The New Negro Arts and Letters Movement Among Black University Students in the Midwest, 1914-1940

Home , New Negro, Robert Bone, The Negro in Art, The New Negro

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

2004

Richard M. Breaux University of Nebraska-Omaha

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly

Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons

Breaux, Richard M., "The New Negro Arts and Letters Movement Among Black University Students in the Midwest, 1914-1940" (2004). Great Plains Quarterly. 265. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/265

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE NEW NEGRO ARTS AND LETTERS MOVEMENT AMONG BLACK UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN THE MIDWEST, 1914~1940

RICHARD M. BREAUX

The 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s were an excit~ and underexplored. 1 This article explores the ing time for black artists and writers in the influence of the New Negro arts and letters United States. Much of the historical litera~ movement on black students at four mid~ ture highlights the so~called Harlem Renais~ western state universities from 1914 to 1940. sance or its successor, the Black Chicago Black students on white midwestern cam~ Renaissance. Few studies, however, document puses like the University of Kansas (KU), Uni~ the influence of these artistic movements out~ versity of Iowa (UI), University of Nebraska side major urban cities such as New York, (UNL), and University of Minnesota (UMN) Chicago, or Washington, DC. In his 1988 es~ aligned themselves with various New Negro say on black education, historian Ronald philosophies that marked the onset of the New Butchart argued that the educational effects Negro arts and letters movement, or the of black social movements such as the Harlem Harlem Renaissance. The New Negro arts and Renaissance on black schooling are unclear letters movement had a profound influence on black college students. Black students ex~ pressed a New Negro consciousness in at least KEY WORDS: African American college students, two ways: (1) they indirectly engaged in the dis~ Aaron Douglas, education, Harlem Renaissance, courses that surrounded the New Negro move~ Midwest, New Negro Movement ment through black scholarly and popular publications, and (2) they engaged in racial vin~ Richard M. Breaux is Assistant Professor of Black dication through classroom assignments, re~ Studies and History at the University of Nebraska at search, and other intellectual products that Omaha. He is currently working on a book manuscript challenged prevailing myths of blacks' intel~ titled, 'These Institutions Belong to the People': lectual and cultural inferiority to whites. In~ New Negro College Students in America's Heartland, 1900~ 1940. terestingly, black students at KU, UI, UNL, and UMN seemed less interested in who fi~ nanced the arts movement than in casting their [GPQ 24 (Summer 2004): 147-62] creative works into the growing sea of black

147 148 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2004

FIG. 1. Black University of Kansas students perform "The Emperor Jones" in October 1939. Reproduced by permission of the publisher from Robert Taft, The Years on Mount Oread: A revision and extension of Across the Years on Mount Oread (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1955), 155.

