What the alphabet did for language -- starting in Ancient Egypt -- Sterling Brown expounded through the art of Black-American literature. By rejecting the contrived Black caricatures of ordinary American literature and structuring a truer expression of these unique thoughts and feelings into writing, he was able to further humanize the mass of Americans only a generation removed from law-forbidding acts of literacy. Educated at Williams College -- and having intimate experience within the folk community -- Brown created a seemingly impossible bridge between the two worlds.