In poems, stories, memoirs, and essays about color and culture, prejudice and love, and feminine trials, dozens of African-American women writers--some famous, many just discovered--give us a sense of a distinct inner voice and an engagement with their larger double culture.
Harlem's Glory unfolds a rich tradition of writing by African-American women, hitherto mostly hidden, in the first half of the twentieth century. In historical context, with special emphasis on matters of race and gender, are the words of luminaries like Zora Neale Hurston and Georgia Douglas Johnson as well as rare, previously unpublished writings by figures like Angelina Weld Grimké, Elise Johnson McDougald, and Regina Andrews, all culled from archives and arcane magazines.
Editors Lorraine Elena Roses and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph arrange their selections to reveal not just the little-suspected extent of black women's writing, but its prodigious existence beyond the cultural confines of New York City. Harlem's Glory also shows how literary creativity often coexisted with social activism in the works of African-American women.
This volume is full of surprises about the power and diversity of the writers and genres. The depth, the wit, and the reach of the selections are astonishing. With its wealth of discoveries and rediscoveries, and its new slant on the familiar, all elegantly presented and deftly edited, the book will compel a reassessment of writing by African-American women and its place in twentieth-century American literary and historical culture.
Lorraine Elena Roses is Professor of Spanish and Director of Latin American Studies at Wellesley College.Ruth Elizabeth Randolph, a graduate of Wellesley, is an independent scholar.
Introduction Part I - Black And White Tangled Threads
Sanctuary - Nella Larsen
Two Gentlemen of Boston - Florida Ruffin Ridley
Little Heads: A One-Act Play of Negro Life - Alvira Hazzard
My Two Grandmothers - Aloise Barbour Epperson
Flower of the South - Gertrude Schalk
Masks, a Story - Eloise Bibb Thompson
The Man Who Passed: A Play in One Act - Regina M. Andrews
Why, How, When and Where Black Becomes White - Mary Church Terrell
From Black and White Tangled Threads - Zara Wright
Part 2 - Dreaming In Color
Belated Romance - Florence Marion Harmon
The Pink Hat - Caroline Bond Day
Hope Deferred - Alice Dunbar-Nelson
Lai-Li - Mae V. Cowdery
Little Cornish, the "Blue Boy" - Effie Lee Newsome
The Noose - Octavia B. Wynbusb
If Wishes Were Horses - Edythe Mae Gordon
Subversion - Edythe Mae Gordon
Part 3 - Native Daughter
To a Wild Rose - Ottie B. Graham
The Zulu King: New Orleans (at Mardi Gras) - Josephine Copeland
Negro Folk Songs - Josephine Copeland
Preface: Other Bostonians - Florida Ruffin Ridley
Nativity - Gladys Casely Hayford
A Poem - Gladys Casely Hayford
The Palm Wine Seller - Gladys Casely Hayford
Rainy Season Love Song - Gladys Casely Hayford
Is It Not Enough - Ida Rowland
Negroid Things - Ida Rowland
Are We Different? - Ida Rowland
The Family of Nat Turner, 1831-1954 - Lucy Mae Turner
Where the West Begins, from American Daughter - Era Bell Thompson
From The Negro Trailblazers of California - Delilah Leontium Beasley
Native Daughter: An Indictment of White America by a Colored Woman - Ellen Tarry
Part 4 - Longings
Calling Dreams - Georgia Douglas Johnson
Question - Georgia Douglas Johnson
My Son - Georgia Douglas Johnson
Armageddon - Georgia Douglas Johnson