literature and art. Newspapers such as the sities left their distinct mark on the New Ne, Topeka Plaindealer, the Iowa Bystander, and the gro arts and letters movement. Omaha Monitor, along with Opportunity and As scores of black men returned from World Crisis magazines, artistically and politically War I, they and many other blacks began to inspired black students at KU, UMN, UI, and articulate a new militancy. Ifwhites in the United UNL to behave, dress, and research issues rel, States thought that they would continue to ig, evant to black people like never before. Na, nore blacks' political, social, cultural, and eco, tional black fraternity and sorority publications nomic concerns and contributions, they were such as Alpha Kappa Alpha's Ivy Leaf pro' wrong. An editorial in the Messenger, a black vided young people the opportunity to pub, socialist magazine, said it best when it an, lish their creative works. literary scholars and nounced, "As among other peoples, the New historians largely ignore such publications, yet Crowd [Negro] must be composed of young these sources offer a different view of the work men who are educated, radical, and fearless .... produced by those associated with various New The New Crowd would have no armistice with Negro arts and letters movements outside lynch law; no truce with Jim,Crowism, and Harlem. In fact, black students and alumni disfranchisement; no peace until the Negro did not simply follow the lead of black per, receives his complete social, economic, and forming and visual artists in Harlem. These political justice."z This and other New Negro students created their own movement replete philosophies permeated the minds of black with its own poetry, music, and means of ex, students at UI, UMN, KU, UNL, and other pression. Black students from all four univer, universities. To a small degree, the very pres, BLACK UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN THE MIDWEST, 1914-1940 149 ence of these black students on predominantly movement came to a "sputtering end." Still white college and university campuses signaled others, such as Cheryl Wall, argue for a more their endorsement of one of the basic tenets of generously broad periodization, especially if New Negroism-to demonstrate, consciously historians take into account the works of or unconsciously, that they were whites' intel~ Harlem Renaissance women.6 A recent addi~ lectual equals. ' tion to the literature, an examination of the When Alain Locke's anthology, The New NAACP in the 1920s, seeks to completely Negro: An Interpretation, appeared in 1925, reconceptualize the New Negro movement as those blacks who subscribed to the black the civil rights movement of the Jazz Age, intelligentsia's New Negro philosophies finally ranging roughly from 1919to 1930. While such had their printed manifesto. Of course, in ear~ a classification is a bit of a stretch, it does lier decades Booker T. Washington, William capture the idea that blacks have continually Pickens, and a growing number of Black N a~ sought to live on their own social, political, tionalist and black socialist magazines had used religious, economic, and artistic terms. Harlem the term "New Negro," but this term took on may have very well been the "Cultural Capi~ new meaning for blacks during and after World tal" for a number of black ethnic groups, but War I. "In the last decade," opened Locke's historian Mark R. Schneider reminds us that essay in the first section, "something beyond "to understand African Americans in the the watch and guard of statistics has happened 1920s, we must get off the A train to Harlem in the life of the American Negro."3 Locke and head out of Manhattan to points west and asserted that the "Old Negro" and the so~called south."7 Negro problem had largely been a charge of For historians who conceptualize the New the "sociologist, philanthropist, and race Negro arts and letters movement by the cre~ leader." Indeed, the Old Negro was a myth, "a ative arts and literature produced at the time, creature of moral debate, historical contro~ or the move of many black intellectuals or versy" and a perpetuation of historical fiction.4 working people to the political left, the Chi~ "The day of 'aunties,' 'uncles,' and 'mammies'" cago arts and letters movement deserves as was gone, and now many blacks demanded much attention as Harlem's literary and po~ self~respect, self~dependence, self~expression, li tical exp losion. By 1935 Chicago emerged as and self~determination.5 The major point a black cultural hub in its own right. Although stressed by this collection of essays was that Harlem receives, and has received, the major~ black contributions to fiction, poetry, history, ity of historians' attention, some scholars have philosophy, and the dramatic, performing, and also suggested that Chicago became just as visual arts had existed for centuries. The mi~ important in producing black writers, artists, gration of southern blacks to the urban North sociologists, dancers, and Marxists.8 While just made such contributions more evident. these scholars may agree to disagree about the Despite numerous literary and historical extent to which the Chicago black arts and studies on the Harlem Renaissance, scholars letters movement was a continuation of the continue to disagree about the precise begin~ arts and letters movement in Harlem, at least ning and end of this historical period. The two points are not debatable: (1) the Chicago period that spanned from World War I to the arts and letters movement, of which a few UI Great Depression marks the Harlem Renais~ alumni were a part, lasted at least into the sance for Nathan I. Huggins. Historians David 1940s; and (2) most of Chicago's black artists Levering Lewis and Bruce Kellner, on the other engaged in dialog with those black artists as~ hand, mark the return of the 369th Infantry sociated with Harlem. Regiment in 1919 as the beginning of the The history of the New Negro arts and let~ Harlem Renaissance and the year 1934 as the ters movement, like the history of black edu~ year when the New Negro arts and letters cation in the United States, presses scholars 150 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2004 to think about white philanthropy and the continued after Washington's death in 1915. black arts. While scholars like Nathan I. Historians August Meier and Elliott Rudwick Huggins and Harold Cruse believed the New contend that although white philanthropists Negro movement was a showpiece for white showed moderate interest in Carter G. bohemians thirsty for a taste of the nativistic Woodson's Journal of Negro History few phi~ and exotic, others like David Levering Lewis, lanthropists gave generous contributions to Ann Douglas, and Thomas Bender see the New studies of black life or black intellectual insti~ Negro arts and letters movement as a constant tutions that were primarily administered or struggle between two groups of cultural power controlled by black scholars and artists before brokers-white philanthropists and black art~ 1922. 12 ists.9 In higher education, similar struggles Despite their early philanthropic work emerged as to what disciplines black students among black schools and black teachers, white would study, especially in advanced degree philanthropists did not establish formal schol~ programs. Rising accreditation standards in arship programs for advanced study among white and black colleges alike precipitated the black until the 1920s. The two most powerful need for faculty with more specialized, inten~ and wealthy philanthropic groups that cam~ sive, and advanced training. With the absence paigned to develop black teachers, black in~ of graduate programs on most predominantly tellectuals, and leadership were the GEB black college campuses, and the color line Fellowship and the Rosenwald Fellowship drawn at predominantly white southern col~ Fund in 1924 and 1928, respectively.13 Both leges, some black college faculty, with assis~ funds gave money for promising black instruc~ tance from the General Education Board, the tors at southern black schools and resources Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rosenwald for their instructors to earn credentials and Fund, took courses and graduate degrees at maintain their jobs. They were also inspired northern white colleges. 10 Just as northern by the intellectual and creative direction of white philanthropists sought to control the the New Negro arts and letters movement, direction of southern black education, a and gave money to a number of creative art~ smaller number of white philanthropists de~ ists. Between 1922 and 1933 the GEB Fellow~ veloped a similar interest in having some say ship focused almost exclusively on the black in the direction of intellectual discourses teacher shortage, and the Rockefeller Foun~ among an emerging black intelligentsia on dation endorsed black students in the medical northern college campuses. and health industries. By 1940 GEB Fellow~ White philanthropic interest in black in~ ship funds went exclusively to whites and tellectual discourse did not begin in the 1920s; blacks who planned to teach in southern this interest went back, at least, to the early schools. The Rosenwald Fund supported black Jim Crow era. Indeed, Lois Harlan's two~vol~ students in at least four major areas: (1) medi~ ume biography of Booker T. Washington dem~ cine and nursing; (2) library science and onstrates that in the early twentieth century, teacher education; (3) unusually promising a number of white and black power brokers blacks who would study at northern white or fought for control over black newspapers and European colleges; and (4) vocational and political organizations. Blacks who challenged industrial teachers.14 All had to send informal Washington's philosophies found themselves requests to the Rosenwald Fund Committee targets of the infamous "Tuskegee Machine." and those who would teach in southern black Washington forced some black newspapers schools and college were particularly encour~ that criticized him to shut down, and he ar~ aged. Despite the undeniable influence of the ranged for several black critics of Tuskegee to GEB Fellowship and Rosenwald Fund on black lose their jobs.ll White philanthropic interest education, only a handful of black students at in black political opinions and scholarship KU, UI, UNL, and UMN received funds from BLACK UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN THE MIDWEST, 1914-1940 151 these organizations. According to the Rosen~ wald Fund database at Fisk University, a total of eight students who received Rosenwald Fel~ lowships for advanced study between 1928 and 1936 earned master of sciel).ce, master of arts, or master of music degrees from UMN (3), UI (3), KU (1), or UNL (1).15 Some students obviously had changes in their plans because a total of twelve black students chose UMN (9) or UI (3) to complete their advanced study with Rosenwald Fellowship funds. No students requested funds to attend KU or UNL with Rosenwald money. 16 Between 1936 and 1941 only two Rosenwald fellows attended UMN, although not one of these students intended to enroll at UMN, UI, UNL, or KU. Those who received Rosenwald and Rocke~ feller fellowships were an assorted lot. For ex~ ample, KU alumnus Sterling V. Owens used a Rosenwald Fellowship to study social work in New York, but ended up taking a job as execu~ tive secretary of the St. Paul Urban LeagueY Owens also lectured at UMN in the 1930s. Similarly, two Georgia State College teach~ FIG. 2. Aaron Douglas at the University of Nebraska ers, Annie Dixon and Clarence Ross, used before he became the signature artist of the Harlem Renaissance. Photo from Cornhusker Yearbook Rosenwald Fellowship money to study at UMN (1922), 46. Courtesy of Archives and Special in the 1930s, but neither earned a degree. Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Maurice Thomasson used a Rosenwald Fel~ Libraries. lowship to earn a master's degree in education at UMN so he could become an instructor at Johnson C. Smith College. Ollie Lee Brown Douglas and UI graduate Margaret Walker used turned her money from the Rosenwald Fel~ Rosenwald Fellowship funds to further their lowship into a bachelor's degree in library sci~ creative works well after they graduated from ence from UI in 1931. Others, like Elmer E. these institutions. Walker taught at Jackson Collins, received both GEB and Rosenwald State University and Douglas taught art at Fellowship funds; Collins successfully earned Fisk University. Despite the achievements of a doctor of medicine degree from UI in 1933 these dozen or so recipients, the GEB and the and later taught at Howard University. Vernon Rosenwald Fellowship Fund's staff had its A. Wilkerson, who earned a BA at KU, an greatest influence on southern black colleges MD at UI, and a PhD at UMN, completed his and blacks who conducted advanced study at studies with GEB funds, as did one of black the University of Chicago, Columbia Univer~ America's first women history PhDs, Lulu sity, Hampton Institute, and the larger, more Merle Johnson, at UI. Johnson later taught at heftily endowed black and white universities. 20 several black colleges including Cheney State The Harmon Foundation, like most white University. IS Charles W. Buggs, who earned philanthropic organizations that gave money his MS and PhD from UMN, found a job at to blacks, was not without its critics. While Dillard University and later Wayne State some scholars praise the Harmon Foundation University.19 Finally, UNL graduate Aaron for its role in disseminating black art, others, 152 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2004 like Mary Ann Calo, criticize it for divorcing the invitation sent under the auspices of the black art from its political context, making Graduate College to come to Ul. Professor black art "sociological, rather than aesthetic" Frank L Mott, a journalism professor who had and "constricting the critical frame" in which previously organized a night of black poetry audiences viewed black art. Much of the readings, introduced Hughes to the crowd. foundation's writing about black art, argues After Hughes's program he was off to the AI, Calo, "was simply Harmon Foundation pub, pha Phi Alpha fraternity house where he rested licity posing as art criticism."21 after his lecture.23 According to one report, ANew Negro consciousness swept across Hughes chatted, joked, and played a few hands midwestern college campuses just as it took of cards with students.24 One week after his Harlem by storm. Black students, black alumni, appearance at UI, Hughes returned to his and politically active blacks in Iowa City, the childhood home in Lawrence. Hughes's Twin Cities, Lawrence, and Lincoln launched mother, Carrie Langston, attended KU in the a number of antidiscrimination campaigns in late nineteenth century, and Langston Hughes their respective cities. They simultaneously lived with his grandmother in Lawrence challenged institutional racism in a number of through the early 1910s. Hughes's lecture in academic disciplines on midwestern college Lawrence was sponsored by Alpha Kappa AI, campuses and created an extensive set of in, pha Sorority, which delighted in its ability to tellectual opportunities for themselves. bring the Midwest kid turned Harlemite to Outside the classroom, most black students, campus in the midst of a depression. 25 The and a small group of left,thinking white stu' visit marked the first of three times Hughes dents, embraced the writings of New Negro returned to Lawrence to speak at KU after he arts giants such as Countee Cullen, Claude left the city in 1915.26 In 1935 Hughes made a McKay, and Langston Hughes. Members of trip to the upper Midwest and spoke to a crowd the Dove, a socialist newspaper at KU, seemed of 4,000 students at UMN's Northrop Audi, particularly interested in poems such as torium. According to historian and Hughes Countee Cullen's "Yet Do I Marvel" because biographer Arnold Rampersad, Hughes spoke it symbolized black people's seemingly futile on the topic of interracial socialism. Hughes struggle for equality.22 Such poems drew upon argued that "the basic economic problem of the tragic Greek stories of both Tantalus and the Negro is the same as that of his white Sisyphus, mythic trickster figures who suffered compatriots, and it is through the labor move, in Hades for varying reasons and could never ments that some sort of solution must be quite escape their predicament. reached." Hughes made complimentary visits Black students at KU found the works of to several classes and a meeting of UMN stu' Langston Hughes and Claude McKay engag, dents. 27 He also made a special visit to an off, ing. Blacks at KU, UI, and UMN not only campus site where at least five students formed immersed themselves in Langston Hughes's a committee to petition UMN officials to defy verses, but in 1932 invited the New Negro Tulane University's request to withdraw a movement's poet laureate back home to the black UMN football player from their upcom, Midwest to speak to college students, black ing match.2s and white. At UI, Hughes played to a packed During their respective visits to the Twin house in the liberal arts auditorium. He read Cities and UMN, Langston Hughes, Roland from Weary Blues, his first published book of Hayes, Paul Robeson, Charles S. Johnson, poetry, and read selections such as "When Sue James Weldon Johnson, and a host of other Wears Red" and "N egro Dancers." He also read blacks associated with Locke's New Negro an, his poem "Dressed Up" and reportedly inter, thology made their way to the UMN and spersed his poems with reflections of his life Minneapolis's black Phyllis Wheatley Settle, experiences. Hughes had graciously accepted ment House in the late 1920s and early 1930s.29 BLACK UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN THE MIDWEST, 1914-1940 153

