MEET MELVIN B. TOLSON (1898 - 1966)

Melvin B. Tolson was an American Modernist poet, educator, columnist, and politician. Born in Moberly, Missouri, he was one of four children. Tolson graduated from Lincoln High School in Kansas City in 1919. He enrolled at Fisk University but transferred to Lincoln University, Pennsylvania the following year. He graduated with honors in 1924. He also became a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.

In 1922, Tolson married Ruth Southhall, after graduation, he and his wife moved to Marshall, Texas, where he taught Speech and English at Wiley College. In addition to teaching English, he build a award-winning debate team, the Wiley Forensic Society. During their tour in 1935, they broke  through the color barrier and completed against the University of Southern California, which they defeated. He mentored students such as James L. Farmer Jr., and Herman Sweatt, who later became civil rights activists.

In 1930-31, Tolson went on to obtain a Master's degree at Columbia University. His thesis project, "The Harlem Group of Negro Writers," was based on his extensive interviews with members of the Harlem Renaissance. His poetry was strongly influenced by his time in New York. he completed his worked and was awarded a Master's degree in 1940.

In 1947, Tolson began teaching at Langston University, where he worked there for 17 years. He was a dramatist and director of the Dust Bowl Theater at the University. One of his students at Langston University Nathan Hare, who was a black studies pioneer who became the founding publisher of the journal The Black Scholar.

In 1947 Liberia appointed Tolson its Poet Laureate. And from 1954 to 1960, he entered politics and served three terms as mayor of Langston. In  1965, he was appointed a two-year term at Tuskegee Institute, where he was Avalon Poet.

Tolson died after cancer surgery on August 29, 1966.

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