Vashti M. Grayson, Poet
Multimedia Essay by Hannah Hanes & Grace Parker
Vashti M. Grayson was born in Baltimore, Maryland to one of Baltimore’s elite Black families. Her father was a professor at historically Black college in Baltimore, which provided Grayson access to some of the period’s most impactful Black authors like W.E.B Du Bois, Eubie Blake, and Cab Calloway. In her young-adulthood, Grayson went on to study at both Brown and Columbia University, receiving her BA from Brown and her MA from Columbia, graduating with honors from both. After graduation, Grayson lived abroad studying Spanish, until she later returned to the US and taught romance languages in Baltimore until she married her husband, Dr. William Henry Grayson Jr., a member of Charleston’s Black elite, in 1937. Both Vashti and her husband cared deeply about education, throughout their lives they collectively amassed numerous achievements for their contributions to the educational sphere. Vashti published a handful of poems in the quarterly journal Phylon, which focused on subjects of race and culture, and was started by her friend W.E.B Dubois. Vashti later died of skin cancer at the age of 54.