Often these visitors attended special parties chains with no whining; their great broad and gave talks or performances for people who backs had been lacerated there at the whip~ used the settlement house's services. The black ping post by the biting lash, yet they never tenor Roland Hayes played to a packed group struck back! on UMN's campus in 1926 and 1929. In his "Damn you, nigger." first concert Hayes reportedly "scored his usual It was the landlord's rasping voice that triumph" and in his second visit to UMN, stu~ startled the dreaming plowman. A frail blue~ dents filled the newly completed Northrop white fist stung his twitching black face. Memorial Auditorium to hear Hayes give his There was pause, and in that pause, the performance of European classics and black thrush still chanted its anthems to Heaven; spirituals.30 When Paul Robeson performed in Horton the plowman, shrank away from the Kansas City, Missouri, in 1927, students trav~ face of his master. The sweet breeze cooled eled from KU to hear the performance. his hot brow.33 Robeson also performed for white and black students at UMN in 1930.31 The following year, Although Johnson's main character did not black women students at UMN invited Fisk express characteristics of a New Negro con~ University's Charles S. Johnson to campus to sciousness, Johnson's venture into poetry and speak on the "Contribution of Negroes to short~story writing did. American Civilization." Closer to the end of While a number of historians note that the decade, and just three years before the black men often dominate discussions and infamous Constitution Hall incident, contralto examinations of aNew Negro consciousness Marian Anderson performed at UMN much expressed through the arts, black women stu~ to the delight of the Eta chapter of Alpha dents, particularly at UMN and UNL, turned Kappa Alpha. Anderson also performed at out a number of poems, songs, short stories, KU's Hoch Auditorium in January 1938.32 and plays of their own. In the 1920s UMN While the songs of New Negro musicians graduate student Ruth Pearson studied black and the poetry of Harlem's literati became a folklore while she taught in the sociology de~ point of pride among black college students, partment.34 Zanzye H. Hill received her these students threw their own hats into the bachelor's degree from UNL and became the literary ring. Some UNL, UI, UMN, and KU school's first black women law school gradu~ students and alumni began to plant the seeds ate in 1929. One year before she earned her of the New Negro arts and letters movement law degree, Hill wrote a coming of age poem as early as 1911. William N. Johnson, a former in AKA's Ivy Leaf, titled "My Nantie": student and football player at UNL, wrote sev~ eral poems and short stories for the Crisis in~ My Nantie she's the funniest thing cluding a story titled "The Coward," which She looks real hard when I help her sing relayed the tale of Horton, a black plowman When company comes, and I run out, who reflects on his family's history as slaves To see what they're all laughing 'bout. and tenant farmers, and yet refuses to strike She just says, you go right back back at an abusive landlord: And don't be peeping through the crack Company they say, Oh that's all right Back in the dark night of his memory She's only just a little might there was only the somber race of plow~ And some day when she grows up tall men. He seemed to see them, all prototypes Then you'll be wishing she small of himself, in a single file, plowing the same Then company says Nantie, listen dear furrow. The end-the wearying end of the Why does Mollie act so queer? long curving row-was a black chasm. This N antie looks around to see if I'm listening was his race, the Hortons. They had borne And if I'm not she began hissing 154 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2004

