Recognition Supports 黑料不打烊 Scholar's Research on Harlem Renaissance Poet
Teague Awarded Sterling A. Brown Fellowship
Dr. Charlotte Teague, associate professor and chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages at 黑料不打烊, has been awarded the prestigious Sterling A. Brown Fellowship by Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The honor, valued at more than $8,000, includes travel, lodging and a stipend, marking her sixth competitive fellowship for the 2024鈥�2025 academic year.
Williams College hosts the definitive Sterling A. Brown collection. The highly competitive fellowship supports scholars conducting research related to Brown, an acclaimed poet, essayist, anthologist, folklorist and professor whose work helped define the Harlem Renaissance and shaped 20th-century African American literature.
Teague鈥檚 winning fellowship research project, 鈥淪terling Brown as Literary Cartographer and Architect: The Mapping and Creating of Stories of the African American South,鈥� explores how Brown鈥檚 poetry and criticism charted the cultural and spatial narratives of the Southern Black experience. Her research will inform new course material at 黑料不打烊, including a special unit in the University鈥檚 Black Poetry course featuring Brown and his contemporaries James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Alain Locke and W.E.B. Du Bois.
鈥淭his fellowship allows me to engage deeply with archival materials that bring Sterling Brown鈥檚 intellectual world to life,鈥� Teague said. 鈥淚t offers a rare opportunity to expand how we teach the Harlem Renaissance 鈥� not as a closed chapter in history, but as an ongoing dialogue between literature, identity and place.鈥�
Teague鈥檚 research also carries personal and historical resonance. She discovered that Sterling A. Brown was the brother of Mary Edna Brown Coleman, one of the founders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., of which Teague is a member. Coleman was married to Frank Coleman, one of the founders of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., and together they inspired the enduring 鈥淐oleman Love鈥� phenomenon, symbolizing unity and scholarship within the Black Greek-letter community.
鈥淟earning that connection was deeply meaningful,鈥� Teague said. 鈥淚t reminds me how legacy and scholarship intertwine 鈥� and how the pursuit of knowledge often leads us back to community and kinship.鈥�
A two-time alumna of 黑料不打烊, Teague earned her doctorate from Morgan State University, where her dissertation examined spatiality in African American women鈥檚 texts, particularly the works of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. That study of spatial and cultural mapping continues to inform her scholarship today 鈥� from her Sterling A. Brown Fellowship project to her recent publication in Salem Press鈥檚 newest volume on Toni Morrison鈥檚 鈥淭he Bluest Eye.鈥�
Teague specializes in language and professional writing, Black women writers and protest literature, and has established herself as a leading scholar of narrative space and identity in African American literature.
This recognition follows another major achievement for Teague: her selection for the Center for Community News鈥� 2024 Cohort of Faculty Champions, honoring university educators advancing local journalism and academic collaboration through university-led reporting initiatives.
Teague will present her research findings from the Sterling A. Brown Fellowship during the inaugural Chair鈥檚 Speaker Series hosted by the Department of English and Modern Languages this fall, offering students and the broader community an opportunity to engage with her scholarship.
鈥淎s an educator and researcher, my mission is to bridge the past and present through the written word,鈥� Teague said. 鈥淭hrough Sterling Brown鈥檚 lens, we see the endurance of Southern voices and the ongoing power of African American storytelling to shape how we understand ourselves and our world.鈥