Harlem during the 1920s that differed significantly
from the perspective ALAIN LOCKE had presented
in his New Negro anthology and essay with the
same title.
The journal’s tone and intention were estab-
lished in its provocative “Foreword,” which read in
part:
FIRE... weaving vivid, hot designs upon
an ebony bordered loom and satisfying
pagan
thirst for beauty unadorned.... the
flesh is sweet and real.... the soul an
inward flush of fire.... Beauty?... flesh
on fire—on fire in the furnace of life
blazing....Each of the seven founders agreed to pay $50.00
to finance the first issue, and responsibilities were
assigned to each. Thurman was to edit it, Davis
to handle the business end, and Nugent to take
charge of distribution. The others were to serve as
an editorial board, contribute their own work, and
serve wherever needed (Hughes, 236). But it was
Thurman, not the editorial board, who was largely
responsible for the production of Fire!! Unfortu-
nately, the publication was begun with more opti-
mism than sound financial backing; Fire!! survived
only one issue.
The brash young editors expected Fire!! to cre-
ate strong discussion among the reading public,
but it attracted little attention. The reaction from
black critics was mixed, perhaps less explosive than
expected, while the white press hardly took notice
of its publication. Benjamin Brawley angrily sug-
gested that “if ever Uncle Sam finds out about
[Fire!!], it will be debarred from the mails” (183),
because of the base life that constituted the sub-
ject matter of the poems and stories, the profane
language, and the journal’s general disregard for
the use of controversial literary language. Brawley
also objected to the resistance to a work ethic that
he discerned in some of the contributions. While
generally castigating Fire!!’s contributors, Brawley
said that Thurman’s “Cordelia the Crude” should
never have been written or published (178–179,
183). The Baltimore Afro-American critic, Rean
Graves, expressed the sentiments of other black
journalists by opening his review, “I have just
tossed the first issue of Fire!! into the fire” (quoted
in Hughes, 237).
But Fire!! received favorable treatment from the
pens of two of its own contributors in OPPORTU-
NITY. COUNTEE CULLEN suggested that only the un-
sophisticated would take offense at Fire!! because
“there seems to have been a wish to shock in this
first issue, and, though shock-proof ourselves, we
imagine that the wish will be well realized among
the readers of Fire!!.” Cullen expressed optimism
for the journal’s future as an instrument in the de-
velopment of black artists (” Dark Tower,” Oppor-
tunity 25). In the same issue, Gwendolyn Bennett
expressed sentiments similar to Cullen’s, failing to
acknowledge her own contribution to Fire!!, and
praised Thurman for his editorship of the first
issue. A surprising response came from W. E. B.
DUBOIS, who was expected to respond to Fire!! with
shocked indignation because of its affront to black
bourgeois sensibilities. Instead, DuBois wrote:We acknowledge the receipt of the first number
of Fire!! devoted to “Younger Negro Artists.” It
is strikingly illustrated by Aaron Douglas and
is a beautiful piece of printing. It is issued
quarterly at one dollar a copy. We bespeak for
its wide support. (158)Alain Locke praised the group for the youth-
ful self-confidence that led to the establishment
of Fire!!, but he saw the journal as “a charging
brigade to literary revolt, especially against the
bulwarks of Puritanism.” Locke’s objection was
that Fire!! went too far. He argued that if Negro
life is to provide a healthy antidote to Puritanism
and to become one of the effective instruments of
sound artistic progress, its “strong sex radicalism”
(Locke, 563) must more and more be expressed
in the clean, original, primitive, but fundamental
terms of the senses and not, as too often in this
particular issue of Fire!!, in hectic imitation of the
“naughty nineties” and in effete echoes of contem-
porary decadence (Locke, 563).
Thurman saw Fire!! as a pioneer effort that
“flamed for one issue and caused a sensation the18 4 Fire!!