sion of African-American women to the Women’s
Army Corps and the establishment of the Fair Em-
ployment Practices Commission.
With the National Association of Colored
Women, the parent organization of the 19th-century
women’s club movement, the NCNW maintained a
cohesive campaign for women’s advancement during
and after the years of the Harlem Renaissance.
Bibliography
Fitzgerald, Tracey. The National Council of Negro Women
and the Feminist Movement, 1935–1975.Washing-
ton, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1985.
Hanson, Joyce Ann. Mary McLeod Bethune and Black
Women’s Political Activism.Columbia: University of
Missouri Press, 2003.
Height, Dorothy I. Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A
Memoir.New York: Public Affairs, 2003.
McCluskey, Audrey Thomas, and Elaine M. Smith, eds.
Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World: Es-
says and Selected Documents.Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1999.
National Council of Negro Women Papers, Bethune
Museum and Archives National Historic Site,
Washington, D.C.
National Ethiopian Art Theatre
One of numerous theater groups that were estab-
lished in response to the call by W. E. B. DUBOIS,
T. MONTGOMERYGREGORY, and others for a thriv-
ing national African-American theater culture.
The National Ethiopian Art Theatre was es-
tablished in CHICAGOin the early 1920s. It ap-
pears to have made its NEWYORKCITYdebut at
the Frazee Theatre with a performance of Oscar
Wilde’s Salome.The cast in the eight shows of May
1924 included a number of well-known Harlem
Renaissance figures including LAURA BOWMAN,
Evelyn Preer, and the actor and poet LEWIS
ALEXANDER. Also involved were actors who would
go on to perform in pioneering African-American
shows. Marion Taylor, Solomon Bruce, and Sydney
Kirkpatrick would appear just a week later in
WILLISRICHARDSON’s groundbreaking production
THECHIPWOMAN’SFORTUNE,the first play by an
African-American playwright to be staged on
BROADWAY. Other actors such as Arthur Ray and
Lionel Monagas would star in works such as MEEK
MOSEby FRANKWILSONand CONJUR-MANDIES
by RUDOLPHFISHER, respectively. The production
also included an actor named Walter White, but it
is not clear that this man was the same Walter
White who was associated with the NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION FOR THEADVANCEMENT OFCOL-
OREDPEOPLEand known best for his antilynching
efforts during the 1920s and 1930s.
The company received critical attention from
THEOPHILUS LEWIS and GEORGE SCHUYLER,
drama critics for THEMESSENGER.Shortly after
the review of a 1924 summer recital, the troupe or-
ganized an impressive schedule of shows by and
starring African Americans. These productions in-
cluded Being Forty by EULALIE SPENCE and
COOPEDUPby ELOISEBIBBTHOMPSON. The cal-
endar for 1925 included RIDER OFDREAMS,the
popular work by RIDGELYTORRENCE.
The troupe appears to have disbanded in
1925.Bibliography
Krasner, David. A Beautiful Pageant: African American
Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Re-
naissance, 1910–1927.New York: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 2002.
Lewis, Theophilus. “Theatre.” The Messenger(August
and November 1924).
Schuyler, George. “Theatre.” The Messenger(November
1924).National Medical Association
The medical association founded by Dr. Robert
Fulton Boyd in 1895. African-American physicians
were excluded from membership in the all-white
American Medical Association. The National
Medical Association (NMA) provided physicians
with a professional society in which they could dis-
cuss medical advances and research, work to im-
prove health care for all Americans, strategize
about how best to combat racism in the medical
field, and lobby against segregationist medical
schools that would not admit qualified African-
American applicants.
RUDOLPHFISHER, one of the most talented
professionals of the Harlem Renaissance, was a
PHIBETAKAPPAgraduate of BROWNUNIVERSITY,
a highly regarded physician, and a pioneeringNational Medical Association 365