home, desperate to escape the three hunters on his
trail. “The black man who was running so wildly
was only a little terror-mad rabbit,” she declares
from the stand before noting that the “three stout
gentlemen there... and the crowd which followed
after... had the visage of my master.” The story
closes as the narrator Phipps reveals that it was he
who was “the running black gentleman” of the
widow’s story.
Through Sepia EyesFrank Marshall Davis
(1938)
The third of six volumes of poetry that FRANK
MARSHALL DAVIS published during his career.
Davis enjoyed a productive literary period in the
last decade of the Harlem Renaissance. His first
volume, BLACKMAN’SVERSE,appeared in 1935,
and the second, I AM THEAMERICANNEGRO,was
published in 1937. Through Sepia Eyesappeared
just one year later. Davis wrote the volume during
his tenure as executive editor for the Associated
Negro Press.
Bibliography
Tidwell, John Edgar, ed. Livin’ The Blues: Memoirs of a
Black Journalist and Poet—Frank Marshall Davis.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992.
Thurman, Wallace Henry (1902–1934)
An enterprising, multitalented writer, editor, and
playwright whose visionary projects repeatedly
challenged the Harlem Renaissance community to
determine its literary and political priorities, artis-
tic goals, and racial agendas. Born in Salt Lake
City, Utah, Wallace Henry Thurman was the son
of Oscar and Beulah Thurman. His father moved
to California when Wallace was a young boy, and
the two were not particularly close. His mother re-
married several times, and it may have been the se-
ries of domestic changes that encouraged the
young boy to become especially close to his mater-
nal grandmother, Emma Jackson.
Following his graduation from the public
schools in Salt Lake City, Thurman enrolled at the
University of Utah. Biographers differ in their ac-
counts of Thurman’s academic ventures. Some
suggest that he completed the premedical program
at the University of Utah, excelled in chemistry
and pharmacy, and completed the program in
record time. Others suggest that he suffered a ner-
vous breakdown, withdrew from the program
abruptly, and later relocated to California to re-
sume his medical studies. Thurman did relocate to
Los Angeles in 1923, and it was in that year that
he enrolled at the University of Southern Califor-
nia. After a year of postgraduate study, Thurman
abandoned his preprofessional studies and decided
to pursue a career in journalism. He also supported
himself by taking a job in the Post Office. It was
there that he met ARNABONTEMPS, a fellow aspir-
ing writer with whom he would one day live in
NEWYORKCITY.
In August 1928 he married LOUISETHOMP-
SON, a graduate of the University of California at
Berkeley, teacher, and political activist whom he
had met in New York City. The marriage, which
came as a surprise to many who knew of Thur-
man’s homosexual interests, dissolved some six
months later. Thompson, who had deep feelings for
Thurman, was, “hurt and baffled” by the mar-
riage’s decline. As Arnold Rampersad notes, she
disclosed later that she “neverunderstood Wallace.
He took nothing seriously. He laughed about ev-
erything. He would often threaten to commit sui-
cide but you knew he would never try it. And he
would never admit that he was a homosexual.
Never, never,not to me at any rate” (Rampersad,
172). Thurman continued to deny that his homo-
sexual interests, which on one occasion in the fall
of 1925 had resulted in an embarrassing arrest,
were responsible for the marriage’s dissolution. He
insisted instead that Thompson was to blame and
that the sexual difficulties that they experienced
were as a result of her inadequacies. The couple at-
tempted to divorce, but heated negotiations about
alimony, a family illness to which Thompson had
to attend, and limited funds ultimately prevented
Thompson from completing the legal proceedings.
The couple separated, but the marriage did not of-
ficially end until Thurman’s death in 1934.
Thompson went on to marry William Patterson, a
prominent attorney and activist.
Thurman’s impressive career revolved around
writing, a passion that he had nurtured since his
childhood and that enabled him to finish his first
novel when he was only 10 years old. His insatiable518 Through Sepia Eyes