Samuel W. Allen

For other people named Samuel Allen, see Samuel Allen.
Undated photo taken when Allen was a faculty member at Boston University

Samuel Washington Allen (December 9, 1917 – June 27, 2015), sometimes publishing as Paul Vesey, was an American writer, literary scholar, and lawyer.

Samuel Washington Allen was born on December 9, 1917, in Columbus, Ohio.[1] He graduated as valedictorian of Fisk University in 1938 with an AB in sociology.[1][2] At Fisk, he studied with James Weldon Johnson.[3] He received a JD from Harvard Law School in 1941 and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942.[2][3] He was an officer in the Army, which was then segregated.[4]

After World War II ended, Allen studied at The New School for a year and then went to Paris on the G.I. Bill, studying at the Sorbonne from 1948 to 1949.[2][1][3] His first poems appeared in 1949 in Présence africaine and his first book of poetry was published in 1956.[1][3] He edited English writing in Présence africaine after Richard Wright left France.[4] His 1959 essay "Negritude and Its Relevance to the American Negro Writer" was published in the journal and widely reprinted.[4]

He worked as a lawyer in government and private practice from the 1940s to 1960s, before being appointed as the Avalon Professor of Humanities at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in 1968.[2] From 1971, he taught literature at Boston University.[2]

Allen's work was not well known in the United States until the 1960s, when it was published in anthologies edited by Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes.[4] His 1975 poetry collection Paul Vesey's Ledger "traces the long history of oppression against African Americans".[5]

Allen died on June 27, 2015, in Norwood, Massachusetts.[6][7]

  1. ^ a b c d Mitchell, Verner D. (May 15, 2019). "Allen, Samuel W. (Paul Vesey)". In Mitchell, Verner D.; Davis, Cynthia (eds.). Encyclopedia of the Black Arts Movement. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-1-5381-0146-9.
  2. ^ a b c d e Commire, Anne, ed. (1976). Something about the Author. Vol. 9. pp. 6–7. ISBN 978-0-8103-0066-8. OCLC 705262432.
  3. ^ a b c d "Allen, Samuel W. 1917–". Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 38.
  4. ^ a b c d Brookhart, Mary Hughes (2001). "Allen, Samuel W.". In Andrews, William L.; Foster, Frances Smith; Harris, Trudier (eds.). The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Oxford University Press. pp. 3–4. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195138832.001.0001. ISBN 0-19-513883-X.
  5. ^ Hatch, Shari Dorantes, ed. (2009). Encyclopedia of African-American Writing (2d ed.). Grey House Publishing. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-59237-291-1. OCLC 173807586.
  6. ^ "Allen, Samuel Washington". The Boston Globe. October 4, 2015. p. B8 – via newspapers.com.
  7. ^ Bates, Jennifer (2016). "Samuel W. Allen, 97" (PDF). Bostonia: 77.