said. “She’s thinking hard and capturing the idea in her head to write down. She’s looking intently at the viewer, with a knowing look. ‘I know your story because I’ve lived it.’”
The statue will be revealed Thursday night after an hour-long program on what would have been Brooks’ 101st birthday.
McMahon would not say specifically how much the project cost, but it was paid for by anonymous donors along with funding from the Poetry Foundation and support from the Chicago Park District, she said. Although the project is complete, she is still trying to raise the money to cover the costs of the casting and stone fabrication, she said.
The statue of Brooks is surrounded by a circle of stones, where visitors can sit and appreciate the art, along with the park itself. The wooden porch sits behind the statue and is intended to inspire visitors to think of writing their own stories, McMahon said.
McMahon has titled the installation “The Oracle of Bronzeville,” for the neighborhood where Brooks centered some of her writing.
“She looks you straight in the eye, but she always has a tone of optimism,” McMahon said of Brooks. “That’s what makes her an oracle. She’s forward-thinking. That also made her a great activist.”
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