Challengejournal
A literary journal founded in 1934 and edited by
Bostonian DOROTHYWESTthat was renamed NEW
CHALLENGEin 1937 and continued for additional
years. GEORGIADOUGLASJOHNSONpraised West’s
vision, describing it as “away and beyond superior
to any Little Magazine that we have yet launched.”
Years later, noted scholar Harold Cruse dismissed
the publication, calling it “very undistinguished”
and charging that its editors had failed to observe
the real Renaissance. West was an astute editor,
however; it was during her tenure that “Blueprint
for Negro Writing,” the foundational cultural liter-
ary essay by RICHARDWRIGHTappeared in the
magazine. During its existence, which involved a
renaissance of its own in 1934, West and her edi-
tors published writings by CLAUDEMCKAY,ARNA
BONTEMPS,ZORANEALEHURSTON, and others.
Bibliography
Johnson, Abby Arthur, and Ronald Maberry Johnson.
Propaganda & Aesthetics: The Literary Politics of
African American Magazines in the Twentieth Cen-
tury.Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1979.
Chanler, Robert(1872–1930)
On at least one occasion, he was a judge on a panel
that included CARL VAN VECHTEN, Chanler’s
Greenwich Village neighbor, in a lively and risqué
drag costume competition at the Savoy Ballroom.
Charbonneau, Louis(unknown)
Author of Mambu, et son amour,a novel that Ster-
ling Brown reviewed in the January 1926 issue of
OPPORTUNITY. Brown praised the work of this
French writer, whose novel received the Prix Colo-
niale for its realistic, rather than stereotyped, por-
traits of African scenes and the relations between
native men and women.
Bibliography
Brown, Sterling. “Two African Heroines.” Opportunity
(January 1926): 24.
Chesnutt, Charles Waddell(1858–1932)
A teacher, lawyer, and writer who secured a repu-
tation as a gifted novelist in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. During the Harlem Renais-
sance, Chesnutt published such works as “The
Marked Tree,” a short story published in the De-
cember 1924 and January 1925 issues of THE
CRISIS, and the essay “Post-Bellum—Pre-
Harlem” published in 1931. The title of the latter
captured Chesnutt’s provocative place between
two very distinct eras in American and African-
American literary and cultural history. In 1928
the NAACP awarded this author of four novels,
more than 50 short pieces of fiction and nonfic-
tion, the SPINGARNMEDALfor his “work as a lit-
erary artist depicting the life and struggles of
Americans of Negro descent, and for his long
and useful career as scholar, worker and freeman
of one of America’s greatest cities.” Chesnutt
died in 1932.Bibliography
Andrews, William L. The Literary Career of Charles W.
Chesnutt.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1980.
Chesnutt, Helen. Charles Waddell Chesnutt, Pioneer of the
Color Line.Chapel Hill, University of North Car-
olina Press, 1952.
Keller, Frances R. An American Crusade: The Life of
Charles Waddell Chesnutt.Provo, Utah: Brigham
Young University Press, 1978.Chicago
An industrial city to which many southern blacks
migrated during the 1920s and 1930s. The city
was home to the influential CHICAGODEFENDER
and ROBERTABBOTT, its enterprising editor-in-
chief, to JOSEPHBIBB, editor of the Chicago Whip,
and to IDAB. WELLSBARNETT, who took over the
editorship of the Chicago Conservator following
her marriage to Chicago attorney Ferdinand Bar-
nett. The writers RICHARDWRIGHT,MARGARET
WALKER, and ARNA BONTEMPSlived and met
each other there before moving on to different
cities and countries in the 1930s. REGINAAN-
DREWS, who enrolled at the UNIVERSITY OF
CHICAGO, was one of the Harlem Renaissance fig-
ures who attended school in the city in which
CARTER G. WOODSON and four colleagues
founded the ASSOCIATION FOR THESTUDY OF
NEGROLIFE ANDHISTORYin 1915.78 Challenge