Zanzye Hill also published another poem in the same Ivy Leaf, titled "At Dawning."36 Ruth Shores Hill, also a student at UNL, wrote a poem that blended her creative spirit with a solicitation to get more literary contributions to AKA's Ivy Leaf. 37 Amateur music impresario Florence Web ster at KU wrote a poem that many would not classify as representative of the New Negro arts and letters movement; yet a few scholars like Houston Baker and Jon Michael Spencer might argue that Webster evoked one of the era's most misunderstood tropes-the "mas tery of form":

A symphony in note was mine With cellos, flutes and violins Tuned in accord to suit the tastes Of critics and without amends The concord must be rarely bent To please the ears of thousands FIG. 3. Zanzye Hill, Poet and first African American woman to receive a law degree from the University of The Melodies are subtle strains Nebraska. Photo from Cornhusker Yearbook (1929), For moments soothing hungry souls 49. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Appeasing crowds, frustrated mind University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. But unremembered in a time. A symphony in words was yours Played on the strings of hearts-just two Tuned in accord to mark the time And says, what else could she be Of lovers just for me for you The way Mrs. Jones acted at her tea The harmonies are heaven-sent Why I think it was terrible, don't you Oblivious to the thousands The way they whispered, just those two The melody is your dear voice And company asks Nantie what was it Accompanied by tender sighs And Nantie said why it was the rite Crescendos are but raptures taut Her curtains once were white as snow To never, never be forgot But she decided to make a show Oh! Years will pass as must they do And when she went down to the ten-cent But this has been my happiness store Your symphony, I think, is best 'Cause she couldn't afford any more But God has heard my song for you.38 And bought herself some dye of red To match she said her bedroom spread Although these students' poems may not have I listened hard but couldn't hear any more reflected the more sophisticated style of those 'Cause just then my Nantie she shut the poets historians typically associate with the door New Negro arts and letters movement, the When I get old and have little girls poems by black women students share some of And company comes to my house the themes and styles adopted by New Negro I'll never tell them to go and sit arts and letters movement women writers. His And be quiet as a little mouse.35 torian Cheryl Wall argues that the cultural BLACK UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN THE MIDWEST, 1914-1940 155 milieu of the time forced black women to sup written by white Negrotarians whose names press their gender and privilege their race; became attached with Harlem or the New nevertheless, black women poets were not only Negro arts and letters movement, a few black less race conscious, but also less innovative in students wrote and directed small productions form when compared to black male writers of of their own. Eugene O'Neil's The Emperor the time. This meant the black women poets jones, Marc Connelly's Green Pastures, and rarely experimented with black vernacular, or DuBose and Dorothy Heywood's Porgy became cultural expressions such as jazz, blues, or spiri favorites among black students on white cam tuals. 39 This was certainly the case for black puses. In 1929 a member of AKA's Ivy Leaf women student writers at KU and UNL. By Club at UNL appeared with other black mem 1940, however, Margaret Walker, whom bers of the University Players in a staged pro Langston Hughes advised to attend a north duction of The Emperor jones. One year later, ern college, used literary forms and themes an all-black cast of students at KU presented not typically associated with women in the Octavius Roy Cohen's Come Seven. In Octo New Negro arts and letters movement to write ber 1939 several black students and some white her poetry. Inspired by Langston Hughes, Rob students at KU opened the Speech and Dra ert Hayden, Arna Bontemps, and the emerg matic Arts Department's season double fea ing young writer Richard Wright, Walker drew ture with The Emperor jones. Actor and on the political environment of the 1930s (the political activist Paul Robeson had made The depression, labor struggles, and a literary left) Emperor jones a hit in the screen adaptation of to transform black women's poetry. Two verses the play. At KU, the reporter for the Daily from one of the poems that comprised her UI Kansan appeared much more impressed with master's thesis spoke to the irony that many black students' acting ability than with the blacks felt when they experienced institutional total production: "Last night's reenactment and environmental racism despite their edu revealed that there is lots of dramatic talent cation.4°The poems in Walker's master's the among the negro students of the Campus," sis speak to a folk tradition that only a few wrote the reviewer, "that their peculiar gifts black students at UI, UMN, KU, and UNL are adaptable to such a theatrical carriage .... had an opportunity to study formally. But, 'My Heart's in the Highlands' was the While a student at UI, Walker recalled that high spot of the evening's entertainment. It she skipped an entire week of classes to read, seemed to achieve fully what 'The Emperor and reread, the brand new novel that some Jones' attempted-a strikingly new method of scholars argue represented the last rites for dramatic expression."42 KU historian Robert the New Negro arts and letters movement Taft immortalized the cast of The Emperor jones Richard Wright's Native Son. Walker recalled in his book Across the Years on Mount Oread. 43 that she was in Iowa when she saw a copy of Many of these students maintained the Paul Native Son early in February 1940. Walker re Robeson Dramatic Club at KU, which twenty membered that the shock of the book "rocked three black students established in 1931.44 me on my heels." Walker had developed at If local blacks and black and white students least an intellectually passionate friendship in Lincoln and Lawrence applauded the stu with Wright. Before she came to UI, Walker dent production of The Emperor jones, blacks had sent Wright clippings from the Rob Nixon in Lincoln and the Twin Cities launched full case, which Wright used as a prototype for scale campaigns to shut down proposed pro Bigger Thomas's trial in the nove1. 41 ductions of Porgy at the universities of UNL In addition to creative writing and poetry, and UMN. First published as a novel in 1925, black students developed an interest in the and later developed as a play and musical, dramatic arts and play writing. Although most which attracted scores of whites and some of the plays that students performed were those blacks to the theater, Porgy is the story of a 156 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2004 crippled black beggar who witnesses a murder play that Dr. C. Lowell Lee of the theater de~ during a dice game and becomes enamored partment would concede to council demands with the murderer's woman friend. When to replace Porgy with a more suitable produc~ Crown, the murderer, returns to claim Bess, tion. However, divisions emerged within the Porgy kills Bess's ex~ lover and escapes convic~ council. A second vote of forty~six against the tion because no one can believe a man in play, six for the play, and twelve who abstained, Porgy's condition could kill the brutish Crown. later gave way to an eighteen~to~sixteen vote Porgy returns to Catfish Row only to discover to get rid of the play. When theater depart~ that Bess becomes strung out on "happy dust" ment officials found no suitable replacement and gets "turned out" into a life as a New York and continued to prepare for the play's open~ City prostitute. ing, the St. Paul and Minneapolis branches of For some blacks, particularly those outside the NAACP and Urban League stepped in to the arts and among the black middle class, support the Council of Negro Students' slim Porgy glorified the worst in black folk and ur~ majority. Spearheaded by the St. Paul ban street culture. Langston Hughes, a cham~ NAACP, the group issued a statement that pion of creative license and artistic freedom, argued that because black students had op~ praised the theater adaptation of Porgy, but some posed the production after three votes, "the black actors and celebrities later lambasted the members of the St. Paul Branch of the NAACP play. In Lincoln, local black ministers organized strongly oppose the presentation of this play."47 against the production sponsored by the Uni~ This joint committee also threatened to take versity Dramatic Club. Ministers claimed, "The the matter up before the UMN president Guy play was a deliberate attempt to feature the S. Ford and the Board of Regents if the theater race at its worst."45 If the play continued on as department ignored its request. scheduled, they charged, it would intimidate In addition to staging performances of popu~ blacks in Lincoln and at UNL, and it would lar plays with their assortment of black char~ damage the growing spirit of interracial coop~ acters, black students, particularly black eration in the city. Representatives of the women, at UNL and KU wrote and directed drama department refuted the ministers' their own mini~dramas. Ruth Shores Hill wrote claims. They maintained that the play was "art The Glorious Adventure, a four~scene romantic with no thought of reflecting on the group," comedy about black college students who fall the cast was almost entirely made up of black in love after discovering their mutual interest students, and the suppression of the play would in an assigned course reading.48 Ruth Gillum represent an attempt to squash students' artis~ at KU wrote a musical aptly named Heading tic expression.46 for Harlem, performed before "an enthusiastic Debates surrounding the production of and appreciative audience."49 The production Porgy became much more heated at UMN. and performance of these and other plays dem~ The university's theater department argued in onstrate the degree to which the cultural favor of the all~black student production of movement so often associated with Harlem, life in South Carolina's "Catfish Row," but and on occasion Chicago, spread even farther the UMN's Council of Negro Students op~ west. posed the production. Caught in the middle, In the truest spirit of black creativity, white and leaning heavily toward the argument for philanthropy, and the New Negro arts and creative license and free artistic expression, letters movement, several black students won the thirty or so black students hoped the awards and wide recognition for their creative production would proceed. Anne Fenalson, a academic work. Clifton Lamb, the director of white associate professor of sociology and ad~ the Prairie View State College drama depart~ visor to the Council of Negro Students, as~ ment, who studied at UI in the summers to sured the fifty members who objected to the receive a master's degree and maintain his job, BLACK UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN THE MIDWEST, 1914-1940 157 won a $100 first prize and a publishing con~ BFA and won first prize in a student show.54 In tract with the Dramatic Publishing Company 1936, fourteen years after Aaron Douglas for his play God's Great Acres. One contest graduated from UNL with a degree in fine art, judge remarked that the play, a story of the the Nebraska Fine Arts Council honored the influence of industrialization on sharecroppers artist through the acquisition of his painting in western Texas, was "a po~erful and sympa~ Window Cleaning, which remains a part ofUNL thetic treatment of a phase of the sharecrop~ permanent art collection. 55 per problem that has not yet been fully Various black intellectuals ~who were pro~ exploited."50 Beulah Wheeler at UI, Earl ponents of the New Negro philosophies sig~ Wilkins at UMN, and Charles Stokes at KU nificantly influenced visual artists such as won first place in speech contests on their Aaron Douglass and Elizabeth Catlett and lit~ respective campuses in 1921,1925, and 1927. erary artist Margaret Walker. Douglas and Wheeler's speech was titled "Uniform Mar~ Catlett gained recognition beyond their wild~ riage and Divorce Law," Wilkins's topic was est dreams, and KU and UI also gave birth to "John Doe, Colored Student," and Stokes other black visual artists influenced by the spoke on "The New Negro."5! When artist New Negro arts and letters movement. Tony Elizabeth Catlett created the statue Mother Hill, K. Roderick O'Neal, and Bernard Goss and Child for her UI master's project, she represent only three examples of those who walked away with UI's first MFA and a first never became as prominent as Douglas and prize at the American Negro Exhibition in Catlett and yet received the attention of people Chicago. Catlett recalled that it was UI pro~ like Alain Locke. They helped to develop sev~ fessor Grant Wood, not New Negro patriarch eral more widely known black visual artists. Alain Locke, who encouraged her to take on Tony Hill, who graduated with a sociology black women as an artistic subject.52 Budding degree from KU in 1928 and a master's in so~ writer Margaret Walker, who incidentally was cial work from the University of Chicago, be~ Catlett's UI roommate, earned a master of arts came an internationally known sculptor and in writing from UI. Her master's thesis, a col~ ceramics artist. After he honed his skills at lection of folk ballads titled For My People, the University of Southern California, he en~ earned her the coveted Yale University Series joyed a celebrated career.56 K. Roderick O'Neal of Younger Poets award. This published thesis received his bachelor of arts degree in graphic became one of the first books of poetry pub~ arts in 1931 and another degree from UI in lished by a black woman since New Negro arts 1933. As a student, he had exhibitions in the poet Georgia Douglas Johnson published her Iowa Memorial Union, and he later developed work nearly a decade earlier. Nick Aaron Ford, into one of Illinois's most celebrated archi~ who came to UI to study for a master of arts in tects.57 Bernard Goss, who came to UI from literature while on leave from his teaching Sedalia, Missouri, also exhibited work during post, published his recently completed master's his time as a student. Goss's star rose quickly, thesis as The Contemporary Negro Novel: A and Opportunity printed a story about Goss, Study in Race Relations. Zatella Turner, who his work, and other newly arrived black Chi~ received bachelor's and master's degrees from cago artists, just five years after his 1935 gradu~ KU, published My Wonderful Year, a memoir ation from UI. While in Chicago, Goss of her time at the University of London, where enrolled in the Art Institute, married another she studied drama with the assistance of an aspiring artist, Margaret Taylor, and, with her, AKA fellowship.53 The New Negro arts developed the South Side Community Arts movement's signature artist, Aaron Douglas, Center and later founded the DuSable Mu~ emerged as an outstanding student while en~ seum of Black History. Goss's 1939 painting rolled at UNL from 1917 to 1922. The "fair~ Musicians, appeared in Alain Locke's The Ne~ haired boy" of the arts department took his gro in Art. 58 158 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2004

