Published in 1926, Lonesome Roadincluded
his well-known folk drama IN ABRAHAM’S
BOSOM and the plays White Dresses, The Hot
Iron, The Prayer-Meeting, The End of the Row,and
Your Fiery Furnace.In the author’s note that pref-
aced the work, Green explained his motivation
to write and to collect the plays in the volume.
He wrote specifically of African Americans in
North Carolina, individuals whom he described
as “the prey of his own superstition, suspicions
and practices, beaten and forlorn before God
Almighty himself.” Green admitted that the plays
represented “a first effort... to say something of
what these people more recently have suffered
and thought and done” especially now that “it
seems apparent... that such things are worthy
of record.”
The anthology was published just one year
before Green won the PULITZERPRIZEin drama,
an award based on his accomplishments and the
play In Abraham’s Bosom,which the PROVINCE-
TOWNPLAYERShad produced and notable NEW
YORKTIMESdrama critic J. Brooks Atkinson had
praised.
Bibliography
Clark, Barrett. Paul Green. New York: Robert M.
McBride & Company, 1928.
Green, Paul. Lonesome Road: Six Plays for the Negro The-
atre.New York: R. M. McBride & Company, 1926.
Kenny, Vincent. Paul Green.New York: Twayne Publish-
ers, 1971.
Roper, John. Paul Green, Playwright of the Real South.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2003.
Long Way from Home, AClaude McKay
(1937)
The autobiography of CLAUDEMCKAY. The vol-
ume was published in 1937 by Lee Furman, presi-
dent of the MACAULAYPUBLISHINGCOMPANY.
Many of McKay’s contemporaries read the
work, and McKay was pleased to receive compli-
ments on an absorbing and entertaining life story.
According to McKay biographer Wayne Cooper,
Edwin Embree praised the “cozy, companiable
style” of the work, and JOELSPINGARNthanked
the poet-novelist for providing him with “real en-
joyment” (Cooper, 319, 315).
There were others, however, who were dis-
turbed by McKay’s portraits of their personalities
and careers. MAXEASTMAN, editor of the LIBERA-
TOR, the journal for which McKay wrote,
protested his former colleague’s accounts of his in-
teractions with the Communist Party. Others,
such as SYLVIAPANKHURSTand WALTERWHITE,
protested McKay’s accounts of their characters
and certain professional encounters.
A Long Way from Homegave McKay the oppor-
tunity to represent his intellectual and political de-
velopment. He divided his life story into six sections
and offered an earnest, though at times mislead-
ing, chronicle of his professional life. The work
prompted criticisms from figures such as ALAIN
LOCKE, who criticized McKay for his political incon-
stancy. Overall, however, McKay’s autobiography is
powerful for its persuasive call for African-American
unity and endorsement of collective resistance to
racism and oppression.Bibliography
Cooper, Wayne. Claude McKay: Rebel Sojourner in the
Harlem Renaissance.New York: Schocken Books,
1987.
McKay, Claude. A Long Way from Home.1937, reprint,
New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970.Looking Glass, The
A HARLEM-based literary magazine. In 1925 writer
WALLACETHURMAN, who recently had relocated
to NEWYORKCITY, worked as a reporter and edi-
tor of the journal. His mentor THEOPHILUSLEWIS,
the noted drama critic, was the publisher. Thur-
man’s experience at The Looking Glassand his own
enterprising efforts to establish OUTLET, a West
Coast literary magazine, marked the beginning of
his eventful life in magazine publishing. In later
years, Thurman, who became managing editor of
THEMESSENGERa year after he joined The Looking
Glass, collaborated with figures such as ZORA
NEALEHURSTONand LANGSTONHUGHESon in-
novative but short-lived literary journals. These
publications included FIRE!!(1926) and HARLEM:
A FORUM OFNEGROLIFE(1928).Bibliography
Johnson, Abby Arthur, and Ronald Maberry Johnson.
Propaganda & Aesthetics: The Literary Politics ofLooking Glass, The 323