Audrey Dickson-Walker

                              Black Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance

                                    and the Double(?) Minority Concept

                                      I am not proud that I am bold

                                      Or proud that I am black

                                      Color was given me as a gage

                                      And boldness came with that

                                                                  Helene Johnson,

                                                                  Poet of the Harlem Renaissance

            Black women writers of the Harlem Renaissance made numerous literary and social contributions tot he flourishing creativity and inspiration of that period.  The unfortunate system of gender discrimination that dominates many societies of the world, including America, also permeated the culture of Black America.  Although assimilation never fully occurred in black culture, features of American society that proved beneficial in many were accepted by the black male mainstream.  Patriarchal values were solidly established in American culture, and readily transfused black culture as it developed roots in American society.  Women were deemed lesser beings than men, and the view was substantiated by a preferred interpretation of Bible scripture.  Black women were deemed less than all; not only did they suffer racial discrimination, but their lives were spent enduring gender and class discrimination as well – a triple oppression that few escaped.  In spite of these heavy weights – or maybe more because of it – inspiration came to them and they expressed it through creative processes.  Although the gifts of their talents have been severely neglected (within the last two decades many works have come to light), the content and handling of their works constitute evidence that for these women, not only did the double-minority dilemma exist during the Harlem Renaissance era, but triple oppression waxed strong, also.  Their writing had to be out of love and for self, group, or family inspiration; they received little encouragement in their endeavors.  But they were true champions of the Harlem Renaissance, knowing their gifts and using them without real acknowledgement or exposure.  The resurrection of their works of love proves that true champions cannot be restrained.

            In the opening poem, Helene Johnson asserts this acceptance of and contentment with herself as a bold, black woman.  Johnson wrote racial protest poems as well as poems in the popular style of that time – colloquial-folk-slang.  Johnson’s work came closer than other black female poets to the themes used by black males of the era” (Black Women Poets from Wheatley to Walker: Hull, 94).  In James Weldon Johnson’s “The Negro Caravan” (1941), edited by Sterling Brown, Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses Lee, he presented works by Jessie Fauset, Anne Spencer and Georgia Douglas Johnson beside works of Claude McKay, a revered male poet of the time.  Although inclusion of the women’s works signaled progress, introductory notes and essays “often devalued them, and editors proclaimed that “delicate lyricism was still present in the works of such poets as Georgia Douglass Johnson and Angelina Grimke.”  The “editors relegated women writers to the “Rear Guard” of the movement, or to the “genteel schools.”  But Cheryl Wall sees a methodology in the form of the writings of black women at that time.  The social climate in Harlem was “less congenial to feminism and more preoccupied with racial politics,” “which made sexism issues hard to raise” (Women of the Harlem Renais-sance: Wall, 12, 6). Consciousness had been raised for women’s issues years earlier when Anna Julia Cooper commented in 1904 on the “colored woman’s” unique position:  “She is confronted by both a woman question and a race problem, and is as yet an unknown or an unacknowledged factor in both.”  Although society had blindfolders on regarding sexuality in the dominant culture – a carryover from the Victorian woman concept – “black women were burdened with an almost exclusive sexual identity.”  Therefore in their poetry certain subjects, particularly sex, were taboo and the language was genteel.” “Black women writers probed the social and psychological meanings of their positionality in ever increasing depth”. . . “they re-appropriated “old” definitions of the race, “colored” for example, and figured new definitions of a racial “home”(Wall, 14, 6, 12). 

            Wall’s theory appears to take shape on examination of some specific works of black female Harlem Renaissance writers, and again in autobiographical comments from Zora Neale Hurston.  In “How It Feels To Be Colored Me,” Hurston stated “I remember the very day that I became colored,” revealing her understanding that “racial identity is not grounded in biology; it is socially constructed.”  From Eatonville, Florida, the first all-black town incorporated in the United States, Hurston derived a sense of “home” from

confidence established in her community.  After being forced to leave “home” after her mother’s death, Hurston was also forced into an awareness of her racial identity.  Hurston’s writings reflect the confidence she obtained in her youth, for she bucked the system and broke with the established style of the “New Negro” writing to express her creativity through “folktales,” a style abhorred by “New Negro” leadership. (Wall, 25).

