“John Redding” draws on the conventions of
the picaresque, and it underscores the importance
of imagination and the grim realities that can com-
promise dreamers. Hurston’s own well-known wan-
derlust influences the story. Additional signs that
the piece has shades of autobiography emerge in
the names of the characters. Hurston assigns her
stepmother’s name to John’s intractable mother,
her father was named John, and her paternal
grandfather was Alfred.
Hurston critics such as Robert Hemenway call
attention to the use of folklore in the story, her ex-
ploration of signs and symbols that foretell John
Redding’s complicated yearnings and his fate. The
story is one of several compelling Hurston pieces to
feature aspiring, often misunderstood, travelers and
their alluring quests. These include “DRENCHED IN
LIGHT” (1924), which also appeared in Opportunity,
and THEIREYESWEREWATCHINGGOD(1937).
Bibliography
Boyd, Valerie. Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora
Neale Hurston.New York: Scribner, 2003.
Hemenway, Robert. Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biog-
raphy.Urbana: University of Illinois, 1977.
Johnson, Charles Bertram(1880–1946)
A Missouri clergyman, teacher, and poet. He was
born in Callao, Missouri, to James and Elizabeth
Johnson. Johnson graduated from Western College
in 1900 and pursued additional studies at Lincoln
University in Missouri during 1901 and 1902, and
at the UNIVERSITY OFCHICAGOduring 1905. He
earned his doctor of divinity degree from Western
Seminary in 1932. He and his wife, Maud Maupin
Johnson, had one child, a daughter named Ineth.
Johnson’s literary career developed as he pur-
sued a career in teaching and in the ministry. He
taught at Western Seminary and in the Missouri
public school system for some 11 years. His minis-
terial career spanned some 30 years and included a
lengthy appointment at the Second Baptist
Church in Jefferson, Missouri. He also was a mem-
ber of the NATIONALASSOCIATION FOR THEAD-
VANCEMENT OFCOLOREDPEOPLE.
Johnson published three collections of poetry,
the pamphlets entitled Wind Whisperings(1902)
and Songs of My People(1918) and a book entitled
Mantle of Dunbar(1918). Johnson made contribu-
tions to major Harlem Renaissance–era antholo-
gies of the early 1920s. Two poems appeared in
JAMESWELDONJOHNSON’s anthology THEBOOK
OFAMERICANNEGROPOETRY,and his writing also
appeared in the NEWMANIVEYWHITEand WAL-
TERJACKSON1924 work entitled ANTHOLOGY OF
VERSE BYAMERICANNEGROES.In addition, John-
son published in THECRISISin 1923.
In his brief biographical sketch and editorial
note that preceded Johnson’s poems, editor James
Weldon Johnson suggested that Johnson’s work
was “respectable, not varying in any great degree
either up or down from that level.” His poems
ranged from lively dialect pieces to serious medita-
tions. In “Negro Poets,” the lengthy seven-stanza
poem anthologized in the Johnson collection, the
poet speculated on the moment when poetry
would represent African-American matters. While
“[f]ull many lift and sing / Their sweet imagining”
he noted, “Whose pen with pregnant mirth / Will
give our longings birth / And point our souls the
way?” Johnson’s poems reflected his interest in the
production of African-American history and the
preservation of black culture. His successful effort
to produce a posthumous publication of his friend
Roscoe Conkling Jamison underscored his belief in
the power of literature and history. Jamison’s vol-
ume, Negro Soldiers: “These Truly Are the Brave”
and Other Poemsappeared in 1918.
ALAINLOCKErecognized Johnson as a part of
the “pioneers and path-breakers in the cultural de-
velopment and recognition of the Negro in the
arts.” In his powerful essay “Youth Speaks,” written
for the March 1925 special edition of SURVEY
GRAPHIC that was devoted to Harlem and to
African-American literature and issues, Locke
hailed Johnson along with Paul Laurence Dunbar,
GEORGIADOUGLASJOHNSON, and WALTEREV-
ERETTEHAWKINSfor their contributions to the
African-American literary tradition.Bibliography
Jamison, Roscoe C. Negro Soldiers: “These Truly Are the
Brave” and Other Poems.1918; reprint, New York:
AMS Press, 1975.
Johnson, James Weldon. The Book of American Negro Po-
etry.New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company,
1922.278 Johnson, Charles Bertram