Famous African
American Writers
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes was one of
the most important writers
and thinkers of the Harlem
Renaissance, which was the
African American artistic
movement in the 1920s that
celebrated black life and
culture. Hughes's creative
genius was influenced by his
life in New York City's
Harlem, a primarily African
American neighborhood.
Langston Hughes
His literary works helped
shape American literature and
politics. Hughes, like others
active in the Harlem
Renaissance, had a strong
sense of racial pride. Through
his poetry, novels, plays,
essays, and children's books,
he promoted equality,
condemned racism and
injustice, and celebrated
African American culture,
humor, and spirituality.
Zora Neale Hurston
A novelist, folklorist, and
anthropologist, Zora Neale
Hurston was the
prototypical authority on
black culture from the
Harlem Renaissance.
She first gained attention
with her short stories such
as "John Redding Goes to
Sea" and "Spunk" which
appeared in black literary
magazines.
Zora Neale Hurston
After several years of anthropological research financed
through grants and fellowships, Zora Neale Hurston's first
novel Jonah's Gourd Vine was published in 1934 to critical
success. In 1935, her book Mules and Men, which
investigated voodoo practices in black communities in
Florida and New Orleans, also brought her kudos. The year
1937 saw the publication of what is considered Hurston's
greatest novel Their Eyes Watching God. And the following
year her travelogue and study of Caribbean voodoo Tell My
Horse was published. It received mixed reviews, as did her
1939 novel Moses, Man of the Mountain. Her autobiography
Dust Tracks on a Road was a commercial success in 1942,
despite its overall absurdness, and her final novel Seraph
on the Suwanee, published in 1948, was a critical failure.
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston was a utopian, who
held that black Americans could attain
sovereignty from white American society
and all its bigotry, as proven by her
hometown of Eatonville. Never in her
works did she address the issue of
racism of whites toward blacks, and as
this became a nascent theme among
black writers in the post World War II ear
of civil rights, Hurston's literary influence
faded. She further scathed her own
reputation by railing the civil rights
movement and supporting
ultraconservative politicians. She died in
poverty and obscurity.
Alice Dunbar-Nelson
Alice Ruth Moore was born on
July 19, 1875 in New Orleans.
Dunbar-Nelson graduated from
a 2-year teacher training
program at Straight College,
now Dillard University. She later
studied at Cornell University,
Columbia University , and the
University of Pennsylvania
where she specialized in
psychology and English
educational testing.
Alice Dunbar-Nelson
On March 6, 1898 she married the celebrated poet
Paul Laurence Dunbar after a courtship by
correspondence, and moved to Washington, DC.
They separated in 1902. Her final marriage, one
which lasted until her death, was to Robert J. Nelson,
a journalist, in 1916. Dunbar-Nelson, who was very
light complexioned, often passed for white, and was
sometimes frustrated in her relations with darkerskinned African Americans because of it. A complex
woman who was a poet, journalist, playwright, and
unpublished novelist, Alice engaged in intimate
relationships with both men and women.
Alice Dunbar-Nelson
During her life, Alice was a
columnist for the Pittsburgh
Courier and the Washington
Eagle. From 1921 to 1931,
Dunbar-Nelson kept a diary which
chronicles her life and contains
portraits of such friends and
associates as Langston Hughes,
James Weldon Johnson, Georgia
Douglas Johnson, W.E.B. DuBois,
and Mary McLeod Bethune. Alice
Dunbar-Nelson died on
September 18, 1935 of heart
failure.
Countee Cullen
Countee Cullen won more
major literary prizes than
any other black writer of the
1920s. On March 30, 1903
Countee Cullen, was born.
His grandmother raised him
until she died. When she
passed away, a couple by
the name of Reverend
Frederick A. and Carolyn
Belle (Mitchell) Cullen
adopted him.
Countee Cullen
Cullen attended DeWitt Clinton High School (19181921). He edited the school's newspaper, assisted in
editing the literary magazine, Magpie, and began to write
poetry that achieved notice. Cullen was a very
intelligent individual. He went to school at New York
University (1921-1925), which is where he wrote many
of his poems for his book Color (1925), Copper Sun
(1927), and The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927). After
graduating from NYU he attend Harvard University
(1925-1927). He graduated from Harvard with a masters
in French and English.
