State College. She published fiction and essays in
Harlem Renaissance periodicals such as OPPORTU-
NITY.She continued her scholarly research in an-
thropology, earning a master’s degree from
Radcliffe in 1930. The university published her
highly respected anthropological studies of racially
mixed families in 1932.
MARITABONNER, a Bostonian and graduate
of Brookline High School, was admitted to the
Radcliffe class of 1922. While at the college, Bon-
ner, who studied English and Comparative Litera-
ture, also excelled in music. Shortly after her
graduation, Bonner began her career as a success-
ful author and playwright.
A number of Harlem Renaissance writers were
considered members of the intellectual elite by
virtue of their Harvard studies and degrees. Other
influential figures of the era with impressive schol-
arly Harvard achievements included CARTERG.
WOODSON, who earned his Ph.D. in 1912.
WILLIAMFERRISearned his master’s degree from
Harvard and began divinity studies there as well.
The journalist GEORGEWESTLEYHARRISearned
his bachelor’s degree in 1907, and the educator
LESLIEPINCKNEYHILLearned both bachelor’s and
master’s degrees from the university. The poet
COUNTEECULLENattended Harvard immediately
after completing his undergraduate studies at NEW
YORKUNIVERSITY. Cullen, a Phi Beta Kappa grad-
uate, earned his master’s degree in 1926. His resi-
dence at Harvard coincided with the publication
of COLOR, his first and well-received volume of
poems. Poet STERLINGBROWN, a Phi Beta Kappa
graduate from Williams College, entered Harvard
in the fall of 1922. He studied literature and
earned his master’s degree one year later. The emi-
nent historian John Hope Franklin was a Harvard
Ph.D. student in history during the last years of the
Harlem Renaissance. Franklin earned his M.A. in
1936 and his Ph.D. in 1941.
Despite the university’s implicit and explicit
policies on segregation and de facto racism,
African Americans and people of color did partici-
pate in campus life and influence students, faculty,
and the administration. Among those who spoke
at Harvard during the Renaissance was MARCUS
GARVEY. In 1922 he addressed a meeting of the
Nile Club, an organization founded by students of
color. The civil rights leader Malcolm X made
three important speeches at Harvard before his as-
sassination in 1965. He spoke in 1961 and twice in
1964.
The history of African Americans at Harvard
during the Harlem Renaissance era is one of aca-
demic excellence, leadership, and high professional
accomplishment.Bibliography
Sollors, Werner, Caldwell Titcomb, and Thomas Under-
wood, eds. Blacks at Harvard: A Documentary His-
tory of African-American Experience at Harvard and
Radcliffe.New York: New York University Press,
1993.Hawkins, Walter Everette(1883–unknown)
A poet and one of the self-professed atheists and
agnostics in HARLEMwho made an impact on the
post–World War I environment for African Ameri-
cans in and beyond New York. Born in Warrenton,
North Carolina, he was the son of Ossian and
Christiana Hawkins. Despite family hardships that
did not facilitate a smooth public school educa-
tion, Hawkins went on to attend Kittrell College.
He graduated in 1901. In 1909 he married Lucile
Butler of Wilmington, Delaware. His last known
residence was in WASHINGTON, D.C.
Hawkins published frequently in THEMES-
SENGER,the journal for which he served as official
poet. He also contributed work to THECRISISand
to OPPORTUNITY.Hawkins began publishing some
years before the Harlem Renaissance began. His
first work, Chords and Discords,appeared in 1909.
The BOSTONprinter R. G. Badger reprinted a re-
vised version of the work in 1920 as the Renais-
sance began. His later works include The Child of
Night, The Black Soldiers, Where Air of Freedom Is,
Guardian, Love’s Unchangeableness,and Too Much
Religion.
In 1924, editors NEWMANIVEYWHITEand
WALTERCLINTON JACKSON selected three of
Hawkins’s poems for inclusion in ANANTHOL-
OGY OFVERSE BYAMERICANNEGROES(1924).
“Wrong’s Reward,” “A Spade Is a Spade,” and
“The Death of Justice” appeared in the volume.
Hawkins’s work now was part of a historicized
literary continuum. The table of contents in-
cluded works by Phillis Wheatley, George MosesHawkins, Walter Everette 225