DC LITERARY HISTORY COLLECTIONS

           THE LITERARY HISTORY CENTER'S virtual collections are ever evolving representing the growth and development of the literature created by people of color, especially African Americans, and the activities in which authors are involved; their expansion are consistent with the mission and vision of Esther Productions Inc. 
 

COLLECTION: AFRICAN AMERICANS AND CHILDREN’S LITERATURE (March 2024-)

OVERVIEW:

           FOR many years, books with Black characters that made it through mainstream companies were often written by white authors; unsurprisingly the books were steeped in unflattering, stereotypical, and often racist depictions of African Americans. Those discriminatory portrayals occurred even though there were talented Black writers who were practicing their craft. After all, the African American literary canon officially extended back to the 18th century.

In 1761, Jupiter Hammon published his broadside: “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries.” Phillis Wheatly, an enslaved Black woman who had been taken from her home in Senegal, West Africa, when she was seven years old, had been taught to read and write English in the home of John and Susana Wheatly—the family that had purchased her to perform domestic duties. By the time she was 13 years old, Phillis Wheatley had displayed talent for poetry. At 18, she had published as many as 28 poems and had traveled to London, England, where the family exhibited her as an example of the capabilities and civilities of African Americans. Her collection, Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral, was published in 1773. By the time of her death, she had published more than 100 poems.
Neither the names nor the subject matter of Harmon or Wheatley’s poetry are likely to appeal to most 21st Century readers. They serve, however, as indisputable evidence of the African American community’s long literary history.

As the 20th Century opened, Negro writers had begun to advocate through their work and their commentary for greater racial pride and economic independence. Undoubtedly, they were spurred by racial attacks occurring predominantly in the South but that came to Northern urban centers just after World War 1, when Blacks believed the sacrifices they made in that global conflict should have earned them greater respect and a higher place in society. It didn’t. Instead, there were race riots across the country, including in the District of Columbia, where violence stretched across four days. According to published reports, as many as 38 people were killed and 100 were injured in the nation’s capital.

The advance of a New Negro Movement was therefore both cultural and political. And given events of the previous years, the response from the Black community affirmed the shift was not simply limited to Harlem. The push to uplift the race was being made throughout the country, including the District of Columbia. In fact, DC played a strong role at least in part because it was home to Howard University, the center of Black intelligentsia. It housed some of the country’s greatest thinkers who helped shaped cultural philosophy and direction through their analyses, criticism and publications, including Alain Locke’s The New Negro anthology that popularized the term and has been credited with lending academic credibility to the concept and philosophy.

For New Negro Movement disciples, their patrons and supporters, the task of shifting the publishing industry’s penchant for discriminatory, sometimes racist storytelling would be no easy feat. They also had to inspire and cultivate new writers, new talent to embrace their Blackness; they had to find and support artists who could illustrate their books, portraying the diversity of Black America in images that were true to their lives and culture; and they had to find innovative ways to distribute and sell their books in the private, commercial market, producing financial results that could ensure the growth and continuation of African American literature. Those challenges continue across movements and generations, even into this current century.

I.

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          THE level of productivity of the Black writers during the New Negro Movement was impressive though the era was relatively brief. Some literary historians and critics have indicated it lasted only between 1917 and 1928, though a few have stretched it into 1935. Undoubtedly, the nation’s depression may have had an adverse impact. Whatever the chronological markers, it was an intense and remarkable period.

W.E.B. DuBois with Jessie Fauset created the "Brownies’ Book: A Monthly Magazine for Children of the Sun" in 1920. By 1921 it had ceased publication. A. Phillip Randolph and Chandler Owen, who considered themselves socialists, published The Messenger journal, where poetry, short stories and essays by various writers could be found. Opportunity Magazine held annual contests among whose winners included Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and May Miller Sullivan. (Later writers of the Black Arts Movement who lived in DC, like Sharon Bell Mathis, for example, would also claim creative victory). Musical plays were produced on and off Broadway.

