Freedom Facts and Firsts. Jessie Carney Smith
audience awareness and artistic responsibility in her writing, while her commitment to the plight of black Americans remained firm. Following her experience at the conference, Brooks began to overtly support the black community, consciously deciding to use the term “black.” She published her book of poems In the Mecca (1968). In Chicago, she started a workshop called the Blackstone Rangers, began mentoring young black writers, and supported black publishers. Brooks began publishing her works with publisher Dudley Randall’s Broadside Press, which was committed to publishing young black poets; later, editor and publisher Haki Madhubuti also brought out her works.
Helen R. Houston
Brown, Sterling Allen (1901–1989)
As a civil rights activist Sterling Allen Brown took “the pen is mightier than the sword” approach to fight for racial equality. Brown worked with the likes of such Harlem Renaissance notables as W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Walter White in the NAACP and served on its advisory board. As a journalist, he reported on social and racial issues of the day in such publications as Crisis, Opportunity, and Phylon. He addressed, among other topics, the effects of World War II following the Great Depression, the unethical restrictions of Jim Crow, the inferiority of black schools, and the political and social activities of the black church. Characteristic of Brown’s writing as a journalist was his personal commentary. He often appealed to the conscience of white America relative to the quest to promote democracy: “If America is to indoctrinate the rest of the world with democracy, it is logical to expect that the American Negro will share it at home…. [S]egregation must be abolished before there will be true democracy at home.” Brown is numbered among the “race men” of his day, and was a participant in the New Negro Movement–black intellectuals who were motivated by race consciousness and pride to advocate and demonstrate the superiority of black achievement. As national editor of Negro Affairs (1936–1940) for the Federal Writers Project, Brown brilliantly showcased the achievements and contributions of black people in America.
Gwendolyn Brooks (AP Photo).
Helen R. Houston
Hansberry, Lorraine (1930–1965)
Although Lorraine Hansberry had a short life, her fight for black civil rights and against racism and discrimination were reflected in her work and left a lasting impression on the overall struggle of blacks in America. Hansberry was confronted with racism early in her life. Her family moved to a white neighborhood when she was only eight years old. It was there that she experienced the physical violence and hatred associated with white supremacy and segregationist ideas. Because of this attack on her family, her father filed an anti-segregation case that was heard by the Illinois Supreme Court. In spite of Hansberry’s victory in the court case, they were continually subjected to a hostile environment. This experience was the basis for Hansberry’s 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun.
The play is about a black family in Chicago who deals with their own dreams and hopes against a barrier of racism when they choose to buy a home and move to a white suburb. The play opened in 1959 and was a huge success; it brought attention to Hansberry as the first female African American playwright whose work was produced on Broadway. The play was later produced as a film in 1961. The Civil Rights Movement at this time had become intense, and Hansberry began to take a more active role in it. She was a field organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and helped plan fund raising events for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other organizations.
Even though she was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas in 1963, Hansberry continued to lend her support to the movement. She joined with artists such as James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, and Lena Horne in a rally to raise funds for the SNCC. She left her sickbed to give a speech to the winners of the United Negro College Fund and attended a town hall debate challenging whites’ criticism of the militant direction of the Civil Rights Movement. Hansberry died in 1965 at the young age to of 34, but her contribution to the movement offered a clear reflection of the challenges of being black in America.
Lean’tin L. Bracks
Hughes became a voice in the Harlem Renaissance … that called for race pride and artistic independence.
Hughes, James Langston (1902–1967)
Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri, and died May 22, 1967, in New York City. Hughes’s body of work, written in various genres, led to his being the most versatile African American writer of his day. Using free verse, black music, dialect, and prose, Hughes depicted black pride and life in America with candor, humor, and deceptively simple language. Through his writing and creation of characters, he pointed out the injustices in society and sought to effect social change and fair treatment for all people. His work is devoted to the grass-roots characters in both urban and rural America.
In the 1920s, Hughes became a voice in the Harlem Renaissance, one which espoused the manifesto of the period that called for race pride and artistic independence. In the 1930s, he wrote some leftist poetry that seemed pessimistic about America, such as Good Morning Revolution (1937), which would cause him trouble during U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy’s hunt for American communist sympathizers. The catalyst for his stance was his break with his patron, Charlotte Osgood Mason, and the plight of and American response to the Scottsboro Boys, nine youths accused of raping two white women. One of the works that addresses the racial oppression in this case is Scottsboro Unlimited: A One Act Play, which was later published in Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play (1932).
In the 1940s, Hughes supported World War II, even though he understood whites were fighting for liberty abroad; but blacks were fighting for the same liberty in America, and he knew the fates of blacks and whites were interdependent. He created his feisty female character, Madam Alberta K. Johnson, who appeared in a number of his poems following the Harlem Riots of 1943. He encouraged black Americans to support the war and the government to provide the freedoms being fought for abroad to the citizens at home. Hughes’s endorsement was voiced in a weekly column in The Chicago Defender through his character Jesse B. Semple (Simple). This character, often called an Everyman, needed encouragement to support the war; he develops into a character Hughes uses to explore the ironies of American black life and to emphasize both black race pride and nationalism. Through Simple, Hughes addressed the issues of the Civil Rights Movement in his columns and in his third collection of columns, Simple Stakes a Claim (1957) in which his claim to democracy is asserted.
Hughes supported the NAACP and the Urban League and worked openly to support civil rights efforts. He wrote pamphlets, such as Freedom’s Plow (1943) and Jim Crow’s Last Stand (1943) for the Civil Rights Movement. He participated in the rally for the March on Washington; followed assiduously the violence in the South and applauded the fearlessness of the student activists; attacked segregation through Simple; backed civil rights groups; and supported the rights of Louis Armstrong to vent his anger at events. However, he never became physically involved in the fight and viewed the civil rights struggle from a distance. With the onset of the Black Arts Movement, Hughes continued to be politically involved and nationalistic in his writing, but he rejected the language, style, and radical blackness of the movement. Consequently, he was attacked by younger black writers for not being true to his race.
Helen R. Houston
Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938)
James William Johnson was the second child of James and Helen Louise Johnson. Born June 17, 1871, in Jacksonville, Florida, he developed the beliefs of a free thinker early; later in life, he changed his middle name to Weldon. James Weldon Johnson offered a unique