Sarah Webster Fabio facts for kids

Sarah Webster Fabio (born January 20, 1928 – died November 7, 1979) was an American poet, literary critic, and educator. She was known for her powerful poetry and for helping to start Black Studies programs in colleges.

Early Life and Education

Sarah Webster was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Her parents were Thomas Webster and Mayme Louise Storey Webster.

She loved poetry from a young age and started writing in high school. After finishing high school at 15, Sarah went to Spelman College. There, she studied English and history. In 1945, she graduated from Fisk University in Nashville. At Fisk, she learned about poetry from a famous writer named Arna Bontemps.

Later, she married Cyril Fabio, who was studying to become a dentist. He graduated from Meharry Medical College. After they married, Sarah changed her last name to Fabio.

Sarah's education was put on hold several times because her husband joined the military. They moved to different places in America. She had three children between 1947 and 1949. When they were in Nashville again, Sarah started graduate school at the Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College.

Her studies were delayed again when her husband was sent to Germany. She had her fourth child there in 1954. When they moved back to Wichita, Kansas, in the U.S., her fifth child was born in 1956. While in Kansas, she took graduate English classes at Wichita State University.

Becoming a Poet and Educator

In 1963, Sarah Fabio went to San Francisco State College. She earned her master's degree in Language Arts, focusing on poetry, in 1965. This was a special day because her oldest child also graduated from high school at the same time!

From 1965 to 1968, she taught at Merritt College in Oakland, California. Merritt College was a very important place during the Civil Rights era. Many students there were involved in activism, like Maulana Karenga, Bobby Seale, and Huey Newton.

Sarah Fabio played a big part in bringing the Black Arts Movement to colleges in the Bay Area. This movement was about Black artists creating art that celebrated Black culture and history. After Merritt College, she worked at the California College of Arts and Crafts and the University of California, Berkeley from 1968 to 1971. At both schools, she helped create the first Black Studies departments. These departments focused on the history, culture, and experiences of Black people.

Her Poetry and Works

Her time at Merritt College helped Sarah Fabio grow as a poet. She started mixing Western poetry styles with Black stories and real-life experiences. In 1966, she read her poetry at the First World Festival of Negro Art in Dakar, Senegal.

Sarah Fabio wrote many collections of poetry and prose. She also recorded four poetry albums in 1972 with Folkways Records. You can find her recordings and the whole Folkways collection online at the "Smithsonian Folkway" collection. She published an anthology (a collection of writings) in 1966. Her seven-book series called Rainbow Signs is considered one of her most important works.

Notable Books by Sarah Webster Fabio

• Saga of a Black Man (1968)
• Mirror, a Soul (1969)
• Black Talk: Shield and Sword (1973)
• Dark Debut: Three Black Women Coming (1966)
• Return of Margaret Walker (1966)
• Double Dozens: An Anthology of Poets from Sterling Brown to Kali (1966)
• No Crystal Stair: A Socio-Drama of the History of Black Women in the U.S.A. (1967)
• Rainbow Signs (1973) - This is a series of seven poetry books: Black Back, Back Black; Boss Soul; My Own Thing; JuJus and Jubilees; Together to the Tune of Coltrane; Soul Aint Soul is; and JuJus: Alchemy of the Blues.

Later Life and Legacy

Sarah Fabio divorced her husband in 1972. She then taught at Oberlin College until 1974. In 1976, while working on her PhD at the University of Iowa and teaching at the University of Wisconsin, she was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Sarah Fabio spent her last two years with her oldest daughter. She passed away at the age of 51 on November 7, 1979.

Her daughter, Cheryl Fabio, made a documentary film about Sarah Fabio's life and work. It was called Rainbow Black: Poet Sarah W. Fabio and was part of Cheryl's master's thesis at Stanford University in 1976. In 2012, the Black Film Center at Indiana University received a special grant to restore and preserve this important film.