Gwendolyn Brooks, Whose Poetry Told of Being Black in America, Dies at 83 The Gwendolyn Brooks Chair in Black Literature and Creative Writing was established at Chicago State
University in 1990, and there is a Gwendolyn Brooks Center for African-American Literature at Western
Illinois University and a Gwendolyn Brooks Junior High School just south of Chicago in Harvey, Ill. She
was selected by the National Endowment of the Humanities as its Jefferson Lecturer in 1994 — "the absolute
award crown of my career," she said. And in 1995 she received the National Medal of Arts award.

Despite such praise, Ms. Brooks preferred to stay outside what she called "the hollow land of fame" and
quietly live and work on the South Side.

"All my life is not writing," Ms. Brooks once told an interviewer. "My greatest interest is being involved
with young people." To that end, she devoted much time to giving readings at schools, prisons and
hospitals and attending annual poetry contests for school-age youngsters, which she sponsored, judged, and
often paid for out of her own pocket.