Wiggins saw her work included in the important
1925 Texas collection, Heralding Dawn,edited by J.
Mason Brewer. That same year, she published TUNE-
FULTALES,a collection of more than 100 poems that
ranged widely in subject matter and style.
Bibliography
Roses, Lorraine Elena, and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph.
Harlem’s Glory: Black Women Writing, 1900–1950.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Wilberforce University
The oldest private African-American institution of
higher learning and the first American college to
have an African-American president. Founded in
1856 and located in Wilberforce, Ohio, the school
was named in honor of William Wilberforce, the
British abolitionist. The school is affiliated with
the African Methodist Episcopal Church and still
thrives today as a liberal arts institution. Its alumni
include educator, historian, and women’s rights
leader HALLIEQUINNBROWN, playwright and li-
brarian REGINAANDREWS, and civil rights activist
Bayard Rustin.
Bibliography
Brown, Hallie Quinn. Pen Pictures of Wilberforce.Xenia,
Ohio: Aldine Publishing Company, 1937.
Ransom, Reverdy. School Days at Wilberforce.Springfield,
Ohio: The New Era Company, 1892.
Williams, Blanche Colton (1879–1944)
A popular white novelist, editor, and biographer
who supported the efforts to advance and to cele-
brate literary achievements by African-American
writers of the Harlem Renaissance era. Williams
was a judge in the first OPPORTUNITYliterary con-
test. In a note of acceptance to CHARLESS. JOHN-
SON, the editor who extended the invitation to join
the judges’ panel, Williams noted that she would
“gladly serve” and that the awards “cannot but be
helpful to more than one young man and woman”
(Wilson, xxvi). During the Harlem Renaissance,
Williams, who would publish biographies of John
Keats, George Eliot, and Clara Barton, published
several works. These included an edited volume of
the Best American Short Stories: O. Henry Memorial
Prize Winning Stories, 1919–1932and an instructive
guide to Old English.Bibliography
Wilson, Sondra Kathryn, ed. The Opportunity Reader.
New York: The Modern Library, 1999.Williams, Edward Christopher
(1871–1929)
A teacher, writer, translator, librarian, and play-
wright who was part of the dynamic Harlem Re-
naissance literary community in WASHINGTON,
D.C. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he was a mixed-
raced son of the African-American Daniel Williams
and the Irish Mary Kilary Williams. He married
Ethel Chesnutt, a daughter of writer CHARLES
CHESNUTT, in 1902. The couple had one son.
After graduating from the Cleveland public
schools, Williams attended Case Western Reserve’s
Adelbert College, where he was elected to PHI
BETAKAPPAand graduated as valedictorian of his
class. Williams began working immediately after
graduation in the college library. He later com-
pleted an M.A. in library science at the New York
State Library School in Albany.
Williams relocated to Washington, D.C., for
professional reasons and was principal of the M
STREETHIGHSCHOOLfor several years. He then
became head librarian at HOWARDUNIVERSITY
and joined the faculty as a professor of German
and Romance languages.
Williams emerged as an insightful social critic.
His articles on African-American society in the capi-
tal appeared in The MESSENGER.According to biog-
rapher Paul Mills, Williams also became a member of
the Mu-So-Lit Club, an African-American men’s lit-
erary society in the capital. He later cofounded the
Literary Lovers, a social group of men and women
that encouraged members to consider issues of race.
He contemplated joining a group such as the fiction-
alized Blue Vein Society in Charles Chesnutt’s short
story “The Wife of His Youth,” but despite interac-
tions with JEANTOOMERand participation in early
meetings he declined to pursue any formal involve-
ment in the group of mixed-race people.
Williams’s writings often reflected his own
academic interests in the Romance languages and
in African-American literature. He published564 Wilberforce University