Melvin B. Tolson

Melvin B. Tolson was born on February 6, 1898 in Moberly, Missouri and died on August 29, 1966 in Dallas, Texas. American poet, educator, author and politician. He was a contemporary of the Harlem Renaissance, though he was never identified with any movement.

Tolson graduated from Lincoln University with honors in 1924. From 1924 until 1947 he taught at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, taking break to earn a Master’s degree from Columbia University in 1930- 31. From 1930 on he began to write poetry. The poems he wrote in New York would only be published in the 1970s as Gallery of Harlem Portraits. Tolson began teaching at Langston University in Langston, Oklahoma in 1947. He would also serve three terms as Mayor from 1954 to 1960.

In 1965 Tolson would publish his final work; the long poem, Harlem Gallery. The poem consists of several sections each beginning with a letter of the Greek Alphabet. The poem concentrates on African American life and is a drastic departure from his first works.

Tolson died after cancer surgery in Dallas, Texas in 1993.