2025 Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame selected Timuel Black, Oscar Brown, Jr., and Harriette Gillem Robinet for official induction, with a ceremony that took place on Saturday, July 12 at the Woodson Regional Library’s auditorium. Emcee Jamie Nesbitt Golden led a lineup of presenters that included Jan Spivey Gilchrist, Keith M. Kelley, Tsehaye Geralyn Hébert and Lisa Yun Lee, as well as living relatives such as Rita Hall, Linda Robinet, Maggie Brown, Africa Brown, and Zenobia Johnson Black. Our co-presenters for the evening include American Writers Museum, Third World Press, Guild Literary Complex, Eckhartz Press, and Chicago Writers Association.

Black interviewed hundreds of Chicago residents for his two-part narrative history project, Bridges of Memory: Chicago’s First Wave of Black Migration. The first book included interviews with steel mill and stockyard workers; jazz, blues, and gospel singers; small business owners; and many others. The book documenting the evolution of Chicago’s South Side “Black Belt” won the Hyde Park Historical Society’s Paul Cornell Award. Black’s memoir, Sacred Ground: The Chicago Streets of Timuel Black, travels the distance between his family’s 1919 arrival in the city, during the race riots, and his rise to prominence as a civil rights activist and community organizer. It details his relationships with Martin Luther King, Duke Ellington, Harold Washington, Barrack Obama, and a host of other historically important American figures.

In a career that spanned a half century, Brown, Jr. wrote more than 1000 poems, a dozen musical stage plays, and 125 published songs. NBC TV host Dave Garroway dedicated the entire two-hour Today show to preview performances of Brown, Jr.’s 1961 musical Kicks & Co. at McCormick Place. In 1967, Brown, Jr. featured Blackstone Ranger members in his musical Opportunity Please Knock. The next year, Brown, Jr.’s adaptation of Buck White starred Muhammad Ali on a Broadway stage. His 1977 verse musical, In De Beginnin, premiered at Body Politic Theater. He cast young Black actors for his 1982 play, Great Nitty Gritty, through auditions in Chicago Housing Projects.  Brown Jr.’s frequent Def Poetry Jam appearances, including his rousing 2002 performance of his poem, “I Apologize,” earned him a reputation as a forefather of rap.  In 2004, he performed his poetry alongside Sonja Sanchez at the opening of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room, in New York.

Robinet, a 2023 Fuller Award recipient, wrote 11 acclaimed historical novels for young readers. Her novels were set during important historical moments, such as the Great Chicago Fire and the Haymarket Riot, and featured young characters heroic despite their disadvantages. She won the Friends of American Writers Award (1991) for Children of the Fire; the Carl Sandburg Award (1997) for Washington City is Burning; the Midland Authors Award (1998), for The Twins, the Pirates, and the Battle of New Orleans; the Scott O'Dell Award for children's historical fiction (1999), for Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule; and a Jane Addams Honor Book designation (2001), for Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues. Robinet and her husband McLouis were early integrators in Oak Park.

The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s selection committee consisted of: Jeanne Herrick, Hugh Iglarsh, Robert Loerzel, Michele Morano, and Dipika Mukherjee.

 

Induction ceremony program.

 

2025 CLHOF Induction Ceremony. (Video by Ravensvoyage Productions)

 

2025 Induction Ceremony Slideshow.