Homage to Sterling Brown

Sterling A. Brown (1901–1989) was an influential poet, literary scholar, and folklorist. Best known for his poems featuring candid depictions of Black life conveyed in vernacular dialect, Brown shared artist Charles White’s desire to express the complexity and dignity of Black people. In Homage, White paints Brown in a billowing olive coat with shadowed eyes, set against a patchwork of stars and stripes, scraps of lettering, and portraits of Black boys and young men. Inscribed behind Brown are words drawn from his famous poem, “Old Lem,” which describes the widespread creation and maintenance of oppressive, racist systems in America: “They don’t come by ones / They don’t come by twos / But they come by tens.” White has amended the scale of Brown’s final line to read, “But they come by millions,” and painted a bullseye directed at Brown’s chest, underscoring the continued injustice and violence targeting Black Americans.