A realist not only by artistic and meaningful persuasion but by temperament, Sterling A. Brown has shown an interest throughout his career in poetry as an art of communication. Brown's essential writings are primarily concerned with the literary representation of African Americans. Brown interprets a trend that has emerged from many types of popular speech, a black dialectal matrix that characterizes blues and ballads, spirituals and work songs. Brown's final references are African-American music and mythology. Brown was born in May 1901 and graduated with honors from Dunbar High in 1918, when he later went to Williams College on a scholarship and was the only student awarded Final Honors. From 1922 to 1923 Brown earned a master's degree in English from Harvard University. Brown conducted a form of unorthodox anthropological research among Southern Ebony individuals in the 1920s and later produced a series of dominant essays on Ebony traditions. Brown drew on his observations to create a composite dialect literature that honored the Ebony individuals of the agricultural South rather than supporting the early Ebony order of life generated in the cities and even the North. Brown's wanderings in the South represented not only an exploration of literary material, but an odyssey in search of more consequential roots than those that seemed to be provided by the Northern university and the materialistic black culture of Washington. Both Brown's poetry and criticism pursue the freedom called Hughes. As a result of Brown's in-depth work on African-American popular culture, he was well prepared to present his vision to a wider audience once the opportunity arose. “Professor Brown dedicated his life to the creation of authentic black popular literature. He... in the middle of paper... of such a trial. At the same time, this process is not simply a sentimental return to the people, or a new primitivism on the part of the intellectual, but also implies that the poet-intellectual gives the people a new consciousness that allows them to see their strength and their Force. destiny more clearly by recognizing its weaknesses” (Southern Road). Southern Road is about a black man who works in a chain gang. The man is a prisoner. His daughter is a street prostitute, his son is already dead and his wife is pregnant. Works Cited “A Literary Tribute to Sterling A. Brown.” Howard University Library System. February 28, 2014. Web. March 28, 2014. "On the Slim Greer Sequence." Modern American poetry. nd Web. March 28, 2014. "On "Old Lem"" Modern American Poetry. nd Web. March 28, 2014. “Southern Road and the “New Negro Renaissance”” Modern American Poetry. nd Web.28 Mar. 2014.