circulation. That is why it makes me furious when
some ham like... Roark Bradford gets off a noth-
ing else but and calls it a high spot of Negro humor
and imagery.” According to Hurston biographer
Valerie Boyd, the accomplished anthropologist
writer characterized the play as a “swell sensation”
that failed to provide real insights. “Nothing like
work and bossy white folks in our heavenly con-
cept,” declared Hurston.
Bibliography
Boyd, Valerie. Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora
Neale Hurston.New York: Scribner, 2003.
Kaplan, Carla. Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters.New
York: Doubleday, 2002.
Green Thursday Julia Mood Peterkin(1924)
A collection of short stories written by the teacher
and PULITZERPRIZE–winning writer JULIAMOOD
PETERKIN. Knopf published the collection, whose
title refers also to the Christian holy day of Pente-
cost. A white native of South Carolina, Peterkin’s
collection of sketches and short fiction was in-
spired by her experiences of plantation life on Lang
Syne, her family estate.
The vignettes followed the tragic and difficult
lives of a family on a small, South Carolina farm.
Together, Kildee, his wife Rose, and children Jim,
Rose, Sis, and Missie experience loss, love, and do-
mestic trials. Kildee, whose name refers to the
killdeer, an African bird, is perpetually thwarted in
his ability to farm and make a profit. Determined
to triumph, he ignores the community superstition
about doing any type of fieldwork on Green Thurs-
day. In the days that follow his inauspicious plow-
ing, his family suffers greatly. He and his wife
watch their infant daughter die of burns, and the
family descends into a disheartening routine of
mistrust and suppressed emotions.
The initial run of 2,000 copies sold out
quickly, and more than 5,000 were eventually sold.
Peterkin was hailed for her humanizing images of
African Americans. Green Thursdaysharply con-
trasted the racial stereotypes produced in much
white-authored literature of the day. Peterkin re-
ceived encouragement from the NATIONALASSO-
CIATION FOR THEADVANCEMENT OFCOLORED
PEOPLE (NAACP). WALTER WHITE penned a
glowing review of the work, and the NAACP dis-
tributed the article to some 200 newspapers.
White also sent an autographed copy of his novel
FIRE IN THEFLINTwith a congratulatory note to
Peterkin. The September 1924 NEWYORKTIMES
review of the volume hailed Peterkin as “a literary
artist, without any prejudice except the saving
artistic predilection for unity and coherent form.”
Green Thursday,proposed the reviewer, reflected
“the distillation of a rich, human observation of
the secret life of a people who have not yet been
understood by the whites, because the whites have
always found it easier to laugh at it than to attempt
to comprehend it.”
Peterkin’s work was evocative of Paul Lau-
rence Dunbar’s Sport of the Godsas well as the
local-color fiction of CHARLES CHESNUTT. She
succeeded in departing from the tradition of plan-
tation literature and demonstrating the ways in
which literature had yet to fully explore African-
American identity, history, and culture.Bibliography
Landess, Tom. Julia Peterkin.Boston: Twayne Publishers,
1976.
Williams, Susan Millar. A Devil and a Good Woman, Too:
The Lives of Julia Peterkin.Athens: University of
Georgia Press: 1997.Greenwich Village
The site of numerous literary, artistic, cultural, and
political encounters and events that contributed to
the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance. The area
in lower Manhattan is located between 14th Street
and Houston Street, and stretches west from
Washington Square to the Hudson River. The Vil-
lage, as it is also called, lies west of BROADWAY. It
has a long-standing African-American arts history
that informs and enriches its Harlem Renaissance
history. It was in this area of the city that the
African Grove Theatre was located. Founded by a
West Indian ice cream parlor owner, the venue was
home to the nation’s first professional African-
American theater troupe, and the site in which
famed Negro tragedian and Shakespearean actor
IRAALDRIDGEperformed.
Greenwich Village was a Native American
marshland that was cleared by Dutch settlers and200 Green Thursday