Interim - Georgia Douglas Johnson
Ivy - Georgia Douglas Johnson
I Wonder - Georgia Douglas Johnson
Afterglow - Georgia Douglas Johnson
Love's Way: A Christmas Story - Carrie W. Clifford
Joy - Clarissa Scott Delany
The Mask - Clarissa Scott Delany
Interim - Clarissa Scott Delany
Solace - Clarissa Scott Delany
Noblesse Oblige - Jessie Fauset
Dead Fires - Jessie Fauset
Oblivion - Jessie Fauset
La Vie C'est la Vie - Jessie Fauset
Words! Words! - Jessie Fauset
The Eternal Quest - Anita Scott Coleman
In '61 - Ethel Caution Davis
Longing - Ethel Caution Davis
Sunset - Ethel Caution Davis
Long Remembering - Ethel Caution Davis
Longings - Nellie R. Bright
Part 5 - Spunk
Early Days in Cleveland, from A Nickel and a Prayer - Jane Edna Hunter
The Negro Today - Marion Vera Cuthbert
A Talk on Evolution - Mercedes Gilbert
The Equal Rights League, from Crusade for Justice - Ida B. Wells -Barnett
To the Oppressors - Pauli Murray
Mr. Roosevelt Regrets - Pauli Murray
From Tales My Father Told and Other Stories - Hallie Quinn Brown
Spunk - Zora Neale Hurston
Part 6 - My Great, Wide, Beautiful World
Black - Nellie R. Bright
From African Journey - Eslanda Goode Robeson
Wedding Day - Gwendolyn B. Bennett
Letters - Idabelle Yeiser
Twenty -Seventh Day, from Journey to Accompong - Katherine Dunham
Why - Brenda Ray Moryck
From My Great, Wide, Beautiful World - Juanita V. Harrison
Part 7 - Harlem's Glory: A Woman's View
The Comer - Eunice Hunton Carter
The Double Task: The Struggle of Negro Women for Sex and Race Emancipation - Elise Johnson McDougald
Story in Harlem Slang: Jelly's Tale - Zora Neale Hurston
From "The Ebony Flute" - Gwendolyn B. Bennett
My Race - Helene Johnson
Metamorphism - Helene Johnson
Bottled - Helene Johnson
Tar - Shirley Graham
Solo on the Drums - Ann Petry
Part of the Pack: Another View of Night Life in Harlem - Hazel V. Campbell
Part 8 - In The Looking Glass
Prelude - Ariel Williams Holloway
Memory of a 'Jim Crow" Car - Ariel Williams Holloway
My Temple - Ariel Williams Holloway
To One Who Would Be Great - Ariel Williams Holloway
His Life and Mine - Ariel Williams Holloway
Problems Facing Negro Young Women - Marion Vera Cuthbert
Mammy - Dorothy West
'Bidin' Place - May Miller
Since 1619 - Margaret Walker
Lineage - Margaret Walker
People of Unrest - Margaret Walker
We Have Been Believers - Margaret Walker
Black Death - Zora Neale Hurston
Letter to My Sister - Anne Spencer
At the Carnival - Anne Spencer
Lady, Lady - Anne Spencer
Black Man o' Mine - Anne Spencer
White Things - Anne Spencer
The Wife -Woman - Anne Spencer
Freedom - Aloise Barbour Epperson
A Negro in a Dime Store - Aloise Barbour Epperson
Heard on an Atlantic City Bridge - Aloise Barbour Epperson
Part 9 - Crisis
One True Love - Marita Bonner
--And I Passed By - Marita Bonner
The Women of the White Strain - Elise Johnson McDougald
The Handicapped - Angelina Weld Grimké
Flag Salute - Esther Popel
Blasphemy--American Style - Esther Popel
October Prayer - Esther Popel
Mob Madness - Marion Vera Cuthbert
Slackened Caprice - Ottie B. Graham
He Must Think It Out - Florida Ruffin Ridley
Part 10 -The offering
One Blue Star - May Miller
The Five Dollar Bill - Dorothy West
The Tie That Used to Bind: A Mid -Victorian Negro Marriage - Anna J. Cooper
The Return of a Modern Prodigal - Octavia B. Wynbush
A Blossom in an Alley - Sarah Collins Fernandis
The Torch Bearer - Sarah Collins Fernandis
The offering - Sarah Collins Fernandis
Biographical Notes
Illustration Credits
