HARLEM:A MELODRAMA OFNEGROLIFE,and the
third was Harlem Cinderella. Of the three, only
Harlem and Jeremiahwere staged. Harlemopened
at the APOLLOTHEATREin HARLEM, before trav-
eling to BOSTON,CHICAGO, and Detroit. Jeremiah,
the Magnificent was performed only once after
Thurman’s death in 1934.
The series focused on African-American fami-
lies, migration, and the realities of urban life in
modern America. Jeremiah was inspired by the
West Indian nationalist MARCUSGARVEYand his
campaigns to repatriate people of color to AFRICA.
Bibliography
Singh, Amritjit, and Daniel Scott III, eds. The Collected
Writings of Wallace Thurman: A Harlem Renaissance.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press,
2003.
van Notten, Eleonore. Wallace Thurman’s Harlem Renais-
sance.Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994.
Jessye, Eva Alberta(1895–1992)
A teacher, poet, composer, and musical director
whose lengthy career brought her into contact
with prominent artists and influential people of
and beyond the Harlem Renaissance. She worked
with prominent American writers, performers,
and composers. She was extremely active in the
arts and drama communities of the Harlem Re-
naissance and enjoyed friendships with well-
known figures such as AUGUSTA SAVAGE and
LANGSTONHUGHES.
Her parents, Al and Julia Buckner Jessye,
lived in Coffeyville, Kansas, at the time of their
daughter’s birth. A choir from the local Baptist
church was on hand at the delivery, and scholars
note the symbolic significance of such an event in
the life of one of America’s most accomplished
choral directors. Her maternal grandmother, a
woman of Cherokee and African-American de-
scent, and her maternal aunts raised her when
her parents separated.
Jessye, whose father worked as a chicken
picker, had a deep love of books and music. She
organized her first musical group when she was 12
years old. Jessye was denied access to high school
in Kansas because of her race. She attended
Western University in Quindaro, Kansas, the city
known now as Kansas City, as a scholarship stu-
dent. Admitted at the age of 13, she excelled and
graduated in 1914. She also attended classes dur-
ing three summer terms at Langston University in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Her coursework
there resulted in a lifetime teaching certificate.
With a degree in music theory and choral music,
Jessye began working as a public school teacher in
the Oklahoma towns of Taft, Haskell, and
Muskogee.
Jessye relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, in
1920 and lived there for just over five years. She
was an editorial staffer on the Baltimore Afro-Ameri-
canand also the choral director at Morgan State
College. She relocated to NEWYORKCITYin 1926.
She immersed herself in the arts community and
developed an important professional relationship
with WILLMARIONCOOK. She began to perform
and enjoyed a successful career as a choral director
for commercial ventures and professional theater. It
was one of her former choral groups that performed
the vocals for one of America’s first radio advertise-
ments. Jessye excelled as a choir director in enter-
tainment and worked on films, radio, and in
BROADWAY musicals. Her credits included the
1929 film Hallelujah,the first African-American
musical, and working as the celebrated choral di-
rector for the 1935 GERSHWIN production of
PORGY AND BESS. In 1934 she worked with
Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thompson on their opera
Four Saints in Three Acts.She and the Eva Jessye
choir, a group known originally as the Dixie Jubilee
Singers, appeared often at the Capitol Theatre in
New York City. After World War II, the group trav-
eled throughout Europe as part of a successful in-
ternational concert tour. The group also performed
at schools throughout the United States. In the
1960s Jessye directed the choir of Tambourines for
Glory: A Play with Songs,a gospel play by Langston
Hughes. In 1963 Jessye had the honor of directing
the choir that performed at the historic Civil Rights
March on Washington.
Jessye’s lifelong love of music was reflected in
her work on American Negro spirituals. She pub-
lished My Spirituals,a collection of songs and sto-
ries based on the moving narratives that she had
heard as a child, in 1929. Selections such as “Ain’t
Got Long to Stay Heah” and “Goin’ to Pick Dis
Cotton ’Till de Sun Go Down” both paid tribute276 Jessye, Eva Alberta