Encyclopedia of the Harlem Literary Renaissance

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

Bibliography
Leak, Jeffrey, ed. Rac(e)ing To the Right: Selected Essays of
George S. Schuyler.Knoxville: University of Ten-
nessee Press, 2001.
Kellner, Bruce. The Letters of Carl Van Vechten.New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987.
Peplow, Michael. George S. Schuyler.Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1980.
Schuyler, Philippa. Adventures in Black and White.New
York: Robert Speller and Sons, 1960.
Talalay, Kathryn. Composition in Black and White: The
Life of Philippa Schuyler.New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1995.
Williams, Harry Jr. When Black Is Right: The Life and
Writings of George Schuyler.Ann Arbor, Mich.: Uni-
versity Microfilms International, 1990.


Scotia Seminary
The North Carolina school from which the influ-
ential educator MARYMCLEODBETHUNEgradu-
ated in 1893. The Presbyterian Church, which
founded the school in 1867, established the cam-
pus in West Concord, North Carolina. Scotia
Seminary was dedicated to educating African-
American women for careers in education and in
social work. Scotia Seminary was renamed Scotia
Women’s College in 1916. In 1930 the school
merged with the Alabama institution Barber
Memorial College and was renamed Barber-Scotia
College.
Bethune, one of the school’s most accom-
plished alumni, established BETHUNE-COOKMAN
COLLEGEin Daytona Beach, Florida. Barber-Scotia
later honored her by naming one of the buildings
on its modest campus after the visionary educator
and political adviser. The school continues to
thrive today as a historically black coeducational
institution.


Bibliography
Roebuck, Julian, and Komanduri Murty. Historically
Black Colleges and Universities: Their Place in Ameri-
can Higher Education. Westport, Conn.: Praeger,
1993.
Whiting, Albert. Guardians of the Flame: Historically
Black Colleges Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.Wash-
ington, D.C.: American Association of State Col-
leges and Universities, 1991.


Scott, Clarissa M. SeeDELANY,CLARISSAM.
SCOTT.

Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a
Play in VerseLangston Hughes(1932)
A politically motivated collection by writer
LANGSTONHUGHESthat focused on the explosive,
false rape charges by two white prostitutes against
nine young African-American men aged 13 to 19
(eight of the nine were sentenced to death; see
SCOTTSBORO TRIAL). Hughes donated profits from
the work to the Scottsboro Defense Fund. Pub-
lished by the NEWYORKCITY–based Golden Stair
Press, the volume was priced at 50 cents and in-
cluded moving illustrations by Prentiss Taylor, a
white WASHINGTON, D.C., artist who collaborated
with Hughes on his 1931 collection, THENEGRO
MOTHER ANDOTHERRECITATIONS.
Scottsboro Limitedincluded a verse drama that
had been published earlier in NEWMASSESand
four other previously published works, poems that
had appeared in journals such as the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill student newspaper
CONTEMPOand OPPORTUNITY. The four poems
were “Justice,” “The Town of Scottsboro,” “Christ
in Alabama,” and “Scottsboro.” Each was an
evocative manifesto marked for its graphic images
of violence, oppressed African-American figures,
and worlds devoid of justice.
The first poem in the collection is a stark,
four-line poem entitled “Justice.” The narrator
notes wryly and without hesitation “That Justice is
a blind goddess / Is a thing to which we black are
wise.” The sobered narrator, notes, however, that
the goddess, like the justice she represents, is in
crisis and unwhole. The classic blindfold that cov-
ers Justice’s eyes is transformed into a “bandage,”
one that “hides two festering sores / That once
perhaps were eyes.” In “Scottsboro,” Hughes is un-
abashed in his indictment of white southern
hypocrisy, prejudice, and inclination toward vio-
lence. “8 BLACK BOYS IN A SOUTHERN JAIL
/ WORLD, TURN PALE!” the narrator declares
before posing jarring observations and a haunting
question: “8 black boys and one white lie. Is it
much to die?” The pointed evaluation in “The
Town of Scottsboro,” declares that “Scottsboro’s
just a little place: No shame is writ across its

Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play in Verse 473
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