`           Anne Spencer (188201975), used gardens for her settings and metaphors frequently, and although she was a civil rights activist, Spencer used few references to race or racism in her poetry.  Spencer established a new “home” in her sonnet, “Substitution,” where she was transported to another world of love and beauty (Wall, 16). And in “Letter to My Sister,” Spencer gives covert advice to her sister regarding romantic relationships.  The real message seems to be wrapped in a shroud through which only women like Spencer, herself, can see. (American Negro Poetry: Botemps, 19).     

            Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966), used “dreamscapes in her poetry to transport her readers to a place where she herself desired to go.  She “gently” refers to race or gender problems, yet in reading “Wishes,” “YourWorld,” Trifle,” “Lovelight,” and “Prejudice,”  the reader senses Johnson’s need to escape, and the knowledge that she is African American adds clarity to the unknown details.  Wall says that Johnson relied on the “safest, least controversial models in her writing” (Wall, 16; Botemps, 21-24).

          Even though Georgia Douglas Johnson’s poetry was “safely” written and “genteel,” Will Harris stated in his essay “Early Black Women Playwrights and the Dual Liberation Motif,” (published in volume 28 of the African American Review), that although Johnson and Angelina Grimke “persisted in writing predominately “raceless” poetry, their plays were almost exclusively racially oriented, suggesting a conscious division between “personal” and “race” matters.  Grimke’s play “Rachel” was the “first full-length play written, produced and performed by African Americans in this century,” and many black women playwrights followed her lead after the play’s debut.  “Rachel(’s)” themes were

“social inequality, hiring discrimination, the black frustration and familial erosion which resulted from economic strictures, and the the pervasive blighting effects of racism” (Harris, 206). 

        Georgia Douglas Johnson’s influence on the major group of women writers is inderscored by the fact that she hosted a literary salon in her home on S street in Washington, D.C.  Frequent visitors were Zora Neale Hurston, Angelina Grimke, Marita Bonner, Eulalie Spence, May Miller, Mary Burrill, Shirley Graham and Alice Dunbar-Nelson (the wife of famed writer Paul Laurence Dunbar).  The women made contacts, shared work, and received advice on their careers and literary projects.  Proving the effectiveness of the group meetings is the fact that Mary Burrill encouraged Grimke to pursue playwriting after attending Johnson’s salon.  (Harris, 207; Knopf, xxvii).

          Another salon was hosted by A’Lelia Walker, daughter of the famous Madame C. J. Walker, the first black female millionaire; her salon was the Dark Tower Salon.  She provided a party atmosphere where major literary artists (most of whom were male) adn wealthy patrons (most of whom were white) made contacts and contracts.  Women writers benefited little from Walker’s salon because they were overlooked by patrons as serious artists (Knopf, xxvii).

          Parties were also hosted by Jessie Fauset -- one of the major female writers of the Harlem Renaissance and literary editor of “The Crisis” magazine, founded by W.E. B. DuBois as a literary magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Fauset was responsible for discovering, encouraging and publishing several major male Harlem Renaissance writers, among them Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen and Jean Toomer.  In “The Big Sea,” Hughes acknowledged that Fauset was one of three people who “midwifed the so-called New Negro literature into being;”  Charles Johnson and Alain Locke were the others (Wall, 35).  Yet most of the credit Fauset deserved was attributed to her boss, DuBois (Knopf, xxviii.

  Fauset’s parties catered to the success of male writers, as did the Harlem Renaissance leadership, but women were included and supported by Fauset.

         Harris says that “the playwrights shared a common experience of disappointing sexist oppression” reflected by Georgia Douglas Johnson’s resolution that she would “receive full recognition of her talents only after her death” (Harris, 207).  Johnson was the wife of a Washington, D. C. politician, whose prestige and salary allowed her to host her salon; she was probably exempt from working-class persecution suffered by most of the others who depended on writing for a living.  But she did not escape the other perse-

cutions, evident by her resolution.