Some historians often admittedly overlook but the question that remains, although out~ music's influence on the New Negro arts and side the scope of this study, is how did these letters movement. Historian Arnold Ram~ experiences influence black musicians' view persad writes in a foreword to a new edition of of Communism? Did the Stalinist~Hitler pact Alain Locke's influential work, The New Ne~ alter their view of Communism? Outside of gro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance) that if he Paul Robeson, we know very little about how were writing the book again, he would have paid the Soviet Union, Communism, or the Mos~ much more attention to the role of music, es~ cow Conservatory shaped black musicians' pecially blues and jazz, in the New Negro arts political philosophies.62 and letters movement. New Negro arts patri~ The sheer number of black students, par~ arch Alain Locke, Rampersad argues, wholly ticularly black women, who seemed to have excluded any mention of the blues, and the some classical music training may seem phe~ editor treated jazz like a wayward stepchild. 59 nomenal now, but such was a typical gender~ Locke and West~Indian~born popular histo~ appropriate undertaking during the first rian Joel A. Rogers certainly believed that decades of the twentieth century. As early as black spirituals, as they related to black folk 1908, several black women and men who were traditions, as well as jazz, symbolized the spirit enrolled in KU's music department performed of New Negroism.6o Students and community vocal, violin, and piano solos at musicals held people usually did not formally engage in jazz, at St. Luke AME church. KU students like blues, or folk discourses in the classroom, but Doris R. Novel, Etta G. Moten, Ruth Gillum, at dancehalls and house parties one would be Maxine Bruce, and Lillian Webster continued hard pressed to hear anything but jazz coming this tradition well into the 1930s.63 Cleopatra from the phonograph. KU alumnus Nicholas Ross, a fine arts student at UNL, played the Gerran recalled that although he and other piano, the pipe organ, and sang at a number of black students did not study jazz formally in recitals and black student programs held at the classroom or music departments, this cer~ Quinn Chapel AME and First Christian tainly does not mean that black students did churches.64 Three years later, members of not listen to or play jazz outside the classroom. APHIA at UNL, with help from AKA, spon~ Among many middle~class blacks, "a jazz mu~ sored a similar recital at Quinn Chape1.65 KU sician," recalled KU alumnus Nicholas Gerran, graduate Etta G. Moten took her guitar, piano, "wasn't recognized as an honorable profession." and singing talents to the national concert stage, Gerran later joined black KU classmate Flo~ screen, radio, and equally shared it with chap~ rence Webster at the Moscow Conservatory ters of AKA throughout the country.66 of Music in the Soviet Union.61 For many scholars today, classically trained The connection between classically trained black musicians who perfected European mu~ black musicians and the Soviet Union has sical traditions do not merit a place among largely been ignored in Harlem Renaissance those who embraced any form of New and black music history. While several schol~ Negroism. Black intellectuals young and old ars note that Roland Hayes and Paul Robeson debated the issue of what types of plays, po~ performed in Moscow, and Alain Locke praised etry, literature, and music should represent the Soviet Union for its policy toward ethnic black people. Literati writers Claude McKay minority artistic development, few have ex~ and Langston Hughes appreciated black per~ plored the depth to which Russian and black formances of more mainstream and classical folk music, or Soviet classical and black clas~ troupes affiliated with the white middle class sical music traditions, influenced each other. as long as they rightfully shared a place with All these artists, including the young student black spirituals, jazz, and blues. Still, few his~ Nicholas Gerran, took note of the lack of preju~ torians of the New Negro arts and letters move~ dice they experienced in the Soviet Union, ment share McKay's and Hughes's opinion. BLACK UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN THE MIDWEST, 1914-1940 159