The renaissance or movement wasn’t just limited to Harlem but had tributaries throughout the nation. It affected young or emerging writers, giving them hope that one day, they might also have careers as writers. For example, in Chicago, a young girl named Gwendolyn Brooks demonstrated an enthusiasm for reading and a talent for writing, which were supported by her mother and father. By the time she was 13 years old, her first poem “Eventide” had been published in American Childhood; at 17 she was regularly publishing in the Chicago Defender, founded in 1905, it was considered one of the best Black-owned newspapers in the country.
Growing as a writer, Brooks reached out to Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson for an evaluation and advice, positioning them as unofficial mentors. Hughes had a national reputation and an adoring fan base. Johnson worked for the NAACP for 10 years; he also authored “Lift Every Voice and Sing” which, with music written by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, became the Negro National Anthem.

Years after the New Negro Movement had come to a close, Brooks would become the first African American to win a Pulitzer for Poetry. Interestingly, at one point early in her career, her editor asked why she wrote. Brooks said, “to prove to others (by implication, not by shouting) and to such among themselves who have yet to discover it, that they are merely human beings, not exotics.”

That comment seemed to echo Alice Dunbar-Nelson, the editors of The Brownies Book and The Messenger. The road of fighting discrimination was well worn and well-travelled.
The publisher and folks at the Chicago Defender were equally familiar with this history, which is likely why they gave space and opportunity to Black writers like Brooks. The Negro Movement was strongly supported by a network of black owned newspapers, schools, private publishing companies likes Carter G. Woodson’s Associated Publishers and universities like Howard, described in its early days as “The Capstone of Negro Education,” where poet, cultural critic and historian Sterling A. Brown taught alongside Arthur P. Davis and other icons, fertilizing Black creativity while growing a new class of writers who would someday agitate on behalf of African Americans in corporate America, including as editors at major publishing houses. That hard fought change took years–even decades–from the launch of the New Negro Movement, during which African Americans were intent on removing the masks they had been forced to wear while amplifying their voices claiming their hard earned place in American society while showcasing themselves as creatives with much to add to the country’s culture.

The District of Columbia and its writers played a role at every turn in that battle against invisibility. The city’s community of writers was a bulwark while sparking and sustaining creative energy. Georgia Douglas Johnson opened her S Street, NW, home on Saturday nights to poets and intellectuals like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, May Miller (Sullivan), W.E.B. DuBois and Alain Locke. They often gathered to polish their writings but also to commiserated with each other about their struggles. Those meetings were the precursor of Black writers’ workshops and conferences that would explode across the country during the Black Arts Movement.

Unsurprisingly, leaders of the New Negro Movement often intersected with political efforts that were best captured in what came to be called the civil rights movement. The quest for equal rights was seeded in no small measure in the circle of artists and writers, like James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B Dubois, who were both key figures in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In the District of Columbia, both literary and political roles were played by Sterling A. Brown, who from 1936 through 1940 served as the National Editor for Negro Affairs of the Federal Writers Project and who nurtured a class of intellectuals and artists who would later demand Black Power and created the Black Arts Movement, which echoed many of the goals articulated by his peers during the New Negro Movement.

But Brown, a celebrated poet and professor, was not immune to the discriminatory ways for the mainstream publishing and arts industry. He had managed to publish one book of poetry in 1932; his second book was rejected by the publishing house that released the first one. His second collection of poetry wouldn’t come until 1974, more than 40 years later, when Dudley Randle persuaded Brown to sign with Broadside, an independent company that he headed.

That was in the middle of the Black Arts Movement during which writers far younger than Brown and Brooks—DC writers like Sharon Mathis and Eloise Greenfield–were stepping forward. Mathis had founded the DC Black Writers’ Workshop with Annie Crittenden, pulling Greenfield in to serve as director of the adult fiction section. Unlike many others of their generation, Mathis and Greenfield would tap into a rich vein of black creativity that over the years had received little attention–not even from many African Americans: children’s literature.

