African American Magazines in the Twentieth Cen-
tury.Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1979.
van Notten, Eleonore. Wallace Thurman’s Harlem Renais-
sance.Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994.
Lopez, Leon
One of the many pseudonyms that the writer
CLAUDEMCKAYused during his career. He used
this name and several others while working in
London at the journal WORKER’SDREADNOUGHT.
Lost Zoo (A Rhyme for the Young, but Not
Too Young), TheCountee Cullen (1940)
A collection of poems by COUNTEECULLEN, based
on the animals that refused to take refuge on
Noah’s ark. The volume was one of two books of
poetry that Cullen published for children. The
verses were lively and reflected Cullen’s ability to
craft deft and colorful tales. He noted that the
work was produced in partnership with Christo-
pher Cat, his feline coauthor.
The work appeared in 1940, the same year in
which Cullen married Ida Mae Roberson. It was
one of the last works Cullen published before his
death in 1946.
Louis, Joe (1914–1981)
The talented boxer who became the world heavy-
weight champion in 1937. Louis’s victory, which
coincided with the publication of ZORANEALE
HURSTON’s THEIREYESWEREWATCHINGGOD,
was cherished by many as a symbolic victory by
African Americans over entrenched oppression
and prejudice.
Louis, the son of an Alabama sharecropper,
came of age as a boxer during the Harlem Renais-
sance. His major victories, against Jim Braddock,
Max Schmelling, and Rocky Marciano, were leg-
endary. Louis gained the title of world heavyweight
champion in 1937 and defended it successfully for
11 years.
Bibliography
Hietala, Thomas. The Fight of the Century: Jack Johnson,
Joe Louis, and the Struggle for Racial Equality.Ar-
monk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2002.
Louis, Joe, Edna Rust, and Art Rust, Jr. Joe Louis: My
Life.New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.LouisianaJ. Augustus Smith(1933)
A play by J. Augustus Smith that the Negro The-
atre Guild performed in 1933. The play chronicled
the efforts of a minister determined to see Chris-
tianity overcome voodoo beliefs.
The play opened at the 48th Street Theatre in
late February 1933. It closed after eight perfor-
mances. The 17-member cast included Smith as well
as Laura Bowman, a popular actress who worked
with Oscar Micheaux and WILLISRICHARDSON, and
the actresses Carrie Huff and Edna Barr.
The Negro Theatre Guild also produced
How Come, Lawd?, a play written by Donald
Heywood, in September 1937. Smith continued
his collaborations with Harlem Renaissance writ-
ers and actors. In 1936 he was codirector of
CONJUR-MANDIES,a play by RUDOLPHFISHER.
The project also involved the Negro Theatre
Unit of the Federal Theater Project of the Works
Progress Administration. The play opened at the
Lafayette Theatre on Broadway and ran for some
24 performances.Love, Rose Leary(1898–1969)
A first-grade teacher who published her first vol-
ume of children’s literature in the late 1930s. She
published numerous poems and short stories for
children during her 39-year career as a teacher.
Love, a North Carolina native, shared a rich
ancestry with the poet Langston Hughes. Love was
the niece of abolitionist Lewis Sheridan Leary,
whose widowed wife married Charles Langston and
later became the grandmother of LANGSTON
HUGHES. Leary, a skilled harness maker, was 24
when he joined the men who fought with aboli-
tionist John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. Leary was
killed, and his wife, Rose, cherished the blood-
stained shawl that one of his comrades returned to
her. Rose eventually married Charles Langston,
and their daughter Carrie was the mother of
Langston Hughes.
Love attended Hampton Institute and
COLUMBIAUNIVERSITY; she graduated from Bar-
ber Scotia Seminary and the Johnson C. Smith324 Lopez, Leon