Music historians Jon Michael Spencer and Paul ters movement in Harlem and the black arts Allen Anderson argue that black classical and letters movement in Chicago emerged as musicians and jazz and blues musicians en~ an enormous influence in the intellectual lives gaged in what literary scholar Houston Baker of black KU, UMN, UNL, and UI students calls the "mastery of form" and the "deforma~ and alumni. The examples of students' cre~ tion of mastery."67 Baker, and Spencer building ative work, however, demonstrate that stu~ on Baker's thesis, suggests that both the "mas~ dents also produced their own poetry, fiction, tery of form" and the "deformation of mastery" and visual arts, and by extension their own were attempts to usurp racism. The "mastery of arts movement. Despite historical debates form" required that blacks, particularly black about who should and should not be termed students, perfect Anglo~Saxon, upper~class white New Negroes, sources from the 1910s, 1920s, American and European "high culture" in an and 1930s reveal that blacks with a variety of effort to force white people to see black people's talents and political views deserved the title humanity and respect blacks as equals. Within New Negroes. the area of education, "mastery of form" trans~ lated into mastering the "form of 'standard' NOTES educational process in the West. "68 Yet some blacks, even college students, engaged in a 1. Ronald Butchart, "Outthinking and Out~ "deformation of mastery," a conscious effort flanking the Owners of the World: A Historiogra~ phy of the African American Struggle for to deconstruct mainstream culture, literature, Education," History of Education Quarterly 28, no. and music through a black rural folk and black 3 (Autumn 1988): 361. The standard work about urban cultural lens. To be sure, Baker main~ the New Negro movement at historically black col~ tains that deformation is "a go( uer )rilla ac~ leges and universities remains Raymond Wolters, tion in the face of acknowledged adversaries." The New Negro on Campus: Black College Rebellions of the 1920s (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Moreover, deformation "distinguishes rather Press, 1975). than conceals. It secures territorial advantage 2. A. Philip Randolph, "A New Crowd-A New and heightens a group's survival possibilities."69 Negro," Messenger, May~June 1919,27. On rare occasions, students like George O. 3. Alain Locke, "The New Negro," in The New Caldwell managed to incorporate black folk Negro: An Interpretation, ed. Alain Locke (New York: Albert and Charles Boni, Inc. 1925), 3. music into his thesis at UI when he compared 4. Ibid., 3. traditional black folk songs to Russian com~ 5. Cheryl Wall, Women of the Harlem Renais~ poser Igor Stravinsky's 1910 ballet Firebird. 70 sance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, A small number of sources offer a view of 1995),2; Alain Locke, foreword to New Negro, ix; black student life that demonstrates that all Locke "New Negro," 4, 5. 6. Nathan 1. Huggins, Harlem Renaissance (New students were not trying to put up a middle~ York: Oxford University Press, 1971),3012; David class front. In their leisure time, students dem~ Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (1997; onstrated an affinity for the blues and blues New York: Penguin Books, 1981), xxviii; Wall, musicians, who were constantly in the act of Women of the Harlem Renaissance, 10. deforming mainstream culture. To be sure, 7. Mark Robert Schneider, "We Return Fight~ black students at UNL, who were by many ing" : The Civil Rights Movement in the Jazz Age (Bos~ ton: Northeastern University Press, 2002),4. accounts more working class than their con~ 8. James Edward Smethurst, The New Red Ne~ temporaries at KU, UI, and UMN, listened to gro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, and performed songs like the "St. James Infir~ 1930~1946 (New York: Oxford University Press, mary Blues," "Just a Gigolo," "Baby Won't You 1999),5; Robert Bone, "Richard Wright and the Please Come Home," and "He May Be Your Chicago Renaissance," Callaloo 28 (Summer 1986): 446~68; Joyce Russell~Robinson, "Renaissance Man But He Comes to See Me Sometimes."71 Manque: Black WPA Artists in Chicago," Western The spirit and sociopolitical consciousness Journal of Black Studies 18, no. 1 (1994): 36~43; that surrounded the New Negro arts and let~ Craig Werner, "Leon Forrest, the AACM and the 160 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2004