Countee Cullen
On April 9,1928 he married Yolande Dubois at the
Salem Methodist Church in Harlem. A teacher in Baltimore,
Yolande was the only child of W.E.B. Dubois, the founder
and editor of the NAACP publication, The Crisis. After a
brief honeymoon the couple went to France and Cullen
pursued his Guggenheim research. A third volume of
poetry, The Ballad of the Brown Girl, was published in
1928 and a fourth, The Black Christ and Other Poems,
came the following year.Cullen liked to write about his
culture. His use of racial themes in his verse was striking
at the time. His material was never alike and every poem
he wrote had a different feel to it.
Countee Cullen
In 1934, Cullen began
teaching English and
French at Frederick
Douglass Junior High
School on West 140th
Street in Harlem. Cullen
died on January 9,1946 at
the age of 42 from
complications resulting
from high blood
pressure.
Jessie R. Fauset
Jessie Redmon Fauset was a
novelist, poet, and editor during
the Harlem Renaissance period.
Fauset was born in
Fredericksville, New Jersey. Her
father was a minister and her
mother died when she was a
child. In 1905, Fauset graduated
from Cornell University, and
began working as a teacher in
Washington, D.C.
Jessie R. Fauset
In 1919, she received her master’s from the University of
Pennsylvania. After graduating Fauset moved to New York
where she served as the literary editor for the NAACP’s
magazine, The Crisis. She published works written by such
writers as Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes,
and Claude McKay. She also edited the children’s periodical,
The Brownies’. In 1926, she left The Crisis, and began
teaching in New York City schools. Fauset wrote four novels,
There is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun: A Novel Without a
Moral (1928), The Chinaberry Tree: A Novel of American Life
(1931), an Comedy American Style (1933).
Claude McKay
Claude McKay is regarded as
one of the first significant
writers of the Harlem
Renaissance. Born in
Jamaica, he arrived in the
United States in 1912 at the
age of 21 and had already
gained recognition as a poet
with his book Songs of
Jamaica, published in 1911.
Claude McKay
He attended Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State University,
then traveled to New York and participated in the literary
movements there, both in Harlem and in Greenwich Village.
His sonnet, "If We Must Die," is his most popular poem. He
earned his living as a porter on the railroad and was a
resident of Harlem. His book of poems, Harlem Shadows,
published in 1922, was a precursor to the Harlem
Renaissance. He also became associate editor of The
Liberator, a socialist magazine of art and literature. Working
closely with Max Eastman, he traveled to Moscow in 1923 in
sympathy with the Bolshevik Revolution and became a sort
of national hero there.
Claude McKay
Other books by Claude
McKay include Banjo,
Harlem: Negro
Metropolis, and his
autobiography, A Long
Way From Home. Home
to Harlem, published in
the spring of 1928,
became the first novel by
a Harlem writer to reach
the bestseller list.
Famous African
American
Musicians
The Cotton Club
The Apollo
Theater
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong is the most important figure
in jazz history. He played innovative,
powerful, yet technically brilliant solos that
took jazz from a fun "dance" music to an art
form. With his divine and unmistakable
sound, he more-or-less invented the jazz
solo, as well as the concept of "swing."
Louis Armstrong
He took was born in New Orleans in 1901. He was raised
in the tough part of town. On New Year's Eve, 1912, he
fired his father's gun in celebration and was arrested and
sent to the Colored Waifs' Home. There, he quickly
excelled in music and was promoted to
bugler. Afterwards, he played around town and on
riverboats. He joined his idol, King Oliver. In 1922, two
years after Oliver left for Chicago, he summoned
Armstrong to join him and he did. In Chicago, they
became the top group, and in the group, Armstrong met
his second wife, pianist Lil Hardin. With Hardin's urging,
he eventually left Chicago and joined Fletcher
Henderson's orchestra in New York. There, he continued
influencing countless musicians.
