Charles Chesnutt

1858-1932

• He was born in Cleveland, Ohio on June 20, 1858, but he grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

• He was educated and began to serve as an assistant principal of the Fayetteville State Normal School for Negroes before the age of 20.

• By 1884, he had passed the Ohio State bar exam and become a stenographer.

• He began publishing in Atlantic Monthly in 1887.

• He closed his stenographer business in 1899 to write full time, but he found it difficult to publish.

• He was the premier African American literary figure from 1887-1905. He dared to show the complexity and heterogeneity of African American culture.

• He was awarded the NAACP Spingarn Medal for his literary achievements in 1928.

• He died November 17, 1932

• His works include: o The Conjure Woman (1899) o The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line (1899) o The House Behind the Cedars (1900) o The Marrow of Tradition (1901) o The Colonel’s Dream (1905) Booker T. Washington

1856-1915

• He was born a slave in what is now West Virginia and raised by his mother who also a slave.

• After emancipation, he worked in salt furnaces and coal mines to help support his family.

• Educated often through night school, he traveled to Hampton Institute in 1872 to get a college education. His journey to Hampton, over five hundred miles away was arduous.

• He served as a faculty member at Hampton from 1875-1881.

• He was selected to found a school in Alabama in 1881. He started Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute that same year. He led the institution until his death in 1915.

• His autobiography/slave narrative Up From Slavery quickly eclipsed popular narratives by Douglass and Jacobs.

• He ascended just as Douglass died. He became the premier African American leader. He was the first African American to be invited to dinner in the White House in 1901.

• Washington’s method of uplift focused on self-reliance and industrial education. He argued that white southerners would be more open to African American economic progress if African Americans accepted social separation and the political status quo.

• He died on November 14, 1915.

• His works included: o “The Atlanta Exposition Address” (1895) o Story of My Life (1900) o Up From Slavery (1900) W.E.B. DuBois

1868-1963 • He was born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington Massachusetts.

• He received a Bachelor’s Degree from Fisk University in 1888. He also took advantage of a study abroad opportunity at the University of Berlin. In 1895, he became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

• He served as a college professor. He joined the faculty of Atlanta University in 1897 where he remained for thirteen years.

• He co-founded the NAACP in 1909

• DuBois’ work includes sociology, history, religion, politics, music, poetry, and fiction.

• He felt that pieces of African American culture including artistic traditions and traditional values should be preserved.

• He was a proponent of the talented tenth. He increasingly saw Marxism as the primarily way to address racial injuries.

• His political leanings eventually lead to his breaks with both Atlanta University and the NAACP. He was also accused of subversive activity.

• He renounced his American citizenship and moved to Ghana in 1963

• He died on August 27, 1963 in Accra, Ghana

• His works include o The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States (1896) o The Philadelphia Negro: A Study (1899) o The Souls of Black Folk (1903) o The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911) o Dark water: Voices Within the Veil ( 1920) o Black Reconstruction (1935) o Dusk of Dawn: An Autobiography of a Concept of Race (1940) o Worlds of Color (1961) Alain Locke

1885-1953

• Alain Locke was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 13, 1885 to Phliny Ishmael and Mary Locke, a middle class family.

• He studied at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy. He was a gifted student who graduated from Harvard University in 1907, magna cum laude, with literature and philosophy degrees.

• Though he was the first African American Rhodes Scholars, he faced race prejudice at Oxford University. He graduated from Oxford in 1910. He studied philosophy at the University of Berlin until 1912.

• For years, he served as the chair of Howard University’s Department of Philosophy

• Lock was called the Dean of the Harlem Renaissance. He supported many young artists, including Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes.

• He published works on art, theater, poetry, and music. He published reviews in prominent journals including Opportunity and Phylon.

• He wrote the essay “The New Negro” in 1925.

• He was not invested in uplift philosophy. He believed in the aesthetic quality of art. He saw art as a bridge between individuals and cultures.

• He died on June 9, 1954.

• He edited the following works: o The New Negro (1925) o Plays of Negro Life (1927) o Four Negro Poets (1927) o The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of The Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art (1940) o When Peoples Meet, a Study in Race and Culture Contacts (1942) George Schuyler

1895-1977

• Schuyler was born on February 25, 1895.

• He enlisted in the army at 17 in 1912. He served in the 25th Infantry, an all-black unit.

• He went AWOL in 1918 because of racism within the armed forces.

• He joined the Socialist Party of America and Friends of Negro Freedom.

• He became a journalist and essay writer.

• He became the chief editorial writer for The Pittsburg Courier. He was a sharp social critic.

• He served as the business manager of the NAACP from 1937-1944

• Over the years, he became more and more conservative. He grew to condemn Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and W.E.B. DuBois, by the 1960s.

