Literature / Business & brands
Dudley Randall
1914–2000 · poet, publisher, librarian
Founder of Detroit's Broadside Press (1965), the pioneering Black poetry publisher, author of Ballad of Birmingham and Detroit's poet laureate from 1981.
- Born
Washington, D.C.- Died
Southfield, Michigan
aged 86- Birth name
- Dudley Felker Randall
- Detroit years
- 1920–2000
- Field
- Literature, Business & brands
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Randall's family moved to Detroit in 1920, and at 13 he published a sonnet in the Detroit Free Press. After Eastern High School he worked in the foundry of Ford's River Rouge plant from 1932 to 1937, then as a postal clerk, served in World War II, and earned an English degree at Wayne State in 1949 before training as a librarian. In 1965, working from home, he printed his poem Ballad of Birmingham, about the church bombing that killed four girls, as a broadside: Broadside Press was born. From a Detroit house it went on to publish Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight, Nikki Giovanni and dozens more, becoming a pillar of the Black Arts Movement. He read at Margaret Danner's Boone House, was librarian and poet-in-residence at the University of Detroit, and in 1981 Mayor Coleman Young named him the city's poet laureate.
Highlights
- Founded Broadside Press in Detroit in 1965
- Ballad of Birmingham (1963), his best-known poem
- Poet Laureate of Detroit from 1981
- Worked in the Ford Rouge foundry, 1932–1937
- UDM's library became a National Literary Landmark in his honor (2001)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 4
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Founded · 1965–2000
Broadside Lotus Press (Broadside Press)
The press he founded in 1965 and ran from Detroit; it merged with Naomi Long Madgett's Lotus Press in 2015 as Broadside Lotus Press, still based in Detroit.
Memorial · 1969–1976 (worked); 2001 (landmark)
University of Detroit Mercy McNichols Campus Library – Dudley Randall Center for Print Culture
He was reference librarian and poet-in-residence here in 1969–1976; in 2001 the library was named a National Literary Landmark and its print-culture center was named for him.
Worked here · 1932–1937
Ford River Rouge Complex
He worked in the plant's foundry for five years in the Depression.
Studied here · 1940s–1949
Wayne State University
He earned his B.A. in English here in 1949 while working at the post office.