Walrond immigrated to America in 1918 when
he was 21 years old. He settled in New York City
and began attending classes at the City College of
New York. Historian David Levering Lewis notes
that Walrond made quite an impression in Harlem,
especially on ETHEL NANCEand her two room-
mates, who shared an apartment in the SUGAR
HILLdistrict that was well known as a welcoming
place for African-American artists and writers. His
“flashing eyes,” combined with his “alert and very
alive face” and “accented, rippling wit, his urbanity
and fearless independence,” made him one of the
more memorable figures to join the Harlem circle.
In 1924 he began a two-year affiliation with
COLUMBIAUNIVERSITY, where he enrolled in cre-
ative writing courses. Walrond’s background in
journalism enabled him to become deeply involved
in the Brooklyn and Long Island Informer.He be-
came co-owner, editor, and reporter for the
African-American newspaper that was a contempo-
rary of the established AMSTERDAMNEWSand the
BALTIMOREAFRO-AMERICAN.He also joined the
editorial staff of NEGROWORLD,the official news-
paper of the UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT
ASSOCIATIONthat Jamaican activist, writer, and
entrepreneur MARCUSGARVEYestablished. When
he left the staff of Negro World,Walrond joined the
prestigious literary offices of OPPORTUNITYand for
two years worked as business manager.
Walrond was married twice. He eventually
was divorced from Edith, his first wife and a native
of Jamaica. He remarried while in Europe. Wal-
rond was the father of three daughters, Dorothy,
Jean, and Lucille.
Walrond published in an array of well-known
American literary journals and popular magazines
such as OPPORTUNITY,VANITYFAIR,THENEWRE-
PUBLIC,THEMESSENGER, Smart Set,and the Satur-
day Review of Literaturein the early 1920s. The first
stories that he published in the United States reflect
what critic Jay Berry regards as Walrond’s “profound
disillusionment and disgust with race relations in
America” (Berry, 297). Indeed, the first two publica-
tions, “ONBEINGBLACK” (1922) and “ONBEING A
DOMESTIC” (1923), published in THENEWREPUB-
LICand Opportunity,respectively, testify to the de-
humanization and invisibility of African Americans,
many of whom are at the center of American daily
life. His essay “The Color of the Caribbean,” pub-
lished in the May 1927 issue of THEWORLDTO-
MORROW, confirms the alienating experiences
imposed upon people of color and on West Indian
immigrants in America. Walrond asserted that “On
coming to the United States, the West Indian often
finds himself out of patience with the attitude he
meets here respecting the position of whites and
Negroes. He is bewildered... at being shoved down
certain blocks and alleys ‘among his own people.’
He is angry and amazed at the futility of seeking out
certain types of employment for which he may be
specially adapted. And about the cruelest injury
that could be inflicted upon him is to ask him to
submit to the notion that because he is black it is
useless for him to aspire to be more than... a Red
Cap in Pennsylvania Station, or a clerk in the Bowl-
ing Green Post Office” (Parascandola, 146).
Walrond published eight short stories in the
years leading up to the publication of his first and550 Walrond, Eric Derwent
Eric Walrond (Yale Collection of American Literature,
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)