John Henry Newman Beecher (1904-1980) was a direct descendent of the famous nineteenth-century Beecher family that included Lyman Beecher and his daughter Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin). Born in New York City but raised and schooled from the age of three in Birmingham, Alabama, John Beecher’s firsthand experiences with racism and the economic exploitation of blacks influenced his career as a social activist and his politically motivated and fiery style as a poet. As he once noted of that unavoidable family heirloom
Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
The book affected me most not because a Beecher had written it but because it corroborated the contemporary social evils which Rob Perdue [a black boyhood friend] was describing to me. It seemed to me that there was still a lot of
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Citation: Diller, Christopher. "John Beecher". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 July 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12999, accessed 23 November 2024.]
