Brother Jericho Brown Awarded Prestigious Pulitzer Prize

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The cover of Jericho Brown's "The Tradition" shows an illustration of a young black boy in a white t-shirt with a crown of flowers on his head, standing in front of flowers and the ocean.Written By: Brother Brian Cornelius May 13, 2020
It is with great pride that we announce the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded our very own Bro. Jericho Brown with the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his most recent publication, The Tradition, on May 4th, 2020. The Pulitzer is the most prestigious award given in the United States for writing, and it has a 103-year history of up to twenty-two categories, including but not limited to, poetry, drama, fiction, international reporting, and investigative reporting.  Bro. Brown is one of only eight African Americans to achieve this honor in the poetry category.

Brother Jericho Brown

Bro. Jericho Brown–formerly known as Nelson Demery before making use of his pseudonym– was initiated in the Fall of 1995 at the Beta Phi chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc, seated at Dillard University.  There, he earned his undergraduate degree in English. He then went on to receive an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans while working as a speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans Bro. Marc Morial.  He left Louisiana for the University of Houston where he got a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing. Bro. Brown’s work has been featured in Buzzfeed, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is currently a professor and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. He is also an active member of the Nu Mu Lambda chapter, which serves the Decatur and Dekalb areas in metro Atlanta. According to a statement given by Bro. Brown, “I’m happy to bring this prize back home, and by that I mean back to black folks, back to the South, back to Louisiana, and back to my alma mater, Dillard University. Dillard is where I first took creative writing workshops as classes toward my major, and it’s where I first began to envision a life for myself as a writer.” The Shreveport, Louisiana native added, “These are not easy times for any of us, but I’d like to believe that this prize in this particular instance can show that there is still a possibility for us no matter how rough the terrain may seem.” Again, we would like to congratulate Bro. Brown on this monumental achievement, and we are incredibly proud to call him a brother of this fraternity. No other words can be said but, “There Goes An Alpha Man.”   Onward and Upward