The city’s history of excellent educational op-
portunities also enriched the lives of Harlem Re-
naissance figures who lived there. The major
universities and colleges there include Saint Joseph’s
University, Temple University, and the UNIVERSITY
OFPENNSYLVANIA. Jessie Fauset, highly regarded for
her influential role at The Crisisand her visionary
outreach to emerging writers, attended the highly
regarded Philadelphia High School for Girls. Follow-
ing her graduation from Cornell University, she en-
rolled at the University of Pennsylvania and earned
a master’s degree in French. LEWISALEXANDER,
Raymond Alexander, Nellie Rathborne Bright,
ALICEDUNBAR-NELSON, Arthur Fauset, and others
also attended the University of Pennsylvania, and
Albert Barnes was a graduate of the University of
Pennsylvania Medical School.
The city, which had a significant African-
American population, also proved to be an ideal
site in which to conduct research on African-
American experiences. W. E. B. DuBois inter-
viewed more than 2,000 Philadelphians for The
Philadelphia Negro, his groundbreaking study of
African-American urban life.
Literary life in the city was fueled by active
clubs and societies that, like their counterparts in
NEWYORKCITYand BOSTON, provided intellec-
tuals and artists with the opportunity to meet their
peers, to share their work, and to engage in lively
debates. In Philadelphia, these African-American
social and literary organizations included the PI-
RANEAN CLUB, the Beaux Arts Club, and the
Black Opals Society.
Philadelphia also featured in Harlem Renais-
sance–era literature such as the short story
“EMMY” (1912–13) by Jessie Fauset and the one-
act play entitled THEHUNCH(1927) by EULALIE
SPENCE. Important publishing companies such as J.
B. Lippincott, the press with which Zora Neale
Hurston was affiliated, were based for many years
in Philadelphia. Other presses that worked with
writers of the period included the Alpress Com-
pany and the African Methodist Episcopal Book
Concern.
Bibliography
Jubilee, Vincent. Philadelphia’s Afro-American Literary
Circle and the Harlem Renaissance. Ann Arbor,
Mich.: University Microfilms, 1982.
Pickens, William(1881–1954)
A South Carolina educator who dedicated more
than two decades to the NATIONALASSOCIATION
FOR THEADVANCEMENT OF COLOREDPEOPLE
(NAACP).
The son of Jacob and Fannie Porter Pickens,
he was born in Anderson County, South Car-
olina. Three years after his graduation from Tal-
ladega College in Alabama, he married Minnie
Cooper McAlpine in 1905, and the couple had
three children. After earning his bachelor’s de-
gree from Talladega College, Pickens went on to
earn a second bachelor’s degree from YALEUNI-
VERSITY, where he distinguished himself as an or-
ator and was elected to membership in PHIBETA
KAPPA. He earned a Master’s degree from FISK
UNIVERSITYin 1908.
Pickens returned to his Alabama alma mater
to teach Latin and German. He relocated to Wiley
College in Marshall, Texas, the school from which
he would earn a law degree in 1920, and taught
Greek and sociology. In 1915 he accepted the post
of dean at Morgan College and held it until 1920.
In that year, Pickens began his lengthy administra-
tive career with the NAACP as field secretary.
With W. E. B. DUBOIS, Pickens represented
NAACP interests, serving at one time with DuBois
on the All-America Anti-Imperialist League, a
group founded in 1925 in order to prevent further
aggressions against oppressed peoples in the name
of American imperialism.
During the Harlem Renaissance, the period in
which he was teaching and working with the
NAACP, Pickens published BURSTING BONDS
(1923), his autobiography. He also published po-
etry and prose works in contemporary journals of
the era, including THEMESSENGER.
A member of the AMERICAN NEGRO
ACADEMYand the fraternity Omega Psi Phi, Pick-
ens published numerous works before and during
the Harlem Renaissance. In the years preceding
the Renaissance, Pickens produced a biography of
Abraham Lincoln, a historical study entitled Fred-
erick Douglass and the Spirit of Freedom,and The
Heir of Slaves,the first of two autobiographies. His
later works included The Ultimate Effects of Segre-
gation and Discrimination(1915), The New Negro
(1916), and Bursting Bonds(1923).420 Pickens, William