“Clay” John Matheus(1926)
A startling local-color short story by JOHN
MATHEUSthat appeared in the October 1926 edi-
tion of OPPORTUNITY.It is set in a southern coun-
try town whose black and white residents
congregate in the town center on market day. The
plot develops as a volatile conflict erupts between
an aggressive white man and Dick Rivers, one of
the vendors whom he charges with theft. The
vendor attempts to defend himself but is left dead
at the end of the struggle. The unjustified death of
this black man prompts Jarvis Singlreed, the white
undertaker who has watched the entire scene
from his upstairs office nearby, to be overcome by
his fear of an African-American uprising. Matheus
suggests that the undertaker’s death is representa-
tive of a larger and collective white “dread of
black rebellion, black usurpation, black self asser-
tion.” These fears go unrealized, however, as the
market, its black and white vendors, and cus-
tomers reappear for another day of sales without
comment.
Clifford, Carrie Williams(1862–1934)
A native of Chillicothe, Ohio, and a leader in the
women’s club movement of Ohio, Clifford eventu-
ally moved to WASHINGTON, D.C., where she im-
mersed herself in its Harlem Renaissance–era
community of writers and intellectuals. She mar-
ried William H. Clifford, an attorney and a mem-
ber of the Ohio state legislature, and with him had
two sons. In Washington, D.C., Clifford became
known for her Sunday salon gatherings, weekend
meetings at her home that included fellow D.C.
resident GEORGIADOUGLASJOHNSON, her aristo-
cratic women’s club colleague MARY CHURCH
TERRELL,W. E. B. DUBOIS, and others together.
Clifford, an avid reader, pursued her passion
for literature before the Harlem Renaissance. She
founded in Ohio a literary reading group called the
Minerva Reading Club and, with her fellow mem-
bers immersed herself in writing and the arts. Clif-
ford published two volumes of poetry. The first was
Race Rhymes(1911), and the second, THEWIDEN-
INGLIGHT(1922), appeared during the Harlem
Renaissance. She also contributed short fiction, es-
says, and poems to the pioneering Boston periodi-
cal The Colored American Magazine,to Alexander’s
Magazine,and to the leading Harlem Renaissance-
era journals THECRISISand OPPORTUNITY.
Throughout her life, Clifford was a dedicated
reformer. She worked tirelessly for political change
and was an energetic advocate of female suffrage
and women’s rights. She did not shy away from
using poetry as a political vehicle through which to
indict southern apologists of racism, to encourage
continued African-American advancement, or to
reveal the lingering and unacceptable examples of
race prejudice. Even the titles of Clifford’s poems
confirmed the deliberate and pointed nature of her
writing. Works such as “A Reply to Thomas
Dixon,” a poem that made reference to the white
southern author of the pro-white novel The Leop-
ard’s Spots,and “We’ll Die For Liberty” suggest the
deliberate and pointed style of her work.Bibliography
Clifford, Carrie W. The Widening Light.Introduction by
Rosemary Clifford Wilson. New York: Crowell,
1971.
Clifford, Carrie Williams, and Carrie Law Morgan Figgs.
Writings of Carrie Williams Clifford and Carrie Law
Morgan Figgs with an introduction by P. Jane Splawn.
New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1997.Climbing Jacob’s LadderRegina Andrews
(1931)
A play about LYNCHINGby REGINAANDREWSwho
felt compelled to write a play about the horrific
acts of violence that she found so “incomprehensi-
ble” when she heard about them during her child-
hood. Andrews was impressed by the antilynching
activism of IDAB. WELLSBARNETTand WALTER
WHITE, the NAACP assistant secretary with
whom Andrews worked.
Andrews shared with W. E. B. DUBOISan early
draft of the work about a lynching that is performed
while churchgoers worship nearby. He urged her to
make revisions. Once he saw the staged work,
DuBois wrote to her and congratulated her on a
“thrilling” production that had “gripped the audi-
ence” and that he had “enjoyed immensely.”Bibliography
Mitchell, Loften. Voices of the Black Theatre.Clifton,
N.J.: J. T. White, 1975.Climbing Jacob’s Ladder 83