Gwendolyn Brooks

A signed first edition of In The Mecca.

• Gwendolyn Brooks (American).
• New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1968. 
• Octavo.
• 55 pages.
• Inscription on title page stating "For Dick, Sincerely Gwendolyn Brooks", dated '2/12/96'.
• White spine with black and brown lettering, dust jacket is wrapped in a mylar covering, price is uncut.

Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka Kansas, her family moving to the South Side of Chicago when she was just six weeks old as a part of the Great Migration. She would attend several integrated schools, which gave Brooks firsthand experience with racial injustice, which in turn helped Brooks see the institutional prejudices and biases deeply ingrained throughout America, something which she would observe throughout her life, greatly coloring her work and politics. Brooks began writing from an early age, greatly encouraged by her mother, and had her first poem published at just age 13 being a regular contributor to The Chicago Defender by 18.

Brook's poems and characters were drawn from her own experiences in the inner city, and as such her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville portrayed just that, the lives of African-Americans in that neighborhood. It was hailed for its authentic and rich portrayals of life in Bronzeville, earning great critical acclaim.

In the Mecca, released in 1968, would be the last book Brooks published under a large press, Brooks from then on only publishing under black-owned presses. It marked a notable change in Brooks's work, which while remaining consistent in subject had begun taking on more overtly political themes. While the shift is often credited with her attendance at a conference for Black writers in 1967, there is scholarship showing she likely had a long history in more leftist politics which she held back on publicly during the McCarthy era, but began speaking more loudly about them as it ended. In the Mecca itself is split in two parts, the first being a series of narrative poems about people in Mecca, a mazelike apartment building in Chicago built in 1891 which had since fallen to disrepair and deep poverty due to serious neglect. The second half contains individual poems touching on specific individuals including "Malcolm X".