Legacy of the Chicago Renaissance," Black Scholar things, sponsored traveling exhibits of black art 23, nos. 3A (1993): 10,23. and bestowed the Distinguished Award for 9. Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue, xxiii; Ann Achievement Among Negroes prize. Archie Douglas, Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in Alexander, black UI alumnus and architect, re, the 1920s (New York: Noonday, 1996); Thomas ceived the Harmon Prize in 1927. "Archie Bender, New York Intellect: History of Intellectual Alexander Given the Harmon Award," Omaha Life in N ew York from 1750 to the Beginning of Our Monitor, March 11, 1927. Time (New York: Knopf, 1987). 21. Mary Ann Calo, "African American Art and 10. Jayne R. Beilke, "To Render Better Service: the Critical Discourse between World Wars," The Role of the Julius Rosenwald Fund Fellowship American Quarterly 51, no. 3 (1999): 587. For op, Program for the Development of Graduate and Pro, posing views of the Harmon Foundation's work, fessional Educational Opportunities for African see Calo, "African American Art," and William S. Americans" (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1994); Doan, "Iowa and the Artist of African Descent," in Horace Mann Bond, The Education of the Negro in Outside In: African Americans in Iowa, 1838,2000, the American Social Order (1934; New York: Octa, ed. Bill Silag, Susan Koch, Bridgford, and Hal Chase gon Books, 1966), 364; James D. Anderson, The (Des Moines: State Historical Society of Iowa, Education of Blacks in the South, 1860,1935 (Chapel 2001), 497,99. Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 22. Countee Cullen, "Yet Do I Marvel," re, 275,77. printed in the Dove, February 15, 1926. 11. For more on the power and influence of the 23. "Mott Talks to Group on 'Negro Poetry,'" "Tuskegee Machine," see Louis Harlan, Booker T. Daily Iowan, February 27, 1932; "Negro Poet to Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856, Give Lecture," Daily Iowan, March 1, 1932; Mar' 1901 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), garet Schlundt, "Hughes Paints Vivid Portrait of 254,71; Louis Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Negro Life," Daily Iowan, March 4, 1932. Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901,1915 (New York: Oxford 24. "Alpha Phi Alpha," Daily Iowan, March 5, University Press, 1983),84,106. 1932. 12. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, Black 25. "Delta Doin's," Ivy Leaf, March 1932,6. History and the Historical Profession, 1915,1980 26. Alison Watkins, "Celebrating Langston (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986). For Hughes," in Lawrence: The Art of a City (Lawrence: more on the roller, coaster ride to finance the JNH Convention and Visitor's Bureau, 2001,2), 46,47. in the early years, and the role of Rosenwald, 27. Arnold Rampersad, The Life of Langston Carnegie, and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Me' Hughes: I, Too, Sing America, vol. 1, 1902,1941 morial Fund, see Darlene Clark Hine, "Carter G. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986),313. Woodson: White Philanthropy and Negro Histo, Rampersad also mentions the campus visits to UI riography," in Hine Sight: Black Women and the Re, and KU in 1932; see Rampersad, Life of Langston Construction of American History, by Darlene Clark Hughes, 1:234. Hine (Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, 1994), 28. "Tulane's Attitude on Reed Sought," Min, 203,22. nesota Daily, October 15,1935. 13. Beilke, "To Render Better Service," 50. 29. Michiko Hase, "W. Gertrude Brown's 14. Ibid., 51,52, 61,63. Struggle for Racial Justice: Female Leadership and 15. Ibid., 157,59. Community in Black Minneapolis, 1920,1940" 16. Ibid., 159,60. (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1994)' 31. 17. Earl Spangler, The Negro in Minnesota (Min, 30. "The Concert Courses," Gopher (1927),205; neapolis: T.S. Denison and Co., 1961), 126. "The University Concert Courses," Gopher (1930), 18. Harry Washington Greene, Holders of Doc, 208. torates among American Negroes (Boston: Meador 31. "Paul Robeson," Topeka Plaindealer, January Publishing, 1946), 63, 136. 14,1927; "The University Artists Course," Gopher 19. Beilke, "To Render Better Service," 68. (1931), 174, 176; "Record Audience to Pack 20. A much smaller, yet equally important white Northrop to Hear Robeson," Minnesota Daily, Feb, philanthropic fund to the New Negro arts and let' ruary 11, 1931. Both Hayes and Robeson are noted ter movement's proliferation was the William E. in Alain Locke, "The Negro Spirituals," in New Harmon Foundation. The white Negrotarian and Negro, 208. New York real estate magnate William E. Harmon 32. "Negro Sociologist to Be Guest at Tea," Daily acquired the resources, after several successful busi, Minnesotan, January 30, 1931; "Visiting Artists," ness ventures, to leave Iowa for New York. From Gopher (1936), 218; "University Concert Course," his post in New York, William E. Harmon devel, University Daily Kansan, January 13,1939. In 1939 oped the Harmon Foundation, which, among other the Daughters of the American Revolution pro' BLACK UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN THE MIDWEST, 1914-1940 161 hibited Anderson from performing at Constitution Extempore Contest," Hawkeye (1922),325; "Fresh Hall. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt responded by man-Sophomore Oratorical Contest," Gopher resigning from the Daughters of the American (1927),236; "Kansas Student Wins Cup With 'New Revolution and arranged for Anderson to sing at Negro' Oration," Omaha Monitor, December 30, the Lincoln Memorial. 1927. 33. Will N. Johnson, "The Coward," Crisis, Oc 52. Elizabeth Catlett, letter to the author, Janu tober 1911, 252. Also see "The Call," Crisis, No ary 16, 1999; Samella Lewis, The Art of Elizabeth vember 1916, 15. Catlett (Claremont, CA: Hancraft Studios, 1984), 34. "Who's Who" Opportunity, November 1925,34l. 23; Michael Brenson and Lowery Stokes Sims, Eliza 35. "Deaths," The Nebraska Alumnus, May 1935, beth Catlett Sculpture: A Fifty-Year Retrospective 28; J. Clay Smith, Emancipation: The Making of the Purchase, NY: Neuberger Museum of Art, SUNY, Black Lawyer, 1844-1944 (Philadelphia: Univer 1998), 12-13; Melanie Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett: sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1993),328,465,471. An Artist in Mexico (Seattle: University of Wash 36. Zanzye H. Hill, "My Nantie," Ivy Leaf, No ington Press, 2000), 17 -23. vember 1928, 46; Zanzye H. Hill, "At Dawning," 53. "Former Negro Graduate's Book to Be Pub Ivy Leaf, November 1929, 16. lished," University Daily Kansan, November 2,1939. 37. Ruth Shores Hill, "A Reporter's Query," Ivy 54. Amy Helene Kirschke, Aaron Douglas: Art, Leaf, June 1931,31. Race, and the Harlem Renaissance (Jackson: Uni 38. Florence M. Webster, "Symphony," Ivy Leaf, versity Press of Mississippi, 1995), 6-7. Douglas June 1931, 30. Also see poem by UNL student also enrolled at UMN for a short time after he was Ellen Roy, "To Alpha Kappa Alpha," Ivy Leaf, June removed from the Student Army Training Corps. 1931,29. For a study of the philosophical foundations of 39. Wall, Women of the Harlem Renaissance, 6, Douglas's work, see Audrey Thompson, "Great 12-13. Plains Pragmatist: Aaron Douglas and the Art of 40. Margaret Walker, For My People (New Ha Social Protest," Great Plains Quarterly 20, no. 4 ven: Yale University Press, 1942), 13. (Fall 2000): 311-22. 41. Margaret Walker, Richard Wright, Demonic 55. Margaret Walker, For My People; "Painting," Genius: A Portrait of the Man, A Critical Look at His Work clipping, and "1922," clipping, "Douglas, Gradu (New York: Amistad Press, 1988), 146, 122-25. ate of School of Fine Arts, Lauded for Drawings," 42. "Alpha Theta," Ivy Leaf, March 1929; "Delta MS#159, folder 1, Box MS #158-161, Aaron Dou Doin's," Ivy Leaf, September 1930, 5; Ken glas File, University of Nebraska at Lincoln Ar Postlethwaite, "Double Feature Opens Dramatic chives, Lincoln, NE. Season," University Daily Kansan, October 31, 1939. 56. "Ceramics by Tony Hill," Ebony, November 43. Robert T aft, Across the Years on Mount Oread 1946,31-34; "Tony Hill," in A Biographical History (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1955), 155. of African American Artists, A-Z, Anderson Delano 44. "Robeson Club to Give Play," University Macklin, (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, Daily Kansan, March 17, 1932; Jayhawk (1936), 2001), 128. 364,369; Jayhawk (1937),375,381. 57. Theresa Dickason Cederholm, "Kenneth 45. J. Harvey Kerns, "Social and Economic Sta Roderick O'Neal," Afro-American Artists: A Bio tus of the Negro in Lincoln, Nebraska" (Race Re Bibliographical Directory (Boston: Trustees of the lations Committee in Lincoln, 1933),28, Nebraska Boston Public Library, 1973), 58; "Roderick Historical Society, Lincoln, NE. O'Neil-Leader among Negro Architects," Iowa 46. Ibid., 28. Alumni Review, October 1954,10-11. 47. "N.A.A.C.P. Branches To Seek Ban on 'u' 58. Willard F. Motley, "Negro Art in Chicago," Production of Disputed Play 'Porgy,'" St. Paul Re Opportunity, January 1940, 20-21; Macklin, "Ber corder, November 17, 1939. Article includes the nard Goss," in Biographical History of African Ameri resolution printed in its entirety. can Artists, 107; Alain Locke, The Negro in Art 48. Ruth Shores Hill, "The Glorious Adven (Washington, DC: Association in Negro Folk Edu ture," Ivy Leaf, June 1931,35. cation, 1940), 117, 132; see Goss illustrations in a 49. "Delta," Ivy Leaf, March 1934, 21. book of unpublished poems celebrating his life, 50. "Drama of Negro Life Ties for First Prize in Evangeline Zehmer, "Form of a Woman" (unpub Iowa Contest," Opportunity, September 1939, 279. lished booklet, 1976), Margaret Taylor Goss 51. "Beulah Wheeler Wins Contest By Default," Burroughs Papers, Chicago, IL. Copy in author's Daily Iowan, January 12, 1921; "Women to Speak possession. Tonight at 7:30," Daily Iowan, January 18, 1921; 59. Arnold Rampersad, introduction to The New "Non-Literary Woman Given First Place in Ex Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance, by Alain tempore," Daily Iowan, January 20,1921; "Women's Locke (1925; New York: Atheneum, 1992), xx. 162 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2004

