Bibliography
Bernard, Emily. Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of
Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten.New York:
Knopf, 2001.
“Conversion of Harvey, The”Octavia
Wynbush(1936)
A tender short story by OCTAVIAWYNBUSHabout
one young man’s efforts to experience a genuine
spiritual conversion and his community’s response
to what they perceive as his hardness of heart.
Published in the March 1936 issue of THE
CRISIS, “The Conversion of Harvey” was an
earnest bildungsromanthat featured Harvey, a boy
of 14 who lives in a close-knit community that in-
cludes his family, his outspoken grandmother, and
members of the Roughnecks, a gang to which Har-
vey belongs. The story opens as Harvey finds him-
self in the heart of the Devil’s Swamp, a place that
is an apt metaphor for the place in which he be-
lieves he and his soul may be forever constrained.
Harvey is a meditative young person, one for
whom “the weight of sin and wretchedness” is an
awful burden. He, like the majority of people in
the community, has been participating in the re-
vival services of the Jerusalem Church. Unlike the
members of his gang, he has yet to surrender him-
self to the spiritual call or to provide “wonderful
testimony” of his conversion that could “set the
meeting on fire.” His resistance prompts a variety
of responses. His grandmother believes he is “har-
borin’ some secret sin,” his Uncle Butler tries to
comfort him by insisting that he “aint in earnest,”
and one of his younger siblings taunts him with the
explanation that “you must go to sleep when you
kneel at the mourner’s bench, Harvey. You know
you’re too lazy to stay awake ’cept only when
you’re moving or eating.” He is grateful that his
parents, Reuben and Jean, do not chastise or tease
him about his predicament.
The whole family attends the last night of the
revival together. While they are engaged in lively
conversation en route, Harvey “walked along
rapidly, head sunk on his chest, hands deep in his
pockets, oblivious of the rest of the family.” He is
painfully aware of the social stigma that will follow
him if he fails to accept Christ as his savior and
hopes desperately that his prayers will lead to his
social and religious redemption. Unfortunately, de-
spite his repeated prayers, the laying on of hands,
and the focused attention of various other believ-
ers, Harvey does not experience any kind of reas-
suring spiritual vision. Much to his grandmother’s
dismay, he is forced to announce to the congrega-
tion that he has not been saved. His declaration
prompts a major family argument and an unrelent-
ing tirade against him by his grandmother. His fa-
ther, a usually quiet man who in 18 years has never
raised his voice against his mother-in-law, comes to
his son’s defense. Reuben’s heroic intervention
forces Grandma Brown to leave the house rather
than “to sacrifice her dignity.” He then takes his
son aside, praises him for being honest about his
state of mind, and reminds Harvey that spiritual
redemption is not necessarily a public matter. The
story ends as father and son marvel at the beauties
of the natural world and the ways in which “Jes’ as
God don’ use the same way to make a summer day
pretty, He don’ use the same way wid us.”
Wynbush’s story explores the dynamics of
southern folk community and presents a moving
account of a young man’s efforts to conform to the
spiritual expectations of his family and world. “The
Conversion of Harvey” is especially powerful for its
attentive and persuasive representation of bur-
geoning masculinity and sensitive patriarchy that
succeeds where religion and matriarchy do not.Cook, Will Marion(1869–1944)
A gifted and successful musician who received his
training at Oberlin Conservatory and went on to
produce popular songs and to collaborate with
leading writers of the day such as Paul Laurence
Dunbar.
Born in WASHINGTON, D.C., he began studies
in music and the violin at Oberlin Conservatory,
his mother’s alma mater, at the age of 13. Two
years later, he traveled to Germany and continued
his musical studies there at the University of
Berlin. One of his instructors there was the inter-
nationally acclaimed violinist Joseph Joachim.
Cook would later study with Antonin Dvorák at
the National Conservatory of Music after he re-
turned to the United States.
Cook became well known for the music and li-
bretto that he composed for Clorindy, or the OriginCook, Will Marion 95