Once again, DC was a treasure trove of African American creativity. But changing the publishing paradigm would be no easier for them than it had been for their predecessors. They would face some of the same racist conditions; some of the same obstacles with mainstream editors who didn’t believe that there was a market for children’s books with Black characters or stories that reached back to Africa.

Despite experiencing some measure of success, too many Black writers, including those in DC, had to seek out independent publishing companies like Black Classic Press, Third World Press and Broadside Press if they wanted to expand their opportunities. They had to rely on African American owned distributors and bookstores like Drum and Spear or Pyramid Bookstore in DC if they wanted to get more of their books in the hands of Black parents and children; mainstream companies still did not believe there was a significant readership for such publications. That was both a blessing and a curse. Building your own place, creating your own system of commerce, strengthening your own culture, nurturing your own community ensures longevity. But that growth can sometimes be slow.

Fortunately, the District of Columbia was home to a strong literary community that could provide the necessary support through workshops, conferences, book fairs and other innovations. And Howard University continued to be a haven and an anchor.
As the Black Arts Movement was closing, the list of African American writers, especially authors of children’s books seemed to be expanding. But was it?

According to the University of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center which has kept records since 1985 on various aspect of book production related to African Americans, in 2000, less than 3 percent of the children’s books published that year had Black characters; in raw numbers only 147 of more than 5,000 books had Black characters. Not all of them were written by African American authors. In 2019, the Center reported that only 12 percent of the “books published were about Black or African American primary characters.”

Those numbers suggest that Black writers’ fight has continued for space, freedom, support, the opportunity to demonstrate that they are “human beings—not exotics” the opportunity to showcase in words—lyrical, poetic and dramatic—their story, their history and their culture, and along the way to pave a road for greater Black advancement for themselves, for their children.

II.

          PERHAPS, the most difficult aspect of the battle fought by Black authors of children’s literature was around that of images. Books that were written by whites about African Americans often contained drawing or pictures that were demeaning at best. Most often they were outright racists. The assault wasn’t just against Black children, however, it also meant that white children would be miseducated about African American history, culture and lifestyle, perpetuating racist ideas and behaviors that would continue deep into the 21st Century. If there to be a New Negro in the truest since, leaders of the New Negro Movement, whether in Harlem or elsewhere could not afford to ignore what was being fed to children, especially African American children. The same would be true about those writers who matured during the Black Arts Movement.

How Black children saw themselves–in the mirror and in the world—was a critical element of uplifting the race socially, politically and economically. As a people, African Americans could not take their place as leaders in society if they were constantly being sent a message about their overall inferiority, including their physical appearance. In her 1922 essay “Negro Literature for Negro Pupils,” Alice Dunbar-Nelson, wife of Paul Laurence Dunbar, noted that “The ancient Greeks, wishing to impress upon their children the greatness of Hellas, made the schoolboys memorize Homer, particularly those passages dealing with war and conquests.”

The Romans, the Hebrew, the Chinese, the French and others also advocated such educational pursuits, she argued. “The reason is obvious,” continued Dunbar-Nelson. “If people are to be proud and [have] self-respect, they must believe in themselves. Destroy a man’s beliefs in his own powers, and you destroy his usefulness—render him a worthless object, helpless and hopeless.”

Dunbar-Nelson lamented that already two generations of Black and brown children had been assaulted by a “blonde ideal of beauty to worship, milk-white literature to assimilate, and a pearly Paradise to anticipate, in which their dark faces would be hopelessly out of place.”
Her appeal came after W.E. B DuBois with Jessie Fauset had created the Brownies Book: A Monthly Magazine for Children of the Sun in 1920. It seemed a success, publishing poems and stories by writers like Langston Hughes and Georgia Douglas Johnson. However, by 1921, it had ceased publication. It was an example of the enormity of the challenge they faced. But there were other publications dedicated to raising the self-esteem of a people who were being castigated or hanged, literally, in states across the deep south. Crisis magazine published materials for young readers. The Chicago Defender printed “Defender Junior” as a section in its newspapers. In DC, the Washington Afro-American celebrated the youth, artists and writers in its community. More was required, however.

