African-American teacher in Brooklyn, New York.
In addition to her teaching career, Fleming pur-
sued writing and began to publish on the eve of the
Harlem Renaissance. While not a part of the most
active literary circles, Fleming contributed to the
momentum of the black literary arts movement
during the 1920s.
Fleming’s first and only novel, Hope’s Highway,
was published in 1918. A novel of racial uplift, it
tackles issues of prejudice and racial solidarity.
Scholars have celebrated the recently republished
work for its innovative treatment of these popular
themes.
In 1920 Fleming published CLOUDS ANDSUN-
SHINE,her sole collection of poems. Dedicated to
her children, the volume included 27 works di-
vided into three distinct sections. Like Paul Lau-
rence Dunbar, who experimented with traditional
English and black dialect forms, Fleming devel-
oped poems that reflected her skills in both linguis-
tic styles. In addition to the sections that
showcased formal mainstream English and black
dialect, the volume included a final section enti-
tled “Race Poems” that celebrated black history
and exhorted readers to persist in spite of their
struggles.
In 1926 Fleming contributed two biographical
profiles of black women to Our Women: Homespun
Heroines and Other Women of Distinction.Fleming’s
entries on Eliza Gardner, AME Zion leader and
abolitionist, and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, lead-
ing Boston club woman, were part of the rich col-
lection of profiles compiled by HALLIE QUINN
BROWN, an internationally known civil and
women’s rights activist and educator.
Bibliography
Fleming, Sarah Lee Brown. Hope’s Highway and Clouds of
Sunshine.New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1995.
McLendon, Jacquelyn. “Sarah Lee Brown Fleming.” In
African American Authors, 1745–1945: A Bio-Biblio-
graphical Critical Sourcebook,edited by Emmanuel
Nelson. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2000.
FlightWalter White(1926)
Published in 1926, one year before author WALTER
WHITE won a GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIP, Flight
traced a mixed-race woman’s uneasy journey to
self-realization and racial acceptance. The novel,
published by ALFRED A. KNOPF, coincided with
other significant literary events in 1926, including
the debut of FIRE!!,the explosive but short-lived
journal, CARLVANVECHTEN’s controversial novel
NIGGER HEAVEN, and the publication of THE
WEARYBLUES,LANGSTONHUGHES’s first collec-
tion of poems.
Written during White’s tenure as acting secre-
tary at the NAACP, the novel focuses on the strug-
gles of protagonist Annette Angela Daquin, also
known as Mimi. She survives the death of her fa-
ther, an unexpected pregnancy, and a tumultuous
trip northward from ATLANTAto PHILADELPHIA
and NEWYORK. In the urban North, she passes for
white but eventually abandons her white husband
and their community for HARLEM.
This novel, White’s second, was a major factor
in his selection for a Guggenheim Award in 1927.Bibliography
Brooks, Neil. “We Are Not Free! Free! Free!: Flightand
the Unmapping of American Literary Studies.” Col-
lege Language Association Journal 41, no. 4 (June
1998): 371–386.
Janken, Kenneth Robert. White: The Biography of Walter
White, Mr. NAACP.New York: The New Press,
2003.
Waldron, Edward. Walter White and the Harlem Renais-
sance.Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1978.
White, Walter. A Man Called White: The Autobiography
of Walter White.New York: Viking Press, 1948.Flight of the Natives, TheWillis Richardson
(1927)
A stirring one-act play by WILLISRICHARDSON,
the first African-American writer to see his work
produced on BROADWAY. It was published in 1927
in PLAYS OFNEGROLIFE:A SOURCEBOOK OFNA-
TIVEAMERICANDRAMA, a volume coedited by
ALAINLOCKEand MONTGOMERYGREGORY. Artist
AARONDOUGLASproduced a haunting illustra-
tion of a man and natural world in silhouette that
appeared opposite the title page.
The play is set in the cabin of an enslaved
South Carolina family and their friends in 1860, on
the eve of the Civil War. The characters include
two married couples, Mose and Pet and Tom and168 Flight