Poets

an African American poet and poetry publisher from Detroit, Michigan. He founded a publishing company called Broadside Press in 1965, which published many leading African American writers. Randall's most famous poem is "The Ballad of Birmingham", written during the 1960s, about the 1963 bombing of the church Martin Luther King, Jr. belonged to in Birmingham, Alabama. Randall's poetry is characterized by simplicity and realism.

Randall was born on January 14, 1914 in Washington D.C. He was the son of Arthur George Clyde (a Congressional Minister) and Ada Viola (a teacher) Randall. His family moved to Detroit from Washington D.C. in 1920, and he married Ruby Hudson in 1935, however, this marriage dissolved. Randall married Mildred Pinckney in 1942, but this marriage did not last either. In 1957, he married Vivian Spencer.

Randall developed an interest in poetry during his school years. At the age of thirteen, his first published poem appeared in the Detroit Free Press. He worked in a foundry of the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan from 1932 to 1937. He also worked as a clerk at a Post Office in Detroit from 1938 to 1943 and served in military during World War II. He was working at a post office while he was attending Wayne State University in Detroit, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1949. Randall then completed his Master’s degree in Library Science at the University of Michigan in 1951. He worked as a librarian at Lincoln University in Je..