first prize was awarded in 1915, and the organiza-
tion continues to honor accomplished American
men and women of color.
Spingarn medalists during the Harlem Renais-
sance era represented major achievements in the
arts, the sciences, politics, education, and numerous
other areas. The first recipient was Ernest Just in
- The first woman to win the award was Mary
B. Talbert. Winners during the 1920s and 1930s in-
cluded singer MARIANANDERSON,MARYMCLEOD
BETHUNE,GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER,
CHARLESCHESNUTT,W. E. B. DUBOIS, Charles
Gilpin, ARCHIBALDGRIMKÉ, Roland Hayes, JOHN
HOPE, Robert Russa Moton, WALTERWHITE,and
CARTERG. WOODSON.
Since the Harlem Renaissance, Spingarn Medal
winners have included Myrlie Evers-Williams, John
Hope Franklin, Leon Higginbotham, Lena Horne,
LANGSTON HUGHES, Jesse Jackson, Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., and L. Douglas Wilder.
Bibliography
Ross, Barbara Joyce. J. E. Spingarn and the Rise of the
NAACP, 1911–1939.New York: Atheneum, 1972.
Van Deusen, Marshall. J. E. Spingarn.New York: Twayne
Publishers, 1971.
Spivak, John Louis (1897–1981)
A white investigative journalist whose publications
during the Harlem Renaissance included explosive
exposés about the KU KLUX KLAN, American
prison camps, and African-American chain gangs.
Spivak was a native of New Haven, Connecticut,
born in June 1897. He went on to enjoy a success-
ful career in journalism. In addition to working
with newspapers in NEWYORKCITY, he also was
appointed to posts abroad as news bureau director
for papers in Moscow and Berlin.
Spivak’s turn to fiction was informed by his
years of investigative reporting. During the Harlem
Renaissance, he became part of a recognized group
of white writers that included figures such as PAUL
GREEN,DUBOSEHEYWARD, and JULIAPETERKIN,
who considered African-American issues and char-
acters in their works. Spivak published GEORGIA
NIGGERin 1932. The novel was a blend of docu-
mentary reporting and fiction. Set in Georgia, it fo-
cused on the plight of African-American members
of a chain gang. The book, which was published by
the New York press of Brewer, Warren and Put-
nam, also included riveting photographs of con-
victs whose excessive chains clearly evoked the age
of American enslavement. Additional images in-
cluded men working on various construction pro-
jects and pictures of the barbaric conditions under
which the imprisoned were forced to live.
Spivak was a social critic who also addressed
the issues facing the working class. Additional
works included America at the Barricades(1935), a
study of the working class, poverty, and socioeco-
nomic conditions, and Europe Under the Terror
(1936), a study of Europe and fascism in the
post–World War I era.Bibliography
Lichtenstein, Alex. “Chain Gangs, Communism & the
‘Negro Question’: John Spivak’s Georgia Nigger.”
Georgia Historical Quarterly 79 (fall 1995): 633–658.
Spivak, John. Georgia Nigger.Montclair, N.J.: Patterson
Smith, 1969.Spokesman, The
A short-lived and eclectic NEWYORKCITYperiod-
ical. Published from 1925 through 1926, the maga-
zine featured a range of articles on issues relating
to health, current events, and political matters.
ZORANEALEHURSTONwas a contributing editor,
and WILLIAM FERRIS, literary editor of Negro
World,was a literary editor for the journal.Spring in New Hampshire and Other
PoemsClaude McKay(1920)
The third volume of poetry by CLAUDEMCKAY
and the first of two that he published in the
United States during his career. McKay wrote and
compiled the modest collection of 31 poems for
Spring in New Hampshirewhile he was living in
England. He had relocated from New York City to
London in 1919 and spent almost one year
abroad. C. K. Ogden, a Cambridge University pro-
fessor to whom McKay was introduced during his
sojourn in the United Kingdom, facilitated the
volume’s first publication in London. Ogden also
published several of McKay’s newest poems in the
Cambridge Magazine.494 Spivak, John Louis