Louis Armstrong
He returned to Chicago in the late 1920s and recorded a
series of records for $50 a side. These recordings, the
Hot Fives & Sevens, became revered and thoroughly
studied by jazz musicians and enthusiasts through the
ages. During the timeframe of these recordings,
Armstrong started working with Earl Hines, a pianist who
was Armstrong's counterpart on piano. According to
legend, while Armstrong was singing in the studio, his
music fell off the stand. Armstrong looked at the producer
in the booth, who signaled for him to continue, so he
started "singing" a solo with nonsensical phrases. This is
the supposed birth of "scat singing" which Armstrong
invented and which has become a standard part of jazz
singing.
Louis Armstrong
In the 1930s, Satchmo (a nickname that came from the
word "Satchelmouth") fronted a big band and toured
the United States and Europe. His popularity
increased even more as he appeared in films, such as
Pennies from Heaven with Bing Crosby. During the
1940s, he gave up the big band in favor of a smaller
group called the All-Stars. He toured the world and
rose to the top of the pop charts with his recordings
of What a Wonderful World and Hello, Dolly. Louis
Armstrong died of hart trouble in 1971. More than
20,000 came to pay respects and his funeral was
televised.
Duke Ellington
Born 29 April 1899 in
Washington DC,
composer, bandleader,
and pianist Edward
Kennedy ("Duke")
Ellington was recognized
in his lifetime as one of
the greatest jazz
composers and
performers.
Duke Ellington
Nicknamed "Duke" by a boyhood friend who admired his
regal air, the name stuck. A genius for instrumental
combinations, improvisation, and jazz arranging brought the
world the unique "Ellington" sound that found consummate
expression in works like "Mood Indigo," "Sophisticated
Lady," and the symphonic suites Black, Brown, and Beige
(which he subtitled "a Tone Parallel to the History of the
Negro in America") and Harlem ("a Tone Parallel to
Harlem").
Duke Ellington
Beginning keyboard studies at the age of seven, Ellington's
earliest influences were the ragtime pianists. He taught
himself harmony at the piano and at 17, made his
professional debut. Encouraged by Fats Waller, he moved to
New York in 1923 and, during the formative Cotton Club
years, experimented with and developed the style that would
quickly bring him worldwide success and recognition.
Ellington would be among the first to focus on musical form
and composition in jazz using ternary forms and "call-andresponse" techniques in works like Concerto for Cootie
(known in its familiar vocal version as Do Nothin' till You
Hear from Me) and Cotton Tail and classic symphonic
devices in his orchestral suites. In this respect, he would
influence the likes of Monk, Mingus, and Evans.
Duke Ellington
Among Ellington's many
honors and awards were
honorary doctorates from
Howard and Yale
Universities, membership
in the American Institute
of Arts and Letters,
election as the first jazz
musician member of the
Royal Music Academy in
Stockholm, and the
Presidential Medal of
Freedom.
Cab Calloway
Cab Callway (born Cabell
Calloway III) is one of the
greatest Jazz performers.
In the 1920's, Cab worked
with a band called The
Alabamians while studying
law at Chicago's Crane
College. Cab was the
Master of Ceremonies and
a singer. He later joined
The Missourians which
changed its name to Cab
Calloway and His
Orchestra.
Cab Calloway
His band set trends and introduced a whole new vocabulary
as they toured.
In 1930, he was hired to replace Duke Ellington at the
exclusive Cotton Club in Harlem. His most famous song,
Minnie the Moocher, was written in 1931 and sold over
1,000,000 copies. He was also known for the tunes Are You
Hip To That Jive and Hi-De-Ho Man. His career including
singing, songwriting, band leader and actor.
The band broke up in the 1940's when bad financial decisions
(gambling problems) caught up with Cab. He would go on to
appear on Broadway including an all-black Hello Dolly. In
1980, a new generation was introduced to 73-year-old Cab by
way of the film The Blues Brothers.