• He died on August 31, 1977

• Along with his editorials, he is most known for the following works:

o Black No More (1931) o Black and Conservative 1966) Langston Hughes

1902-1967

• He was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri to Carrie and James Hughes. Though he comes from a distinguished family, he lived in poverty. He father left when he was an infant. As a young child, he was raised by his grandmother.

• He arrived in New York in 1921 to attend Columbia University, but he only lasted one year.

• He joined a merchant steamer in 1921 and toured Europe. He deserted the ship for several months to work as a dishwasher in Paris clubs.

• He was one of the most recognized figures in the Harlem Renaissance. His poetical influences were Carl Sandberg, Walt Whitman, and Claud McKay.

• He also was a playwright, short story writer, and novelist. He was one of the few Harlem Renaissance writers who remained prominent after the Renaissance ended.

• He is best known for his celebration of African American folk culture.

• After the Renaissance, he became heavily involved in leftist politics. He traveled to Moscow in 1932.

• He died on May 22, 1967.

• His works include: o “The Weary Blues” (1924) o Fine Clothes for the Jew (1927) o Not Without Laughter (1930) o The Ways of White Folk (1934) o Mulatto (1935) o Don’t You Want to Be Free (1938) o The Big Sea (1940) o Shakespeare in Harlem (1942) o Montage of a Dream Differed (1951) James Weldon Johnson

1871-1938

• Johnson was born on Jun 18, 1871 to James and Helen Johnson, a middle class family in Jacksonville, Florida.

• He graduated from Atlanta University in 1894, and he became a principle in his hometown school, Stanton.

• His brother was well known composer, John Rosamond Johnson. James Weldon Johnson, in collaboration with his brother, became a song writer for Broadway shows.

• He left his show business career to become a diplomat in 1901. He served a consul at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela and as head of the U.S. consulate at Corinto, Nicaragua.

• In 1913, he became the editor of New York Age; he served as a mediator between the Washington and DuBois political philosophies.

• He serves as the national NAACP organizer, and he became the first African American president of the NAACP in 1920.

• He was a huge supporter of African American folk culture. He saw an embrace of the folk culture as looking in to find value cultural symbols instead of looking to other to supply those symbols.

• He died on June 26, 19238

• His works include: o Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917) o God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927) o Saint Peter Relates an Incident: Selected Poems (1935) o The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1912/1927 o “Negro Americans, What Now?” (1934) o Along This Way: The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson (1933; Revised 1937) Claude McKay

1889-1948

• He was born on September 15, 1889 to Thomas and Ann McKay in McKay in Jamaica.

• His father was descended from the Ashanti people of West Africa and he taught his son to be proud of that aspect of his identity.

• During his time in Jamaica, he was apprenticed to be a cabinetmaker and wheelwright; he also served as a police officer.

• He was the first black to receive the Jamaican Institute of Arts and Sciences Medal

• He immigrated to the United States in 1912 and briefly attended Tuskegee Institute.

• As he pursued his writing career, he worked as a porter and waiter.

• Though he did publish in African American literary magazines, he was more active in white magazines based in Greenwich Village

• His book of poetry Harlem Shadows is said by some to have inaugurated the Harlem Renaissance.

• He became the first African American to write a best-seller with Home to Harlem.

• He became a Communist and addressed the Fourth Congress of the Communist International in 1923. After that, he spend server years in Europe, especially Spain, Morocco, and France

• He was deeply invested in a community ethos and skeptical of religion. He was not an devotee of either DuBois or Locke though he was deeply invested in social change.

• He died on May 22, 1948.

• His works include: o Songs of Jamaica (1912) o Constab Ballads (1912) o Harlem Shadows (1922) o Home to Harlem (1928) o Banjo (1929) o Gingertown (1932) o Banana Bottom (1933)

Countee Cullen

1903-1946

• On May 30, 1903, Countee Cullen was born. After the passing of all of his immediate family, he was eventually raised by Carolyn and Reverend Frederick Cullen. Rev. Cullen who was the minster of Salem Methodist Episcopal Church in Harlem.

• He graduated from New York University, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1925.

• Cullen won the Witter Bynner Poetry Prize in 1925.

• He earned a Master’s Degree from Harvard University in 1926

• He reviewed the works of African American writers as a member of Opportunity Magazine’s editorial staff.

• He received a Guggenheim Fellowship 1928

• He married DuBois’s daughter in 1928, though they divorced in 1930

• He was less productive after 1930. He became a French Teach at Frederick Douglass Junior High School in 1934.

• Cullen’s favorite poets were John Keats, Percy Shelley, and A.E. Housman. He utilized European poetic structures.

• He was a poetry, playwright, children’s writer, and translator

• He died on January 9, 1946

• His works included: o Color (1925) o The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927) o One Way to Heaven (1932) o Meadea (Translator; 1935)

Nella Larsen

1893-1964

• She was born on April 13, 1891 in Chicago to a Danish mother and West Indian father. She was the only black family member in her household.

