Nomah, now orphaned, is a Catholic, as her
deceased mother was. Distressed by the fact that
her father’s body was not recovered from the
ocean, she seeks out the local priest in an effort to
organize a burial ceremony nonetheless. When she
realizes that she does not have money enough to
pay for her father’s coffin, she decides to marry the
persistent old suitor Kufu. A man of means who
works for a colonial English business interest, Kufu
becomes miserly and mean after the marriage cere-
mony. Nomah, desperate to sustain herself now
that she truly has no financial stability even in
marriage, makes the momentous decision to use
her father’s old canoe and go fishing. As she over-
comes her grief, prompted again by the sight of the
vessel that bore her father out to his death, she re-
alizes that the boat has been sabotaged. Sure that
the systematic set of bored holes in its floor are the
work of her scheming husband, she kills him.
Matheus’s absorbing story of family devotion,
revenge, African beliefs, and rituals was one of
many works that underscored the richness of
African heritage and its relevance to contemporary
American life.
“Noose, The” Octavia Wynbush(1927)
A haunting short story by OCTAVIAWYNBUSH,au-
thor of several short stories that were published in
THECRISIS,“The Noose,” which appeared in the
December 1931 issue of Crisis,centered on a cuck-
olded man named King who seeks revenge on the
man who seduced his wife, Nomia. The story begins
as Nomia’s sister, Leora, seeks out King for news of
Jed, the fast-talking, charming man who returned
to the plantation community after Nomia’s death in
an unnamed wintry Northern city.
King, who has waited to avenge his loss, re-
ports to Leora that a jury has not only tried Jed but
found him guilty and executed him. Her belief in
Jed’s innocence begins to prey on King. As he goes
to sleep that evening, he is frightened by what he
thinks is a noose hanging from the rafters. After
realizing that it is an errant piece of rope, he
douses the light and goes to sleep. When he wakes
the next morning, however, he is convinced that a
rope is around his neck. Panicked, he does his best
to shed the “thing” whose “cords were growing
thicker and tighter.” Leora and neighbors discover
King’s dead body, upon which there are remnants
of a spider’s web around his neck, a few days later.
“The Noose” is a tragic story of savage realism
and gothic horror. Wynbush crafted a memorable
portrait of southern life and a stirring exploration
of the powers of human guilt and the unconscious.North Carolina College for Negroes
at Durham
The North Carolina College for Negroes at
Durham was known first as the National Religious
Training School and Chautauqua. It received its
charter in 1909 and accepted its first students in- Its founder and first president was Dr. James
Shepard. It was the first state-supported African-
American liberal arts college.
The institution relied on student tuition fees
and private donations. One of its chief benefactors
was Mrs. Russell Sage. The school became a public
institution in 1923 when the General Assembly of
North Carolina passed legislation that allocated
funds for the purchase of the institution and its up-
keep. The legislature also approved the change in
name to Durham State Normal School but in 1925
voted approved the school’s new name, The North
Carolina College for Negroes. In 1947 the school’s
name was changed again, to North Carolina Col-
lege at Durham. It is known now as North Car-
olina Central University,
In 1939, the university received legislative ap-
proval of its law school. This was the same year in
which ZORANEALEHURSTONjoined the faculty
as a drama instructor. During her time in Durham,
she had the opportunity to meet PAULGREEN, the
white playwright and University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill drama professor. Other prominent
intellectuals who were part of the college faculty
and staff included Dr. John Hope Franklin, the em-
inent historian, and his wife, Aurelia Whittington
Franklin, who was a law librarian at the school.
The school conferred an honorary master’s degree
on Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a tireless North
Carolina educator, feminist, and historian.
Bibliography
Roebuck, Julian. Historically Black Colleges and Universi-
ties: Their Place in American Higher Education.We s t -
port, Conn.: Praeger, 1993.North Carolina College for Negroes at Durham 393