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Forgotten Pages: Black Literary Magazines in the 1920s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Abby Ann Arthur Johnson  and
Ronald M. Johnson
Abby Ann Arthur Johnson
Affiliation:
Howard University
Ronald M. Johnson
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
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Extract

Towards the end of his life, Langston Hughes wrote an article about Harlem during the 1920s. In his narration, he paused fondly over memories of Sugar Hill. At 409 Edgecombe, the address of the ‘tallest apartment house’ on the hill, lived Walter and Gladys White, who gave frequent parties for their friends; Aaron and Alta Douglas, who ‘ always had a bottle of ginger ale in the ice box for those who brought along refreshments’ Elmer Anderson Carter, who succeeded Charles S. Johnson to the editorship of Opportunity; and actor Ivan Sharpe and his wife Evie. Just below the hill, in the Dunbar Apartments, lived W. E. B. Du Bois as well as E. Simms Campbell, the cartoonist. Nearby was Dan Burley, a black journalist and a boogie-woogie piano player. Hughes recalled the excitement of those days: ‘Artists and writers were always running into each other on Sugar Hill and talking over their problems and wondering how they could get’ fellowships and grants from benevolent organizations. One evening, Hughes and six of his compatriots gathered in the Aaron Douglas apartment and decided to start a literary magazine,‘the better to express ourselves freely and independently – without interference from old heads, white or Negro.’ From that initial discussion at 409 Edgecombe came Fire in its one and only issue of November 1926. Two years later, some of the same persons began another literary magazine, this time called Harlem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , December 1974 , pp. 363 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

1 ’The Twenties: Harlem and Its Negritude’, African Forum, I (Spring, 1966), 18–19.Google Scholar

2 New York: Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 29.

3 Lacy, Leslie A., Cheer the Lonesome Traveler (New York: Dial Press, 1970), p. 74Google Scholar; Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, ’Criteria of Negro Art’, 32 (October 1926), 296Google Scholar; Huggins, , p. 29.Google Scholar

4 Huggins, , pp. 169, 240–1Google Scholar. John W. Blassingame called the Huggins study ‘hardly definitive’, saying that Harlem Renaissance ‘ignores the internal dynamics of the black community which fostered and nurtured the movement’. Blassingame concluded that there still exists undiscovered ‘a different kind of renaissance than that which Huggins found’. See Blassingame, John W., ‘The Afro-Americans: Mythology to Reality’, in The Reinterpretation of American History and Culture, ed. Cartwright, William H. and Watson, Richard L. Jr, (Washington, D.C.: National Council for the Social Studies, 1973), p. 69.Google Scholar

5 With the exception of the last two numbers of Black Opals, the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center of Howard University holds copies of the extant issues of these journals. Our thanks go to the Research Center for the use of these increasingly rare copies.

6 ‘Foreword: Greeting’, Stylus, 1 (May 1921), 6Google Scholar; ‘The Stylus’, Howard University Record, 19 (May 1925), 372Google Scholar; ‘Visions of the Dawn’, Stylus (June 1934), p. 2Google Scholar. The issues of Stylus following May 1921 were assigned neither a volume nor a number.

7 ‘Foreword: Greeting’, Stylus, 1 (May 1911), 6.Google Scholar

8 Dust Tracks On A Road (Philadelphia: Arno Press, 1969), pp. 175–6Google Scholar; The Big Sea (New York: Hill and Wang, 1963), p. 218Google Scholar. Shortly before his death, Johnson reflected on the role that he, as editor of Opportunity, had played in ‘providing an outlet for young Negro writers and scholars whose work was not acceptable to other established media because it could not be believed to be of standard quality despite the superior quality of much of it’. See Johnson, Charles S., ‘The Negro Renaissance and Its Significance’, in The New Negro Thirty Years Afterward, ed. Logan, Rayford W., Holmes, Eugene C. and Edwards, G. Franklin (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1955), p. 85.Google Scholar

9 ‘The Twenties’, pp. 19–20Google Scholar, The Big Sea, pp. 235–7Google Scholar; Fire 1 (November 1926).Google Scholar

10 Fire, pp. i, 15, 48, 6, 25, 41, 38.Google Scholar

11 ‘Flame From The Dark Tower’, Fire, pp. 16, 17, 20, 23.Google Scholar

12 ‘A Challenge To The Negro’, Bookman, 64 (November 1926), 258–9.Google Scholar

13 ‘The Twenties’, pp. 19–20Google Scholar; The Big Sea, p. 237Google Scholar.

14 Crisis, 33 (January 1927), 158.Google Scholar

15 Opportunity, 5 (January 1927). 25.Google Scholar

16 The Big Sea, p. 238.Google Scholar

17 ‘Our Contributors’, Harlem, 1 (November 1928), 21–2.Google Scholar

18 ‘Editorial’, Harlem, pp. 21–2.Google Scholar

19 Harlem, pp. 12, 5–7, 45.Google Scholar

20 New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1966, pp. 169–70.

21 New York: Macaulay Company, 1932, pp. 186–7, 180

22 Black Opals, I (Spring 1927)Google Scholar, inside back cover, front page, 3.

23 ‘Quicksand’, Black Opals, 1 (June 1928), 19.Google Scholar

24 ‘Ebony Flute’, 6 (February 1928), 56Google Scholar; ‘The Dark Tower’, 5 (June 1927), 180.Google Scholar

25 The Saturday Evening Quill, I (June 1928), inside back coverGoogle Scholar; Infants of the Spring, p. 231.Google Scholar

26 Quill, I (June 1928), front pageGoogle Scholar; ‘Abraham Lincoln’, Quill, 1 (June 1928), 34.Google Scholar

27 ‘Group Tactics And Ideals’, The Messenger, 8 (December 1926), 361Google Scholar. See Gordon's comments also in ‘The Contest Winners’, Opportunity, 5 (July 1927), 204.Google Scholar

28 ‘A Word in Closing’, Quill, 1 (June 1928), 72.Google Scholar

29 ‘The Negro's Literary Tradition’, Quill, I (June 1930), 6, 8.Google Scholar

30 ‘Excerpts from Comments on the First Number of The Saturday Evening Quill,’ 1 (April 1929)Google Scholar, inside front cover; ‘Excerpts from Comments on the Previous Numbers of the Saturday Evening Quill’, 1 June (1930), inside front coverGoogle Scholar; Du Bois, W. E. B., ‘The Browsing Reader’, 35 (September 1928), 301.Google Scholar

31 In the years following, Stylus appeared in 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938 and 1941, which marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the organization and the last number of the journal.

32 Stylus (June 1929), front page, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

33 ‘The Twenties’, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

34 Abby Johnson wishes to acknowledge the support she has received from the Faculty Research Program at Howard University.