• She attended several schools both at home and abroad. She earned a nursing degree from Lincoln School for Nurses in New York in 1915.

• In 1919, she married Elmer Imes, a prominent African American physicist. They divorced in 1921.

• She worked in Tuskegee’s nurse training school. Later she worked in the New York Public Library system.

• She only published two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). She won a Guggenheim Fellowship that allowed her to travel.

• After her divorce and accusations of plagiarism, she became reclusive.

• She died on march 30, 1964.

B Wallace Thurman

- 1902-1934

 Thurman was born on August 16, 1902 in Salt Lake City, Utah to Beulah and Oscar Thurman. He was raised primarily in the home of his grandmother because his father abandoned the family.

 He attended both the University of Utah and the University of Southern California

 He came to Harlem in 1925, explicitly to be part of the Harlem Renaissance.

 Thurman was a novelist, playwright, essayist, editor, and screenwriter.

 He was heavily involved in the Harlem Renaissance. He was connect to several important literary magazines including: In the Looking Glass, The Messenger, and Fire

 He died on December 26, 1934 of tuberculosis

 His works include: o The Blacker The Berry: A Novel of Negro Life (1929) o Harlem: A Melodrama of Negro Life (1929) o Infants in the Spring (1932) o The Interne (1932)

Marcus Garvey

1887-1940

 Garvey was born on August 17, 1887 in St Ann’s bay Jamaica. His father was a mason and his mother was a domestic servant.

 At the age of 14, he became a printer’s apprentice. By the age of 20, he was traveling around the West Indies, South America, and Europe where he noted the abuses that people of African descent faced.

 His move toward Black Nationalism grew after he read Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery.

 He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914. They had larger international conventions in 1920 and 1921. Attendees were from Cub, Haiti, Central and South America, Canada, Europe, Australia and Liberia among other places.

 He had the largest following of any black leader of his time. He also founded a weekly newspaper called Negro World.

 He started the Black Star Line in 1919. He solicited of $500,000 in stock. His endeavor failed.

 He was convicted of mail fraud in 1925. He spent three years in jail. Afterward, he was deported to Africa.

 One of his slogans was, Africa for Africans. He wanted African Americans to emigrate to Africa to establish a society outside of a climate that sees people of African descent as inferior. He believed in race pride and solidarity.

 He died of a stroke on June 10, 1940.

Zora Neale Hurston

1891-1960

 Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Eatonville, Florida, an all black town.

 Her father was a minister and her mother died when she was a young child. She was shifted between relatives as a child.

 For a brief period, she studied at Howard University in Washington D.C. where she would meet Alain Locke and begin her literary career.

 She graduated from Barnard College in 1928.

 She was fascinated with the work of Franz Boas, famed anthropologist. Interested in her folktales, Boas encouraged her to seek a graduate degree at Columbia University

 Using the money from a grant and money from her patron Charlotte Osgood Mason, she returned to the south to collect folktales. That material would later be part of her text Mules and Men.

 Throughout the 1930s, she was part of the Works Progress Administration and she worked as a theater teacher.

 After she was falsely accused of molesting a ten year old boy, she was unable to recover her career.

 Throughout the remainder of her life, she worked as a librarian, reporter, substitute teacher, and cleaning woman.

 Hurston celebrated African American folklore. She was not invested in the political nature art. She was often criticized for her portrayals of race and controversial views on civil rights.

 She died penniless on January 28, 1960.

 Her works include: o “Drenched in Light” (1924) o Color Struck (1925) o “Spunk” (1925) o Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934) o Mules and Men (1935) o Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) o Tell My Horse (1938) o Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939) o Dust Tracks on the Road (1942) o Seraph on the Swanee (1948)

Richard Wright

1908-1960

 He was born in Roxie, Mississippi on September 4, 1908 to Nathan and Ella Wright

 His father abandoned the family and his mother fell ill during his youth. He moved from family member to family member; at one point he was in foster care

 His deeply religious maternal family members left him skeptical of religion

 In many ways, he educated himself through reading. His favorite writers included Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Marcel Proust, Henry James, and Gertrude Stein

 He migrated to Chicago in 1927 where he took various jobs

 From the early 1930 until 1942, he was part of the Communist Party. He left the movement because of their weak approach to racial issues.

 Native Son made him both a critical and commercial success. It sold 200,000 copies during the first three weeks. For that text he won a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Spingarn Medal

 He moved to Paris in 1945 and he stayed there until his death

 His literature addressed the necessity of getting African Americans to see their place in the socio economic system.

 He died on November 28, 1960.

 His works include: o “Blueprint for Negro Writing” (1937) o Uncle Tom’s Children (1938) o Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1940) o Twelve Million Black Voices (1941) o “I Tried to be a Communist” (1944) o Black Boy (1945) o Black Power: A Record of Reactions in a Land of Pathos (1954) o Savage Holiday (1954) o White Man Listen (1957) o The Long Dram 1958)