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Tag Archives: Harlem Renaissance
Happy Birthday, poet/playwright Angelina Weld Grimké
Angelina Weld Grimké’s was born into a powerful familial legacy, which she absorbed, and then continued on her own. It was the air she breathed. Her paternal grandparents were a white slave owner and a mixed-race slave, who lived together … Continue reading
“Guilt pins a fig-leaf; Innocence is its own adorning.” — poet Anne Spencer
Anne Bethel Scales Bannister Spencer was yet another poet-librarian, like Dudley Randall, and many others. It was part of a tradition, one worthy of more study (there are websites devoted to it!). As the daughter of a librarian, I am … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Anne Spencer, H.L. Mencken, Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson, poetry
4 Comments
“and I / spoke with tongues that sent their devotees / out of this world!” — poet Melvin B. Tolson
“I, as a black poet, have absorbed the Great Ideas of the Great White World, and interpreted them in the melting-pot idiom of my people. My roots are in Africa, Europe, and America.” – Melvin B. Tolson, 1965 interview It’s … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Melvin B. Tolson, poetry
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“The mood of the Blues is almost always despondency, but when they are sung people laugh.” — Langston Hughes
The Blues always impressed me as being very sad, sadder even than the Spirituals, because their sadness is not softened with tears, but hardened with laughter … of a sadness where there is no god to appeal to. — Langston … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Countee Cullen, Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Melvin B. Tolson, Michael Schmidt, poetry
5 Comments
“Cane was a swan-song. It was a song of an end.” — poet/novelist Jean Toomer
Jean Toomer was born in 1894 on this day and died in 1967. Toomer’s family tree encompasses all of pre-and-post-Civil War South: slaves, freemen, black, white. His father, Nathan Toomer, was born into slavery. After the war he continued working … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, poetry
1 Comment
“If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.” — poet Claude McKay
“I am a black man, born in Jamaica, B.W.I., and have been living in America for the last years. It was the first time I had ever come face to face with such manifest, implacable hate of my race, and … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson, poetry
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“Those who know what it means to be a colored woman in 1922 – know it not so much in fact as in feeling …” — poet Georgia Douglas Johnson
Georgia Douglas Johnson, one of the leading voices of the Harlem Renaissance, was born on this day. She grew up in Georgia, attended college, and then became a teacher and vice principal. Her time of activity was somewhat concentrated: her … Continue reading
“Didacticism is the death of art.” — poet Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson wrote about the intersections in her mixed-race identity: Native-American, Caucasian, Black and Creole – in various books (of poetry and prose), as well as in her diary. She was very devoted to writing and determined to be … Continue reading
“There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it.” — James Weldon Johnson
“Nothing will do more to change that mental attitude and raise his status than a demonstration of intellectual parity by the Negro through the production of literature and art.” – James Weldon Johnson, preface to The Book of American Negro … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Music, On This Day, writers
Tagged Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson, poetry
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“If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.” — poet Countee Cullen
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing! — Countee Cullen It’s his birthday today. Cullen is often compared to Langston Hughes (my post on Hughes here), seems a little unfair, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Countee Cullen, H.L. Mencken, Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Melvin B. Tolson, poetry
8 Comments