Bibliography
Roses, Lorraine Elena, and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph.
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies
of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900–1945.Boston: G.
K. Hall & Co., 1990.
Henderson, George Wylie(1904–1965)
An Alabama-born novelist and writer of short fic-
tion who moved to NEWYORKCITYin the 1920s
and made his literary debut in the New York Daily
News,the newspaper for which he was working as
a printer. Henderson was born in Macon County.
He attended TUSKEGEEINSTITUTEand studied the
printing trade there before journeying northward
to New York. There, he applied the skills learned
at Tuskegee and began writing in his spare time.
Henderson’s primary publishing outlets were
the New York Daily Newsand the Redbookmaga-
zine. He published OLLIEMISS,the first of his two
novels, in 1935. Jule: Alabama Boy in Harlem,his
last novel, continued the story of primary charac-
ters introduced in the first novel. It appeared in
1946, some six years after the Harlem Renaissance
period had ended.
Both of Henderson’s novels focus on life in the
South and are set in his home county of Macon.
He explores African-American experiences in the
rural South and tackles the potentially overwhelm-
ing and self-destructive nature of migration north.
Ollie Missfocuses on a hardworking woman who is
employed as a laborer on the farm of Uncle Alex,
an industrious African-American farmer who has
managed to purchase his own property. Ollie Miss
endures the taunts of her fellow laborers, who in-
clude the men who desire her. However, she re-
mains faithful to her sweetheart, Jule.
Jule,a chronicle of the eponymous main charac-
ter who travels to Harlem, is especially evocative of
The Sport of the Gods,Paul Laurence Dunbar’s tragic
1902 novel of African-American migration. The
Chattanooga Timesendorsed the novel as one that
“should be widely read... both North and South.”
The provocative pulp fiction design featured a sultry
woman in a revealing, pink dress donning stockings.
A light-skinned man in striped pajamas lies on bed
in the background, his eyes on her and his face half
obscured. The images underscored the plot’s intrigue
and the angst of its protagonist.
Bibliography
Burns, Loretta. “Voices and Visions from a Land Most
Strange: Tuskegee’s Literary Heritage.” Alabama
English(spring 1990): 25–34.
Christensen, Peter G. “George Wylie Henderson.” In
African American Authors, 1745–1945: A Bio-Biblio-
graphical Critical Sourcebook,edited by Emmanuel
Nelson. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000.
Henderson, George Wylie. Jule: Alabama Boy in Harlem.
1946, reprint, Birmingham: University of Alabama
Press, 1989.
———. Ollie Miss.1935, reprint, Birmingham: Univer-
sity of Alabama Press, 1988.
Nicholls, David G. Conjuring the Folk: Forms of Modernity
in African America. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2000.Henry, Thomas Millard(1882–unknown)
Born in Stevensville, Virginia, to William and
Adalaide Hamilton Henry in December 1882. He
attended Hampton Institute in Virginia, the alma
mater of BOOKERT. WASHINGTON, and graduated
in 1905. In April 1923, he married Margaret
Campbell. He relocated North by the 1930s and
lived in New Jersey and New York.
Henry lived in New York, on West 18th
Street, during the 1930s. The Who’s Who of Col-
ored Americansfor 1933 through 1937 listed his
professions as writer and lecturer. During the
1920s, Henry published a series of poems and es-
says in OPPORTUNITYand THEMESSENGER,lead-
ing African-American journals of the Harlem
Renaissance. While living in Asbury Park, New
Jersey, he was active in religious and political cir-
cles. He was a Baptist Sunday school and Bible
classes superintendent for a period of time. In ad-
dition, he subscribed to the values and philoso-
phies espoused by MARCUSGARVEY. A registered
independent, Henry served as vice president of the
Asbury Park branch of the UNIVERSALNEGROIM-
PROVEMENTASSOCIATION.
Henry’s poetry reflects a variety of writing styles
that include formal exhortations, panegyrics, and
romantic meditations on human potential. He fo-
cuses often on the plight and potential of working-
class people. In “Dreams Are the Workman’s
Friends,” for example, he transcends the drudgery
of hard work by focusing on the “rapture” of232 Henderson, George Wylie