Brooks' verse sharpened in Riot (1969), Family Pictures (1970), Aloneness (1971), Broadside Treasury (1971), and Jump Bad (1971). This flood of new writings anticipated the height of her skills displayed in an urgent, fiercely militant collection, The World of Gwendolyn Brooks (1971), the last manuscript she entrusted to a white publisher. She contracted with black presses and published an impressionistic autobiography, Report from Part One: The Autobiography of Gwendolyn Brooks (1972), which showcases memories and photos of her younger brother Raymond.
Richer, fuller statements of black loyalties infuse Brooks' The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves (1974), Beckonings (1975), Primer for Blacks (1980), To Disembark (1981), The Near-Johannesburg Boy and Other Poems (1986), Gottschalk and the Grande Tarantelle (1988), and Winnie (1988). With the anthology Blacks (1987), Brooks began publishing through her own press. Her many achievements include election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and, in 1973, appointment to the poetry consultancy of the Library of Congress. A distinguished professor of English at Chicago State University, Brooks was the impetus for the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing, a continuation of her support for the next generation of artists.
Brooks died on December 3, 2000.
