Willie, Charles, and Ronald Edmonds, eds. Black Col-
leges in America: Challenge, Development, Survival.
New York: Teachers College Press, 1978.
Sheen, Edwin Drummond(unknown)
A native of Decatur, Illinois, Sheen was a journal-
ist who also wrote fiction during the Harlem Re-
naissance. He enrolled at James Milliken
University, an institution founded in 1901 that was
affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Sheen
graduated with honors in 1925. Two years later, he
completed his second bachelor’s degree at the Uni-
versity of Illinois.
Sheen won the second prize in the 1926 CRI-
SISliterary contest. His short story “THEDEATH
GAME” was one of four notable works identified by
the judges CHARLESCHESNUTT, Otelia Cromwell,
and Ernest Poole. This story appears to be the only
work of fiction that Sheen published during the
Harlem Renaissance.
Sherman, French, and Company
One of several small Boston publishing houses and
the firm that in 1912 published the first edition of
THEAUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANEX-COLOUREDMAN
by JAMESWELDONJOHNSON. The firm also pub-
lished works by GEORGEREGINALDMARGETSON,a
Boston-based West Indian poet who participated in
the city’s SATURDAYEVENING QUILLCLUBand
contributed works to the SATURDAY EVENING
QUILL.
“Silk Stockings” Anita Scott Coleman(1926)
A frenetic short story about unfulfilled desires and
domesticity by ANITASCOTTCOLEMAN. Published
in the August 1926 issue of THEMESSENGER,the
story was part of the journal’s efforts to diversify its
contents and to include more literary materials.
The story begins as a type of intervention, one
meant to tell the “plain tale of plain people,” the
“plain everyday folks” in whose lives one can find
“tragedies from which drama is woven.” Protago-
nist Nancy Meade marries John Silas Light after an
unsuccessful but educational dalliance with Gerald
Lincoln McKay. An industrious woman and tal-
ented seamstress, she creates a wardrobe that is
the envy of many of her coworkers. The items that
Nancy cannot make, however, are silk stockings.
Following the birth of her baby, she skillfully trans-
forms a portion of her wardrobe into baby clothes.
After enduring his wife’s direct hints, her husband
buys her stockings. Unfortunately, they are neither
attractive nor made of silk. Disillusioned, she al-
lows herself to question her marriage and to recon-
sider McKay as a sweetheart. She and McKay
enjoy a number of outings and kisses but one
night, the sight of a laundry line with men’s socks,
women’s cream stockings, and a pair of baby’s
stockings jars Nancy back into reality. She flees
McKay and hurries home to her husband and
child.
Coleman’s story, like a number of works by fel-
low Harlem Renaissance writers, examines the ma-
terial realities and desires that sometimes threaten
marriages. The themes of self-indulgence, betrayal,
and recommitment, however, transform this poten-
tially tragic tale into a meditation on recuperation
and reunion.Silvera, Edward S., Jr.(1906–1937)
A Florida native who, before his untimely death,
was an emerging and promising poet of the Harlem
Renaissance. Silvera moved north with his family
to New Jersey. He pursued undergraduate studies
at LINCOLNUNIVERSITY, the first American insti-
tution of higher learning for African-American
men. Silvera thrived at Lincoln, the alma mater of
ARCHIBALD GRIMKÉ, Thurgood Marshall, and
Kwame Nkrumah. Lincoln also was the alma
mater of LANGSTONHUGHES,WARINGCUNEY,
and William Hill. In 1930 the works of Silvera,
Hughes, Cuney, and Hill were featured in “FOUR
LINCOLNUNIVERSITYPOETS,” a celebratory uni-
versity sponsored pamphlet.
Silvera was one of several writers featured in
FIRE!!,the dynamic, controversial, and short-lived
journal edited by WALLACETHURMAN. In Novem-
ber 1926 his poem “Jungle Taste” appeared in Flame
From the Dark Tower,a collection of poems that also
featured the writings of LEWISALEXANDER,ARNA
BONTEMPS, Waring Cuney, COUNTEE CULLEN,
Langston Hughes, and HELENE JOHNSON. The
poem celebrates the private racialized knowledge
that is available only to people of specific and sharedSilvera, Edward S., Jr. 479