Count Basie
Basie was born in Red
Bank, NJ to Harvey Lee
Basie, and Lillian Ann
Childs. Basie toured the
T.O.B.A. vaudville circuit
starting in 1924 as a
soloist and accompanist
to blues singers. His
touring took him to
Kansas City MO where
he met many jazz
musicians in the area.
Count Basie
In 1928 he joined Walter Page's Blue Devils, and the
following year became the pianist with the Bennie
Moten band based in Kansas City. After Moten died in
1935, Basie became leader and started referring to
himself as "Count Basie". At the end of 1936 he
moved his band to New York City where the Count
Basie Orchestra remained until 1950. The big band
era appeared to be at an end, but Basie reformed his
as a 16-piece orchestra in 1952. Basie remained
faithful to the Kansas City jazz style and helped keep
jazz alive with his distinctive piano playing. Basie’s
music was characterized by his trademark "jumping"
beat and the contrapuntal accents of his own piano.
Famous African
American Singers
Rose McClendon
From Greenville, North
Carolina, her name at birth
was Rosalie Virginia Scott.
She was the daughter of
Sandy and Lena JenkinsScott. Around 1890, the
family moved to New York
City where young Rosalie
attended public schools.
Rose McClendon
She studied acting at the American Academy of
Dramatic Arts in New York City, made her stage
debut in 1919, appeared in Deep River and In
Abraham's Bosom (both 1926), in Langston
Hughes' Mulatto, and in the original production of
Porgy and Bess (both 1935). That same year,
McClendon was a co-founder of the Negro
People's Theatre. Rose McClendon died in 1936.
In 1946, Carl Van Vechten established the Rose
McClendon Memorial Collection at Howard
University, a collection of one hundred photographs
of prominent African-American artists and writers.
Florence Mills
Florence Mills was one of the
most acclaimed entertainers
of the 1920s, and she used
her status as a performer to
comment on the nation's racial
ills. Mills first appeared in
"Shuffle Along," a work written,
directed and acted entirely by
African-Americans. Mills was
an international success,
starring in Paris and London.
Florence Mills
Upon her return to New York, she was offered a
major role in the "Ziegfeld Follies," which Mills turned
down in order to participate in an all-Black show.
Mills hoped that her "own success makes people
think better of other colored folk," and she was a
major contributor to the growth of the Harlem
Renaissance. Following an illness, she died in New
York City on November 1, 1927. Thousands
attended her funeral at the Mother Zion A.M.E.
Church in Harlem and more than 150,000 people
crowded Harlem's streets in tribute, the largest
funeral in its history.
Bessie Smith
Known as the "Empress of
the Blues," Bessie Smith was
born in Chattanooga, Tenn.
on April. 15, 1894 and died
Sept. 26, 1937. She was the
most successful female blues
singer of the 1920s. Smith
began her career as a singer
in honky-tonks and tent
shows, but in 1923 went to
New York for her first
recording session.
Bessie Smith
She was an immediate sensation, and during the succeeding
decade she recorded and toured extensively. She was hearty,
forthright, and totally uninhibited in her performance as well as
in her life. Because of her impeccable rhythmic sense and her
ability to improvise around the structural confines of the blues,
Gunther Schuller, in his book Early Jazz, calls her the first
important jazz singer. The circumstances of her death, in an
automobile accident in Mississippi, were the subject of a play
by Edward Albee (The Death of Bessie Smith, 1960). Smith
was driven miles to a black hospital when she was critically ill
despite the nearness of a whites-only hospital. This
disgraceful decision to deny treatment at the nearest hospital
is believed by many to have resulted in her death. Her black
lesbian circle included the equally legendary Ma Rainey and
the male impersonator Gladys Fergusson.
Bille Holliday
Billie "Lady Day" Holiday
was born in Baltimore in
1915. She endured a hard
childhood -- her musician
father left the family early,
and her mother wasn't able
to keep her consistently
which resulted in Billie often
being put in care or
relatives who abused her.
