literary circles. She attended the Emerson College
of Drama and graduated in 1922. She earned a
master’s degree in education from BOSTONUNI-
VERSITY in 1926. While in Boston, McBrown
joined the SATURDAYEVENINGQUILLCLUB, a lit-
erary society whose membership included EUGENE
GORDON,HELENE JOHNSON, and DOROTHY
WEST. She published several poems in the journal
in 1928.
McBrown relocated to WASHINGTON, D.C.
There, she was part of the literary circles that re-
volved around poet GEORGIADOUGLASJOHNSON.
McBrown established a drama studio in the capital
and directed drama programs for children and
adults. She later joined the Negro History Bulletin
educational board. In the late 1960s, she and col-
league Ruby Carter were instrumental in establish-
ing the CARTERG. WOODSONCollection at the
Queens Borough Central Library in New York.
McBrown’s love of literature and history
prompted her to produce several works that hon-
ored African-American figures. Her historical plays
included Birthday Surprise,a work inspired by the
life of Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Bought with
Cookies,a drama about Frederick Douglass.
McBrown contributed several poems to the
1931 volume Readings from Negro Authors for
Schools and Colleges.In 1935 she collaborated with
Lois Maillou Jones, a renowned American artist,
designer, and teacher, on The Picture-Poetry Book.
The volume included gorgeous sketches of
African-American children and family life. As a
whole, the work challenged prevailing negative
racial stereotypes and contributed to the larger ef-
fort by Harlem Renaissance writers to provide up-
lifting and authentic images of African-Americans.
Bibliography
McBrown, Gertrude. The Picture-Poetry Book.Washing-
ton, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1935.
McCall, James Edward(1880–1963)
The journalist who coined the phrase New Negro.
McCall was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on
September 2, 1880. He attended Alabama State
Normal School in Montgomery, HOWARDUNI-
VERSITYin WASHINGTON, D.C., and Albion Col-
lege in Michigan. While at Howard, where he
began medical studies, McCall contracted ty-
phoid fever. The illness, which struck him when
he was 20 years old, left him blind, and he never
regained his sight. Unable to pursue his dream of
becoming a physician, McCall turned to litera-
ture, another field in which he excelled. He en-
rolled at Albion College, a Methodist college that
was one of the first coeducational institutions in
the Midwest. With the aid of his sister, who
joined him at Albion College, McCall graduated
in 1905. Following his graduation, McCall re-
turned to the South, and in Montgomery he
began writing for several local newspapers. He
founded The Emancipator,a weekly newspaper for
and about African Americans. Some of McCall’s
peers nicknamed him “Blind Tom,” a term in-
spired by Thomas Wiggins, a 19th-century blind,
enslaved musical prodigy.
McCall married Margaret Thomas in 1914.
Six years later, the couple moved to Detroit.
There, he joined the Detroit Independent and
worked as both city news editor and as an editorial
writer. Margaret McCall worked closely with her
husband and, according to one biographical profile
of the writer, “ably assisted in his journalistic work”
(Cullen, 34). McCall also began publishing poems,
and his works appeared in a variety of newspapers,
including the New York World.
McCall’s poem “The New Negro” was in-
cluded in COUNTEECULLEN’s CAROLINGDUSK.
The sonnet is powerful for its presentation of a fig-
ure who “scans the world with calm and fearless
eyes” and is “[c]onscious within of powers long
since forgot” (ll. 1–2). McCall envisioned a man
impervious to the “man-made barriers” that would
“bar his progress” (l. 3–4). His protagonist also was
unfazed by the daunting power of the natural
world that allows “thunder bursts and billows” that
“surge and roll /.... while lightnings flash / Along
the rocky pathway to his goal” (ll. 6–8). The New
Negro, as McCall imagined him, was not only
“wise and strong” but a man who possessed a “soul
awakened” and who held “destiny within his
hands” (ll. 13–14).
McCall maintained his love of poetry through-
out his life. In his later years, he regularly shared
his work with members of the Detroit and Eastern
Michigan University communities. In 1960 he and
his wife hosted a recording session of African-338 McCall, James Edward