First Hand Accounts of the Dinner that Launched the Harlem Renaissance

From Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, May, 1924

The Debut of the Younger School of Negro Writers

Interest among the literati of New York in the emerging group of younger Negro writers found an expression in a recent meeting of the Writers’ Guild, an informal group whose membership includes Countee Cullen, Eric Walrond, Langston Hughes, Jessie Fauset, Gwendolyn Bennett, Harold Jackson, Regina Anderson, and a few others. The occasion was a “coming out party,” at the Civic Club, on March 21 – a date selected around the appearance of the novel “There is Confusion” by Jessie Fauset.  The responses to the invitations sent out were immediate and enthusiastic and the few regrets that came in were genuine.

Although there was no formal, prearranged program, the occasion provoked a surprising spontaneity of expression both from the members of the writers’ group and from the distinguished visitors present.

A brief interpretation of the object of the Guild was given by Charles S. Johnson, Editor of Opportunity, who introduced Alain Locke, virtual dean of the movement, who had been selected to act as Master of Ceremonies and to interpret the new currents manifest in the literature of this younger school.  Alain Locke has been one of the most resolute stimulators of this group, and although he has been writing longer than most of them, he is distinctly a part of the movement.  One excerpt reflects the tenor of his remarks. He said: :They sense within their group – meaning the Negro group – a spiritual wealth which if they can properly expound will be ample for a new judgment and re-appraisal of the race.”

Horace Liveright, publisher, told about the difficulties, even yet, of marketing books of admitted merit. The value of a book cannot be gauged by the sales. He regarded Jean Toomer’s “Cane” as one of the most interesting that he had handled, and yet, less than 500 copies had been sold. In his exhortations to the younger group he warned against the danger of reflecting in one’s writings the “inferiority complex” which is so insistently and frequently apparent in an overbalanced emphasis on “impossibly good” fiction types.  He felt that to do the best writing it was necessary to give a rounded picture which included bad types as well as good ones since both of these go to make up life.

Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois made his first public appearance and address since his return to the country from Africa.  He was introduced by the charman with soft seriousness as a representative of the “older school.” Dr. Du Bois explained that the Negro writers of a few years back were of necessity pioneers, and much of their style was forced upon them by the barriers against publication of literature about Negroes of any sort. 

James Weldon Johnson was introduced as an anthologist of Negro verse and one who had given invaluable encouragement to the work of this younger group.

Carl Van Doren, Editor of the Century, spoke on the future of imaginative writing among Negroes. His remarks are given in full elsewhere in this issue.

Another young Negro writer, Walter F. White, whose novel “fire in Flint” has been accepted for publication, also spoke and made reference to the passing of the stereotypes of the Negroes of fiction.

Professor Montgomery Gregory of Howard University, who came from Washington for the meeting, talked about the possibilities of Negroes in drama and told of the work of several talented Negro writers in his field, some of whose plays were just coming into recognition.

Another visitor from Philadelphia, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, art connoisseur and foremost authority in America on primitive Negro art, sketched the growing interest in this art which had such tremendous on the entire modern art movement.

Miss. Jessie Fauset was given a place of distinction on the program. She paid here respects to those friends who had contributed to her accomplishments, acknowledging a particular debt to her “best friend and severest critic,” Dr. Du Bois.

The original poems read by Countee Cullen were received with a tremendous ovation. Miss Gwendolyn Bennett’s poem, dedicated to the occasion, is reproduced. It is called

“To Usward”

Let us be still

As ginger jars are still

Upon a Chinese shelf,

And let us be contained

By enemies of Self. . . .

Not still with lethargy and sloth,

But quiet with the pushing of our growth;

Not self-contained with smug identity,

But conscious of the strength in entity.

If any have a song to sing that’s different from the rest,

Oh, let him sing before the urgency of Youth’s behest!

And some of us have songs to sing

Of jungle heat and fires;

And some of us are solemn grown

With pitiful desires;

And there are those who feel the pull

Of seas beneath the skies;

And some there be who want to croon Of Negro lullabies.

We claim no part with racial dearth,

We want to sing the songs of birth!

And so we stand like ginger jars,

Like ginger jars bound round

With dust and age;

Like jars of ginger we are sealed

By nature’s heritage.

But let us break the seal of years

With pungent thrusts of song

For there is joy in long dried tears,

For whetted passions of a throng!