Bille Holliday
She was raped at age 11 and grew up in poverty. She
sums it up best in the first line of her famous
autobiography Lady Sings the Blues, "Mom and Pop were
just a couple of kids when they got married. He was
eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three.“ In 1929, she
moved to New York, where she worked as a maid and then
as a teenage prostitute. According to legend, in 1930 (at
the age of 15), to keep her mother from being evicted, she
sang Body and Soul and reduced the audience to
tears. She began singing in bars and restaurants. Four
years later, she made her first record with Benny
Goodman. In 1935, she got her big breakthrough when
she recorded What a Little Moonlight Can Do, and Miss
Brown to You.
Bille Holliday
She landed her own recording contract, and while the
songs given to her were run-of-the-mill (versus the
ones saved for the top white singers), she made the
songs classics because of her singing ability. She
poured her heart and soul into every song and her
ability to interpret a song and make you feel it was
unheard of. Her recording career is divided into 3
periods. The first is the aforementioned period in the
1930s, recorded with Columbia, marked by her time
with Wilson, Goodman, and Young. Her music was
made for jukeboxes, but she turned them into jazz
classics.
Bille Holliday
Her popularity never matched her artistic success, but
she was widely played on Armed Forces Radio during
World War II. From this period came the anti-racism
song Strange Fruit, in which she paints a terrifying picture
of lynched black bodies hanging from trees. The lyrics of
the song were adapted from a poem by Louis Allen. The
next period is her Decca (record company) years in the
Fourties, marked by recordings with string orchestra
accompaniment. This period featured Loverman as well
as her self-written classics Don't Explain, and God Bless
the Child. In late 1947, she was arrested on drug
charges and spent 18 months in a federal reformatory.
Bille Holliday
Unlike her singing, in life, her instincts were far from
perfect. She fell in love with men who stole money
from her, abused her, and introduced her to
heroin. When she got out of prison, she went back to
heroin. By the Fifties, the third period, her voice was
going her voice was more croaky, and she sometimes
missed notes, but her ability to interpret songs was
enhanced. It isn't known if misery, drugs, or drink (or
all three) killed her, but in an unbearable macabre
touch, she was arrested on narcotics charges while on
her death bed in 1959.
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters was one of the
most popular AfricanAmerican singers and
actresses of the 1920s. She
moved to New York in 1919
after touring in vaudeville
shows as a singer and a
dancer. She made her
recording debut in 1921 on
Cardinal records with “The
New York Glide" and “At the
New Jump Steady”.
Ethel Waters
She performed in a number of musical revues
throughout the rest of the decade and appeared
a couple of films, including "Check and Double
Check" with Amos 'n' Andy and Duke Ellington.
By the end of the 1930s she was a big star on
Broadway. In 1949, she was nominated for an
Oscar for best supporting actress in the film
"Pinky", and the next year she won the New
York Drama Critics Award for best actress.
Waters got religion in the late Fifties and
performed and toured with evangelist Billy
Graham until her death in 1977.
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was
born in St. Louis,
Missouri. She left school
early for the stage, and
was performing
professionally at the age
of 13. She performed on
Broadway in 1922
("Shuffle Along") and
was a star by 1924
("Chocolate Dandies").
Josephine Baker
In 1925 she went to Paris, and became famous for her
performances in the Revue Negre on the stage of the Theatre
des Champs-Elysees. Even critics who gave the show
negative reviews thought highly of Baker's performance. She
performed in the Folies Bergere, and during the 1926-27
season she was doing her popular Banana Dance. Finding
more acceptance as a "colored" performer in France then she
had in the United States, she stayed in Paris. Baker is
considered to be one of the most sensual performers of all
times. She served with the French Red Cross during WWII.
With the fall of France in 1940 she became active in the
resistance movement. Using her career as a cover she
became an intelligence agent. In 1961 she received the
Legion d'Honneur for her efforts from Charles deGaulle.
Josephine Baker
Baker's celebrity allowed her to travel much more freely. She
once carried military intelligence reports out of France to
Portugal, written in invisible ink on her sheet music. She also
used her charm to persuade foreign consulates to process
visas for associates, some of who traveled with her as a cover.
