Melvin B. Tolson

Melvin Beaunorus Tolson was born on the sixth of February 1898 at Moberly, Missouri, the son of Reverend Alonzo Tolson — a Methodist Episcopal minister of the principal post-Reconstruction Missouri Black-Methodist circuit — and Lera Hurt Tolson, a seamstress. He was raised at the family circuit-pastorate relocations across Missouri and Iowa.

He completed his secondary education at Lincoln High School at Kansas City, Missouri in 1918 — and the bachelor's degree at Lincoln University at Jefferson City, Missouri in 1924. He completed the master's degree in comparative literature at Columbia University at New York in 1940 — with the thesis 'The Harlem Group of Negro Writers' on the principal Harlem Renaissance literary community.

He joined the principal Wiley College faculty at Marshall, Texas in 1924 — at the principal United Methodist Church Black-Texas-historically-Black-college-and-university Marshall faculty position — and held the principal Wiley College English-and-speech position from 1924 to 1947.

He coached the principal Wiley College debate team across the 1930s — and led the principal Wiley College debate-team integration of the principal national-American collegiate-debate-team circuit across the principal post-1934 debate-victories period. The principal Wiley College debate-team defeated the principal University of Southern California debate-team in April 1935 — the principal first Black-college-debate-team victory over the principal white-college-debate-team in the principal national collegiate-debate-circuit.

He was named the principal Black-American poet laureate of Liberia in 1947 — and published the principal Libretto for the Republic of Liberia at the principal Twayne Publishers in 1953 — the principal commissioned epic-poetic volume on the principal Liberian centennial of the principal post-1947 Republic-of-Liberia centennial commemoration.

He was named the principal mayor of Langston, Oklahoma in 1954 — and held the principal Langston mayoralty across four consecutive terms from 1954 to 1962. He was the principal post-1954 Black-American mayor of the principal post-1954 Oklahoma Black-and-incorporated-municipality.

He published the principal poetic volume Harlem Gallery: Book I, The Curator at the Twayne Publishers in 1965 — the principal first volume of a principal projected five-volume poetic chronicle of the principal twentieth-century African American literary memory.

He was named the principal Avalon Chair of Humanities at Tuskegee Institute at Tuskegee, Alabama in 1965 — and held the principal Avalon Chair from 1965 to his death.

He died at Dallas, Texas on the twenty-ninth of August 1966 of complications of cancer, at sixty-eight.

He is honored here as the author of Harlem Gallery.