Renaissance, 1910–1927.New York: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2002.Europe, James Reese (Big Jim Europe)
(1881–1919)
A dynamic figure on the eve of the Harlem Renais-
sance, James Europe was a talented conductor and
composer who organized the 369th Infantry Band
and led the triumphant World War I veteran musi-
cians in the historic black military march up FIFTH
AVENUEand into HARLEM.
Europe’s talent and successful entrepreneurial
efforts resulted in a rousing postwar tour with the
Hellfighters, as the band also was known. The
group, which popularized ragtime, toured America
and performed for enthusiastic military and civilian
audiences.
Bibliography
Anderson, Jervis. This Was Harlem: A Cultural Portrait,
1900–1950.New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1982.
Badger, Reid. A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James
Reese Europe.New York: Oxford University Press,
1995.
Cooper, Michael L. Hell Fighters: African American Sol-
diers in World War I.New York: Dutton, 1997.
Schneider, Mark. “We Return Fighting”: The Civil Rights
Movement in the Jazz Age.Boston: Northeastern
University Press, 2002.
“Everlasting Stain, The”Kelly Miller(1920)
An article by KELLYMILLERthat appeared in the
27 November 1920 issue of the Cleveland Advo-
cate.Miller, who was the first African-American
graduate student in mathematics and the first
black student admitted to Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity, offered a forthright critique of the racial
hysteria that, he proposed, secured the election
of Warren Harding to the presidency. Miller also
called attention to the prevailing public anxiety
about blackness. “Why should it be considered
more heinous than any crime to possess a trace
of Negro blood?” he asked pointedly, before pro-
ceeding to challenge racially prejudiced valoriza-
tions of white figures like Shakespeare and
demonizations of black figures such as Alexandre
Dumas, Frederick Douglass, and Paul Laurence
Dunbar.Bibliography
Miller, Kelly. “The Everlasting Stain.” Cleveland Advo-
cate,27 November 1920, 8.Exceeding Riches and Other Verse
J. Pauline Smith(1922)
The only known published work by Detroit, Michi-
gan, poet J. PAULINESMITH. Published in 1922 by
the African Methodist Episcopal Book Concern in
Philadelphia, the volume included poems that had
already appeared in a number of Detroit publica-
tions such as the Detroit Free Pressand the Detroit
Leader,and in the nationally known Philadelphia
African Methodist Episcopal publication, The
Christian Recorder.
The majority of Smith’s poems focused on reli-
gious and spiritual matters. She decried the influ-
ence of materialism and worldly concerns and
exhorted her readers to focus on the transforma-
tive power of religious faith. Other poems reflected
her patriotism and literary appreciation of classical
poets such as Robert Browning.Bibliography
French, W. P., M. J. Singh, and G. E. Fabre. Afro-Ameri-
can Poetry and Drama, 1760–1975: A Guide to In-
formation Sources.Detroit: Gale Research Co.,
1979.
Porter, Dorothy. North American Negro Poets: A Biblio-
graphical Checklist of Their Writings, 1760–1944.
Hattiesburg, Miss.: Book Farm, 1945.
Reardon, Joan, and Kristine A. Thorsen. Poetry by Amer-
ican Women, 1900–1975: A Bibliography.Metuchen,
N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1979.
Rush, Theressa Carol Myers, and Esther Arata. Black
American Writers Past and Present: A Biographical
and Bibliographical Dictionary. Metuchen, N.J.:
Scarecrow Press, 1975.Exit, an IllusionMarita Bonner(1929)
A one-act play by MARITABONNERthat appeared
in the October 1929 issue of THECRISIS.
The play’s foreword, marked for its deliberate
use of the second-person pronoun “you,” is a de-146 Europe, James Reese