She was awarded the Croix de Guerre, and received a Medal
of the Resistance in 1946. She married 4 times, and adopted
12 children of different races ... her "Rainbow Tribe". She
often combined performance with civil rights activism, refusing
to perform in clubs that would not permit an integrated
audience. Her performances, which usually included songs in
a number of languages, can be viewed as an extension of her
personal philosophy and belief in racial harmony. At 69 she
died quietly, in her sleep, of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Famous African
American Artists
Aaron Douglas
The leading painter and
illustrator of the Harlem
Renaissance, Aaron Douglas
was born in Topeka, Kansas.
He received B.A. degrees
from the University of
Nebraska in 1922 and from
the University of Kansas in
1923. After working briefly as
a high school teacher in
Kansas City, Douglas moved
to New York and earned an
M.F.A. from Columbia
University Teachers College.
Aaron Douglas
In 1928-29, he studied in
Paris on a grant from the
Barnes Foundation. In
1937 Douglas founded
the art department of Fisk
University in Nashville,
Tenn., and served as its
chair until 1966,. Douglas
explored African themes
and sought to make his
cultural heritage relevant
to contemporary AfricanAmerican experience.
Aaron Douglas
For this, he won critical
praise and attention, and
was dubbed the father of
black American art. " His
illustrations appeared with
Reiss's in the 1925 book,
The New Negro; this
volume is said to have
played an important role in
giving an identity to the
literary circle of the Harlem
Renaissance.
Aaron Douglas
As a member of the
Renaissance circle, Douglas
illustrated books by Countee
Cullen, Langston Hughes,
and James Weldon Johnson.,
Douglas and his wife, Alta,
lived on Strivers' Row at 227
West 139th Street in the
1920s. They were popular
hosts to Harlem's cultural
elite. Aaron Douglas lived in
Nashville after his retirement
from Fisk University in 1966.
Augusta Savage
Augusta Savage was born on
February 29, 1892 in Green
Cove Springs, Florida. Augusta
knew at an early age that she
wanted to become a sculptor. At
a 1919 county fair, Savage was
given an award for a group of
her sculptures and was inspired
to become a professional artist.
In 1921, Augusta Savage moved
to New York believing that the
North would provide her with the
artistic opportunity she desired;
a belief shared by many blacks.
Augusta Savage
Most of Savage's sculptures,
reflect an aspect of AfricanAmerican culture. A bust of
her nephew entitled Gamin
won Augusta Savage the
Julius Rosenwald Fellowship
in 1929 and the opportunity
to study in Paris for one year.
After returning home from
Europe, Savage shared her
art with the Harlem
community through teaching.
Augusta Savage
In 1932, Augusta
established the Savage
Studio of Arts and Crafts at
163 West 143rd Street.
Savage used this studio as
a way to provide adults with
art education. In 1937, she
became the first director of
the Harlem Community Arts
Center, an institution funded
by the Works Progress
Administration.
Augusta Savage
After 1945, Augusta
Savage reduced the
amount of sculpting she
did and fell into seclusion.
Though no longer in the
spotlight, Savage
continued to teach
sculpting and other art to
both children and adults
throughout New York.
Hale Woodruff
Hale Woodruff was born
in Cairo, Illinois. He
received his early art
training at the John
Herron Art Institute in
Indianapolis and the
Fogg Art Museum of
Harvard University. In
1927 he received the
Harmon Foundation
Award of one hundred
dollars and went to Paris.
Hale Woodruff
He was Art Director at Atlanta University from
1931 to 1946 and founded the Annual Atlanta
University Art Exhibits, historically one of the
most important contributions to the development
of African American art in this country.
Hale Woodruff
During the years in Atlanta, Woodruff spent a
summer (1936) in Mexico, studying mural
painting with Diego Rivera. In 1945, he became
a teacher at New York University. He is
especially noted for his murals in the Savery
Library at Talladega College, Alabama. The
murals tell two stories. The first recounts an
uprising of slaves on the slave ship Amistad,
the second recounts the history of Talladega
College from its founding in 1867 to the present.
In 1967, the New York University alumni
Association named him "Teacher of the Year."
Hale Woodruff