Locke’s Four Poets,and T. Montgomery Gregory
and Locke’s Plays of Negro Life.
James Weldon Johnson republishes his 1912
Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man.
1928
Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem,the author’s
first novel, becomes the first African-American
novel to be included on the New York Timesbest
seller list.
Nella Larsen publishes Quicksand, her first
novel.
W. E. B. DuBois publishes Dark Princess,his
second novel and the only work of fiction that he
published during the Harlem Renaissance.
Harlem: A Forum of Negro Life, a journal
edited by Wallace Thuman, is published but ceases
publication after the first issue.
1929
Two notable novels about passing are published in
this year: Jessie Fauset’s Plum Bunand Nella Larsen’s
Passing.
Wallace Thurman publishes his first novel,
The Blacker the Berry.
V. F. Calverton publishes the Anthology of
American Negro Literature,one of the early collec-
tions of African-American writing.
Walter White publishes a history of lynching
in the United States entitled Rope and Faggot: A
Biography of Judge Lynch.
The historic stock market crash that signals
the beginning of the Great Depression occurs in
late October.
1930
Nella Larsen becomes the first African-American
woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship.
James Weldon Johnson publishes Black Man-
hattan,a cultural history of African Americans in
New York.
Langston Hughes publishes Not Without Laugh-
ter,his first novel.
1931
George Schuyler publishes Black No More: Being an
Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of
Science in the Land,one of the earliest African-
American satirical novels.
Arna Bontemps publishes God Sends Sunday,
his first novel.
A’Lelia Walker, the well-known socialite and
daughter of the successful Madam C. J. Walker,
passes away.
The trial of nine young men known as the
Scottsboro Boys who are falsely accused of rape in
Alabama begins.1932
Rudolph Fisher publishes The Conjure-Man Dies:
A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem.It is one of the
earliest non-serialized African-American mystery
novels.
Sterling Brown publishes Southern Road,his
first volume of poems.
Claude McKay publishes Gingertown,his only
collection of short stories.
Charles Chesnutt, novelist and 1928 Spingarn
Medalist, passes away.1934
Nancy Cunard edits Negro Anthology.
Zora Neale Hurston makes her debut as a nov-
elist and publishes Jonah’s Gourd Vine.
W. E. B. DuBois resigns as editor of the The
Crisisand from the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.
Rudolph Fisher passes away.
Wallace Thurman passes away.1935
A major riot occurs in Harlem, prompted by dis-
criminatory practices by shop owners.
The federal Works Progress Administration is
founded. Known later as the Works Projects Ad-
ministration, the organization employs a number of
artists and writers for social, literary, and arts pro-
jects. It remains in existence until 1943.
George Henderson publishes Ollie Miss, the
first of his two novels.
Langston Hughes’s play Mulatto,which will
become the longest-running African-American
play on Broadway until Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959
Raisin in the Sun,opens.1936
Arna Bontemps publishes Black Thunder,one of
the earliest African-American novels about an
American slave revolt.
John Mason Brewer publishes Heralding Dawn:
An Anthology of Verse, an edited anthology of
works by Texan poets of color.Chronology 585