Brawley, Benjamin Griffith

April 22, 1882
February 1, 1939

Educator and author Benjamin Griffith Brawley was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to Margaret Dickerson Brawley and Edward McKnight Brawley. His father's career as a Baptist preacher and professor required that the family move several times; although Brawley attended a succession of elementary and secondary schools, his early education took place primarily at home. He earned a baccalaureate degree at Atlanta Baptist (later Morehouse) College in 1901; in 1907 he earned a B.A. from the University of Chicago, and he completed his M.A. at Harvard University in 1908.

Brawley devoted his life to the study of literature; in particular, he concentrated on the lives and works of African-American writers and artists. His teaching career was spent primarily at Atlanta Baptist College (1912–1920); Shaw University (1922–1931), where his father was also a professor; and Howard University (1910–1912 and 1931–1939). While teaching at Howard in 1912, he met and married Hilda Damaris Prowd.

Brawley built a reputation as a prolific scholar, a master teacher, and an occasional poet, and although his verse is not remembered today, his scholarly works are still highly regarded. Among his seventeen books are: A Social History of the American Negro (1921); The Negro in Literature and Art (1918), which was republished as The Negro Genius (1937); Early Negro American Writers (1935); and Paul Laurence Dunbar: Poet of His People (1936). He also lectured frequently and published many scholarly articles and textbooks, including A New Survey of English Literature (1925).

Brawley's quiet and sensitive approach to literary studies utilizes biography and history, reading artistic works from within the context of the authors' lives. He was keenly aware of the struggles of blacks in American society and dedicated to making his audience, black and white, aware of the breadth and depth of the contributions of African Americans. As his writings demonstrate, he also sought to illuminate universal themes transcending race. As he concludes in his respected work on Paul Laurence Dunbar (1936), "Against the bullying forces of industrialism he [Dunbar] resolutely set his face…. Above the dross and the strife of the day, he asserted the right to live and love and be happy."

Brawley died on February 1, 1939. On February 6, classes and other activities at Howard University were suspended for the day to mark his funeral and interment.

See also Literary Criticism, U.S.; Literature of the United States

Bibliography

Brawley, Benjamin Griffith. Paul Laurence Dunbar: Poet of His People. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1936.

Parker, John W. "Benjamin Brawley—Teacher and Scholar." Phylon: Review of Race and Culture 10, no. 1 (1949).

Parker, John W. "A Bibliography of the Published Writings of Benjamin Griffith Brawley." North Carolina Historical Review 34, no. 2 (1957).

Redding, Saunders. "Benjamin Brawley." In Dictionary of American Negro Biography, edited by Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston. New York: Norton, 1982.

steven j. leslie (1996)