Jones, Adrienne Lash. Jane Edna Hunter: A Case Study of
Black Leadership, 1910–1950.Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carl-
son Publishers, 1990.
Sowash, Rick. Heroes of Ohio: Twenty-three True Tales of
Courage and Character. Bowling Green, Ohio:
Gabriel’s Horn Publishing Company, 1998.
Nigger: A Novel Clement Wood(1922)
One of several novels about African Americans writ-
ten by white American authors. Published in 1923, it
was written by CLEMENTWOOD, a Tuscaloosa, Al-
abama, native and YALE UNIVERSITY–educated
lawyer. Wood, who relocated to GREENWICHVIL-
LAGEbefore the Harlem Renaissance began, held
various jobs, including dean of the Barnard
School for Boys and poetry instructor at NEW
YORKUNIVERSITY.
The tragic and melodramatic tale traces the
life and descendants of Jake, an enslaved orphan,
and Phoebe, his mulatto wife. The couple survive
the deaths of four of their five children. Their
only living child, Isaac, goes on to marry and
have seven children. While this might seem to be
a turning point for the besieged family, Isaac and
his wife die shortly after the birth of the seventh
child, and Jake and Phoebe become responsible
for their grandchildren. Unfortunately, the family
is devastated by violence and poverty despite
Jake’s desire to acquire education and opportuni-
ties for his kin.
The especially bleak account of African-
American life that included dialect was, accord-
ing to reviewers, complemented by “delicate
touches” that illustrated Wood’s “apt understand-
ing of certain of the simpler forms of behavior.”
CHARLESS. JOHNSON, editor of OPPORTUNITY,
reviewed the work in the January 1923 issue of
his magazine. He characterized the work as “seri-
ous, honest, and tremendously impressive—a real
tragedy.” He praised Wood for representing the
“Negro... as a human being capable of some as-
pirations and standards enough to feel his disap-
pointment over failure to attain them.” Finally,
Johnson noted that a “race drama involving
highly controversial issues between the white and
Negro populations of the South is not easy to
write,” and he praised Wood for his literary tri-
umph in this regard.
Bibliography
Johnson, Charles S. “Nigger: A Novel by Clement
Wood.” Opportunity(January 1923).
Wood, Clement. Nigger: A Novel.New York: E. P. Dut-
ton & Company, 1922.Niggerati
A slang term coined by ZORANEALEHURSTON,
WALLACETHURMAN, and others to describe mem-
bers of the African-American literary circles of the
Harlem Renaissance. Hurston and Thurman, who
collaborated on projects such as the short-lived pe-
riodical FIRE!!,referred to the boardinghouse that
was popular with Harlem Renaissance writers and
artists at 267 West 136th Street as “Niggerati
Manor.” Thurman later incorporated this same
building into his last novel, INFANTS OF THE
SPRING:A NOVEL(1932).Nigger HeavenCarl Van Vechten(1926)
The controversial novel by CARLVANVECHTEN,
a white native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that refu-
eled the intense Harlem Renaissance debates
about the representation by whites of African-
American lives and experiences. It was one of sev-
eral satirical novels about the delights and evils of
decadence that Van Vechten published during the
1920s. With this novel, Van Vechten became the
first white writer to publish a novel based on
African-American life in HARLEM.
The title, which certainly incorporates a racial
epithet, refers as a whole to the segregated balcony
areas in which African Americans were forced to
sit during the era of JIMCROWracial segregation.
Van Vechten did worry that the title would alien-
ate potential friends and readers. Yet, while friends
LANGSTONHUGHESand JAMESWELDONJOHN-
SONurged him to consider alternative titles, others
like WALTER WHITE delighted in the catchy
phrase and thought it eminently marketable.
Van Vechten, who dedicated the work to his
wife FANIAMARINOFFVANVECHTEN, used four
lines from the moving COUNTEECULLENpoem en-
titled “Heritage” as an epigraph to the novel. The
quoted lines, which read, “All day long and all
night through / One thing only must I do: Quench
my pride and cool my blood, / Lest I perish in the390 Nigger: A Novel