Wesley Brown was a civil rights volunteer for the Mississippi Freedom Party in 1965 and joined the Black Panthers in 1968. He started writing poetry while in Mississippi. “It became clear to me that there was this story, these events taking place — a narrative that included Southern blacks and the young people, black and white, coming from different parts of the country. Why were these people putting their aspirations on hold?”
Brown was turned down for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam war, and served 18 months at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary.
Out of prison, he was accepted into a masters program at City College and in 1979 became a Professor of English at Rutgers. He is the author of the novels Darktown Strutters (2000) and Tragic Magic (1995). He has is also also the author of the play, Boogie Woogie and Booker T, and Life During Wartime, which was published inAction, an anthology of works from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Theater Festival (eds. Lois Griffith and Miguel Algarin, 1997). He co-edited the multicultural anthologies Visions of America (1991) and Imagining America (1993) and edited The Teachers & Writers Guide to Frederick Douglass (1996).
| Credit Type | Production | Season |
|---|---|---|
| Playwright | Boogie Woogie & Booker T | 1986-87 Season |