SIUE Celebrates Emeritus Professor Eugene B. Redmond’s 40th Year as East St. Louis Poet Laureate
With his usual magnetic style and grace, Dr. Eugene B. Redmond, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville emeritus professor of English, demonstrated his poetic prowess during a celebration marking his 40th year as East St. Louis Poet Laureate.
SIUE Chancellor Randy Pembrook welcomed Redmond supporters, who turned out Wednesday, Aug. 17 at the Elijah P. Lovejoy Library’s EBR Learning Center on the SIUE campus. Poet Darlene Roy, a retired social services administrator and president of the Eugene B. Redmond (EBR) Writers Club, hosted the event.
“It is wonderful to have a special collections in a library, because it attracts people,” said Pembrook. “I supervised the Kansas Methodist Archives housed at Baker University, and I saw the same enthusiasm there as I see here regarding the importance of collections.
“I want to thank you, Dr. Redmond, for how your work has changed the dialogue at SIUE, and how it has added to the rich culture for our University, region and country.”
Redmond received written acknowledgments from poets and writers across the country. He also received an award from Michael McMillan, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis. Redmond’s longtime friend and media consultant Charlotte Ottley, an East St. Louis native presented the award.
“He has never tired in telling the East St. Louis story all over the world,” Ottley said. “He has made it his life’s mission. There is none better. There is none who’s stayed the course. There is none who is so important to us all – as Dr. Eugene B. Redmond. He has made us a legend in what he has written, photographed and chronicled.”
“As one of the sons of the City of East St. Louis, the appointment as poet laureate has made me feel like I have a place among the ‘suns’ of the city,” Redmond said.
“East St. Louis is extremely lucky to have my father,” said Treasure Shields Redmond, an assistant professor of English at Southwestern Illinois College. “He is not a situational activist, but has been an incredible standard bearer. He will always be in East St. Louis, even after he transcends from this life.”
Redmond noted the most exciting thing about his years as a poet, historian, cultural activist and archivist: “To pass on my mission and vision as a cultural ambassador.”
Redmond was appointed as poet laureate in August 1976 by then East St. Louis Mayor, Dr. William Mason. Redmond’s poet laureateship was among the earliest known to have been conferred by a U.S. municipality. It was also in 1976 that Doubleday published Redmond’s critical history, Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry.
Redmond is an award-winning author and editor of several dozen books, journals and anthologies. As literary executor of the estate of Henry Dumas (1934-1968), and in collaboration with writers such as Amiri Baraka and Toni Morrison, he has edited several volumes of Dumas’ works. Redmond won a Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses (1976). In 1986, after he returned home to East St. Louis, a group of local writers, scholars and artists established the EBR Writers Club in his honor.
Further examples of Redmond’s accomplishments include his winning a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, a Lifetime Achievement Award from Pan-African Movement USA, a Sterling Brown Award from the African American Section of the American Literature Association (ALA), two American Book Awards (1993/2012) and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from SIUE (2008), his alma mater. He retired from SIUE in 2007.
Photos:
Dr. Eugene B. Redmond, SIUE emeritus English professor
Dr. Eugene B. Redmond, SIUE emeritus English professor, is seen with supporters from left to right: Rosanda Richards-Ellsworth, emerita associate professor in educational leadership; Darlene Roy, EBR Writers Club president; Dr. Randy Pembrook, SIUE chancellor; Redmond; Lydia Jackson, director and associate professor in Lovejoy Library; Charlois Lumpkin, EBR Writers Club member.