         As blacks sought to cross barriers of race and class during the era, black women were held fast by the old stereotypes that had always permeated American society.  Marita Boner emphasized this in an essay she published in 1925, “On Being Young -- A Woman -- and Colored.”  The essay was published the same year that Alain Locke presented “The New Negro” who had left behind his cultural ties and embraced social uplift through higher education.  Boner’s essay addressed the fact that because she was a woman, she was unable to move freely from state to state.  Bonner expounded on “stereotypes that Locke dismissed” and identified “pressure applied by blacks” to black women.  She stated “You decide that something is wrong with a world that stifles and chokes; that cuts off and stunts; hedging in, pressing down on eyes, ears and throats” (Wall, 4).  Boner took a great risk of “being perceived as disloyal to her race” but she nevertheless, asserted that she wanted to claim a racial and a gendered identity” (Wall, 7).

         Why women -- black and talented - were mistreated and neglected in a movement of their own culture that they fully supported is open to speculation.  That mistreatment did occur is factual.  Regarding black women playwrights, Harris stated that “Gloria Hull documents Alain Locke’s misogynistic treatment of Zora Neale Hurston during her Howard years, and contrasts that treatment to the warm encouragement given Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Richard Bruce Nugent.” (Locke was a professor at Howard University.) “Only Eulalie Spence . . . seems to have avoided the misfortune of her counterparts.  She was able to see at least six of her plays published and seven performed” (Hall, 208). 

             Close examination of some submissions for literary contests sponsored by “The Crisis” and “Opportunity” magazines reveal comparable creative talent for males and females, although females rarely won top prizes.  Helene Johnson, a Harlem Renaissance poet whose work is now resurfacing, submitted “Trees at Night” and won the eighth honorable mention.  In the same contest, Langston Hughes won first prize for his “Weary Blues” poem and second went to Countee Cullen for “To One Who SAid Me Nay.”  Zora Neale Hurston won second prize for her “Spunk” short story, next to John Mathers’ first place for “The Fog” (Wintz,   ).

           Helene Johnson’s poems are vibrant and vivid, yet unoffensive.  Her “Magula” addresses the view of black women, far-removed from that of “dependable mammies to one of being lascivious, sexually insatiable and unsafe near any household.”  The “poetic guide,” by imploring Magula to “realize the beauty of her flowers and the passionate wonder of her forest, is rejecting socially imposed definition anfd constraints for balck female sexuality and personhood” (This Waiting for My Love: Mitchell, 16).  Comparing Johnson’s “Magula” and others to Claude McKay’s “Outcast,” “Africa,” “Sukee River,” “Tiger,” and “Flame-Heart,” a noticeable difference is apparent.  Johnson’s poems reflect a struggle with the dominant culture over racial castes, while also implying a personal, internal struggle that most likely reflects a struggle over gender issues in white and black culture.  McKay’s writings easily portray a longing for home and protests against racial discrimination, but there are no “hidden secrets.”  (McKay, 13, 17, 40, 47).

           Another poet who was a key player of the era was James Weldon Johnson.  Johnson’s “Complete Poems” includes sermons and folksy verse.  Included are some poems of love and romance.  One poem, “Girl of Fifteen,” describes the writer’s fascination with a fifteen-year-old girl who passes his window daily. The writer, an fifty-five-year-old man, watches her from behind a curtain and longs for her.  This poem, and some others, explains James Weldon Johnson’s agreement with other Harlem Renaissance leaders in their suppression of black women artists.  This poem highlights the psychological relegation of a woman’s identity to correspond with sexual desires.  It appears that Johnson shared this perception with other patricians of the era and acted on it -- with acts of commission and omission -- while in leadership of the Harlem Renaissance literary movement (Complete Poems: Johnson, 73).

          Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance suffered much and suffered long, especially in the thwarting of their creative exploits by those whom they loved most -- their own community.  But the love endeared to their projects is empowering them, although once hidden, to rise and be acknowledged..