Scope and Contents
Dates
- 1933 - 1993
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
Conditions Governing Use
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Arrangement
Extent
4.88 Linear Feet (7 boxes + 1 broadside)
Language of Materials
English
Persistent URL
Joseph Clifton Brown (1908-1993)
Brown worked on the first black newspaper published in Jackson, The Criterion and, during the late 1930s, taught in the public schools of Lafayette County, Mississippi. During this time he also helped organize the first Black Boy Scout program in the area and served as a national news reporter for the Associated Negro Press. In 1948, he and his wife Rubye L. Threlkeld relocated to Chicago, where he worked for the Chicago Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the Illinois Department of Labor, from which he retired in 1976, and the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center (formerly DuSable Museum of African American History). In the 1960s and 1970s he remained active in education and civil rights with Operation Breadbasket, Christ United Methodist Church and Grace-Calvary United Methodist Church.
Brown maintained a long friendship with the author Richard Wright, whom he met at Smith Robinson. Wright's letters to Brown were published by the Kent State University Libraries, under the title Letters to Joe C. Brown, in 1968. While working in Oxford, Brown also got to know the author William Faulkner.
Brown's first published works, "A Blackamoor's prayer" and "Holy jive," appeared in Poets of America, 1941 (New York: Avon, 1942). Other published work includes the following: the poem, "Ghetto manchild," put out by Broadside Press in 1966; the poems "But not like yesterday" and "The Dream (ode to Dr. Martin Luther King)," published by Broadside Press in 1968; and the poems "Signs of sleep" and "Rustic love," which appeared in Ebony rhythm: an anthology of contemporary Negro verse, edited by Beatrice Murphy (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1968).
Biographical information taken from materials in the collection.
- African American authors -- 20th Century -- Archives
- African American poets
- American literature -- 20th century
- Authors
- Broadside Press
- Brown, Joe C., 1908-1993
- Brutus, Dennis, 1924-2009
- Cayton, Horace R. (Horace Roscoe), 1903-1970
- Cohran, Phil, 1927-2017
- Faulkner, William, 1897-1962
- Ivy, James W., 1901-1974
- Marshall, Thurgood, 1908-1993
- Murphy, Beatrice M., 1908-1992
- Petrakis, Harry Mark
- Photographic prints
- Poets, American -- 20th Century -- Archives
- Randall, Dudley, 1914-2000
- Webb, Constance
- Wright, Richard, 1908-1960
- Title
- Joe C. Brown Papers
- Status
- Under Revision
- Author
- Michael L. Forstrom
- Date
- September 2022
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.