Melvin Beaunorus Tolson
February 6, 1898 –August 29, 1966
Poet, Educator, Civil Rights Activist, Humanitarian
One of the most significant African American poets of his time.
As a prolific pioneer in poetry The Pan-African-Americanism movement he led a road for others to follow and to even do more. When he spoke he used his God given gift and the platform chosen for him in this life with integrity and extraordinary power not merely to inform, and to inspire all. When he would recite his poems you would laugh and or get into to a emotional state of sobbing in just a few lines. His students and audiences drew inspiration not only from his dynamic presence, his compelling logic, and the courage. During that era Mr.Langston Hughes declares him “the most famous Negro Professor in the Southwest” in the mid-twentieth century.