They may have desired to promote a more positive and authentic image of African Americans, especially in books written for children, but there was a dearth of experienced illustrators. Among those who rose to the cause, however, was Lois Mailou Jones, who later became well known for her Haitian styled paintings and as a professor of art at Howard University, teaching other famed artists like Elizabeth Catlett.

Between 1930 and 1940, Jones reportedly illustrated as many as nine books, many commissioned by Woodson’s organization. The Picture Poetry Book was produced in collaboration with Gertude Parthenia McBrown in 1935 and The Child’s Story of the Negro was written by Jane Dabney Shackelford. Later, in 1946, came Lilly May and Dan: Two Children of the South by Marel Brown; it was published by the Home Mission Board Southern Baptist Convention, and may not have been Jones’ best work, according to some literary historians and critics.

Writers whose works were accepted by major New York-based publishing companies, which were few and far between, were obligated to collaborate with artists chosen by those companies. Frequently, a Black author had to endure the ignorance and narrow vision of a white illustrator who may have been well meaning but knew very little of Black people, the diversity of their pigmentation, the texture of their hair, their lifestyles behind closed doors.
The problem with which the writers were grappling was made clear in a study conducted by Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark that was presented during the landmark Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, which was litigated by several lawyers and law professors associated with Howard University, including Thurgood Marshall.

The Clarks’ work became known as the “doll test.” He and his wife had gone to various places in the country showing Black children between the ages of three and seven four dolls that were exactly alike except for color. The psychologists asked the children to identify the races of each doll and then indicate which they preferred. The majority of the children chose the white doll, providing evidence of the devastating effects of racism and segregation on the self-esteem of African American children.

The Clarks’ study had been conducted 14 years before the Supreme Court litigation. During the years of the New Negro Movement there had been increased concern over the images that African American children were seeing in books that represented them, versus those of whites.

The Blacks Arts Movement, which opened more than 10 years after the Supreme Court case, also concerned itself with book illustration, which continued to remain the prerogative of editors and publishing companies. Sometimes, there was synergy between author and illustrator; an emerging Black illustrator would help a book to sing. Interestingly it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that any of those African American artists would receive the coveted Caldecott or Newberry awards. Even as things seemed to get better, however, some writers were still fighting the battle of authentic black images, often behind closed doors.

Sometimes, however, those battles became public. In July 1986, Eloise Greenfield wrote a “Dear Friend of Children” letter, detailing her dissatisfaction with two illustrators, whose work she plainly called “racist.”

Greenfield said they had “used a silhouette style, solid black drawings that do not show eyes, or skin tone and textures or emotions,” in proposed drawings for one of her books. “In the poems, a nine-year-old boy reveals his deepest thoughts and feeling—his love for his family, his sadness on the death of his mother, his need for friendship, his desire for knowledge, and his hopes for the future….”

Their “artwork has negated this poem and destroyed all of Nathaniel’s feeling.... Whether or not it is intentional, this kind of destruction is racism,” continued Greenfield, adding that she had shown the work to others who were “horrified” and were writing to her editor.

She asked the recipient of the letter “If you feel that this issue is part of our struggle for a racism-free children’s literature, would you send as soon as possible a brief note to my editor.”
Greenfield won that battle. Jan Spivey Gilchrist became the illustrator for Nathaniel Talking. But many other Black writers did not have the fortitude to stand against an industry? That struggle has become more intense as companies have merged, resulting in fewer and fewer outlets for African American writers to present their books to the public, to Black children.

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