Among the guests present were Paul Kellogg, Editor of the Survey; Devere Allen, Editor of The World Tomorrow; Freda Kirchwey and Evans Clark of the Nation; Mr. and Mrs. Frederick L. Allen of Harper Brothers; Mr. and Mrs. Arthur B. Spingarn; Mr. and Mrs. Horace Liveright; L. Hollingsworth Wood; Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Kinkle Jones; Genrgette Carneal; Georgia Douglas Johnson of Washington, D.C.; Louis Weitzenkorn of the New York World; A. Granville Dill; Mr. and Mrs. George E. Haynes; Mr. and Mrs. Graham R. Taylor; Mr. and Mrs. John Daniels; A.A. Shomburg; Eva D. Bowles of the Y.M.C.A.; Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Moorland; Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bartlett; Talcott Williams; Mr. and Mrs. Arthur C. Holden; Mr. and Mrs. James H. Hubert; Ottie Graham; Eunice Hunton; Anna L. Holbrook; Crystal Bird; Dr. and Mrs. E.P. Roberts; J. A. Rogers; Cleveland Allen, Mrs. Gertrude McDougal; William Andrews; Mabel Bird; Dr. and Mrs. Matthew Boutte; William Holly; Barger Baldwin; Mary White Ovington; and others, numbering about one hundred and ten.

Of those who could not come Oswald Garrison Villard, Editor of the nation, wrote

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure than attending the dinner to be given to the young Negro writers on the 21^st, but unhappily it is necessary for me to be out of town on that date.”

From Herbert Baylard Swope, Editor of the New York World:

“I am heartily in sympathy with the purpose of your dinner on the 21^st and I should be glad top go were it any other date but that.  You have my best wishes for the complete success of your ‘coming our’ party.”

Dorothy Scarborough, author of In the Land of Cotton,” said:

“I think your plan is an admirable one, and I send you my heartiest good wishes for the success of all your writers.  I have always taken a great interest in the talents which your race possesses, and I rejoice in your every achievement.”

George W. Ochs Oakes, Editor of Current History, wrote:

“I wish to commend you for the steps that have been taken in this direction and believe that it will do a great deal to stimulate serious intellectual and literary work among Negroes. I have found evidences of striking literary capacity and fine intellectual expression among the young Negro writers who have contributed to our magazine.”

The Younger Generation of Negro Writers

By Carl Van Doren

I have genuine faith in the future of imaginative writing among Negroes in the United States. This is not due to any mere personal interest in the writers of the race whom I happen to know. It is due to a feeling that the Negroes of the country are in a remarkable strategic position with reference to the new literary age which seems to be impending.

Long oppressed and handicapped, they have gathered stores of emotion and are ready to burst forth with a new eloquence once they discovery adequate mediums.  Being, however, as a race not given go self-destroying bitterness, they will, I think strike a happy balance between rage and complacency – that balance in which passion and humor are somehow united in the best of all possible amalgams for the creative artist.

The Negroes, it must be remembered, are our oldest American minority. First slavery and then neglect have forced them into a limited channel of existence. Once they find a voice, they will bring  a fresh and fierce sense of reality to their vision of human life on this continent, a vision seen from a novel angle by a part of the population which cannot be duped by the bland optimism of the majority.

Nor will their vision, I think, be that solely of dramatic censure and dissent, such as might be expected of them in view of all they have endured from majority rule.  Richly gifted by nature with distinctive traits, they will be artists while they are being critics. They will look at the same world that the white poets and novelists and dramatists look at, yet, arraigning or enjoying it, will keep in their modes of utterance the sympathies, the memories, the rhythms of their ancient stock.

That Negro writers must long continue to be propagandists, I do not deny. The wrongs of their people are too close to them to be overlooked. But it happens that in this case the vulgar forms of propaganda are all unnecessary. The facts about Negroes in the United States are themselves propaganda – devastating and unanswerable. A Negro novelist who tells the simple story of any aspiring colored man or woman will call as as will a bugle the minds of all just persons, white or black, to listen to him.

But if the reality of Negro life is itself dramatic, there are of course still other elements, particularly the emotional power with which Negroes live – or at least to me seem to live. What American literature decidedly needs at the moment is color, music, gusto, the free expression of gay or desperate moods. If the Negroes are not in a position to contribute these items, I do not know what Americans are.