SOURCE: "The Poetry of Melvin B. Tolson (1898–1966)," in World Literature Today, Vol. 64, No. 3, Summer, 1990, pp. 395-400.

In the following essay, Tolson discusses his father's career and major works.

"Black Crispus Attucks taught / Us how to die / Before white Patrick Henry's bugle breath / Uttered the vertical / Transmitting cry: / 'Yea give me liberty or give me death.'" These words still reverberate in this sixty-sixth year of the celebration by African Americans of "Black History Month." They express the importance that the struggle against socioeconomic and cultural racism held for Melvin B. Tolson in his lifetime and in the work he left to what he called "the vertical audience," that of the ages. This poet, orator, teacher of English and American literatures, grammarian, small-town mayor, theater founder and director, debate coach was born on 6 February 1898 in Moberly, Missouri, the son and nephew of Methodist preachers. The family moved frequently in...