60. Alain Locke, "The Negro Spirituals," in New 65. "Negro Musicians Will Give Recital To Negro: An Interpretation, 199-213; J. A. Rogers, "Jazz night," Daily Nebraskan, January 16, 1931. at Home," in New Negro: An Interpretation, 216-24. 66. "Soror Moten," Ivy Leaf, March 1935, 3. 61. Nichols Gerran interview, reprinted in Nar Moten met with AKA members at UMN before a ratives of African Americans in Kansas, 1870-1992 concert in a Minneapolis theater. (Lewistown, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993), 68, 67. Claude McKay, The Negroes in America, 69-70; "Florence Webster," Ivy Leaf, September trans. Robert J. Winter (1921; Port Washington, 1936, 13. For more on blacks and their interest and NY: Kennikat Press, 1979), 60-61; Langston trips to Russia during this period, see John L. Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Moun Garder, "African Americans in the Soviet Union tain," Nation 122 (June 28, 1926): 692-94; Jon in the 1920s and 1930s: The Development of Trans Michael Spencer, The New Negroes and Their Mu continental Protest," Western Journal of Black Stud sic: The Success of the Harlem Renaissance (Knox ies 23, no. 3 (1999): 190-200. ville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997), xxii; 62. Paul Allen Anderson, Deep River: Music and Anderson, Deep River, 7, 9, 10. Memory in Harlem Renaissance Thought (Durham, 68. Houston Baker, Modernism and the Harlem NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 160-62. Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 63. "Lawrence, Kansas," Topeka Plaindealer, 1987), xv. March 6, 1908; "Soror Doris Reita Novel," Ivy Leaf, 69. Ibid., 50, 51. November 1928, 72; "Delta Doin's," Ivy Leaf, De 70. George o. Caldwell, "A Comparison of Se cember 1930,9; "Delta," Ivy Leaf, June 1929; "Delta lected Material of Stravinsky's Firebird with Tradi Doin's," Ivy Leaf, September 1930,5; "More Gradu tional Negro Folk Music," (master's thesis, ating Sorors," Ivy Leaf, September 1936,17; Walter University of Iowa, 1932). Belk, "The Lawrence Black Community and Its 71. Ruth Shores Hill, "Alpha Theta Chapter," Relationship to Black Students on Mount Oread, Ivy Leaf, June 1931,37-38. David Levering Lewis 1870-1930," Sociology 165 paper, University of notes that black women dressed as men performed Kansas, Unpublished paper, Watkins Community "St. James Infirmary Blues"; see Lewis, When Harlem Museum, Lawrence, Kansas, May 10,1971,17-18. Was in Vogue, 242. Louis Armstrong recorded the 64. "Lincoln, Neb.," Omaha Monitor, April 13, "St. James Infirmary Blues" in 1929 and Cab 1928; "Lincoln, Nebraska," Omaha Monitor, May Calloway recorded the same tune in 1930. Blues 25, 1928; "Soror Cleopatra Elaine Ross," Ivy Leaf, singer Bessie Smith recorded "Baby Won't You November 1928, 65. Please Come Home" in 1923.