by REGINAANDREWSand W. E. B. DUBOIS, per-
formed FOOL’SERRANDin the Little Theatre Tour-
nament, a well-known annual national competition.
The play won second prize in the rigorous competi-
tion. Published by the New York company of
Samuel French, Fool’s Errand subsequently was
staged at the Frolic Playhouse on Broadway in May
1927 and became the first work by an African-
American woman to open on Broadway.
Spence collaborated with several small but no-
table drama troupes of the period. These included
the Dunbar Garden Players. She worked closely
with her sister Dora Spence, an aspiring actress who
was cast as an understudy in Paul Green’s PULITZER
PRIZE–winning play INABRAHAM’SBOSOM.
Spence, who never married, died in March
1981.
Spencer, Anne Bethel Scales Bannister
(1882–1976)
A poet, librarian, civil rights activist, and avid
gardener known for her gentility, high morality,
and intellectual engagement with leading figures
of the Harlem Renaissance period. Born on the R.
J. Reynolds plantation in Henry County, West
Virginia, Spencer was the only child of Joel Ce-
phus and Sarah Louise Scales Bannister. Her par-
ents were both of mixed-race ancestry. Her father
was of African-American and Seminole Indian
ancestry, and her mother was the daughter of a
formerly enslaved woman and a white Virginian.
Spencer, who did not begin formal schooling until
she was 11 years old, spent much time at the
Martinsville, Virginia, saloon that her father
owned. In 1887 the Bannister marriage ended,
and Sarah relocated to Bramwell, West Virginia,
with her daughter. Anne became the foster child
of Mr. and Mrs. William Dixie while her mother
worked full-time as a cook to support the family.
Sarah Bannister’s insistence that her daughter re-
ceive the best education led to her enrollment in
an African-American boarding school in Lynch-
burg, Virginia. She began studying at the Virginia
Seminary, known formerly as the Lynchburg Bap-
tist Seminary, in 1893. Spencer’s hard work,
demonstrated commitment to academics, and dy-
namic personality resulted in selection as class
valedictorian when she graduated in 1899.
In May 1901, two years after her graduation
from Virginia Seminary and College, she married
Edward Spencer, who was a fellow student at Vir-
ginia Seminary, her former science tutor, and a fel-
low member of the class of 1899. Spencer worked
on the railroad when they married but soon be-
came the first parcel postman in Lynchburg, Vir-
ginia. The couple had three children, Bethel,
Alroy, and Chauncey, an accomplished aviator.
After 65 years of marriage, Edward Spencer passed
away. He died at age 88 in 1964. Spencer survived
her husband for some 11 years. In July 1975 the
92-year-old poet died of cancer.
Spencer’s civil rights work and interests had
significant implications for her literary career. In
1918 she led the effort to establish the first Lynch-
burg, Virginia, chapter of the NATIONALASSOCIA-
TION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED
PEOPLE. She worked directly with JAMESWELDON
JOHNSONto establish the local organization, and it
was he who introduced her work to editor and
critic H. L. MENCKEN. Johnson also encouraged
the emerging writer to publish under the name
“Anne Spencer.” Spencer’s first published poem,
“Before the Feast of Shushan,” appeared in THE
CRISISin February 1920. Additional works ap-
peared in SURVEYGRAPHIC, PALMS,and OPPORTU-
NITY. In addition, Spencer’s poems appeared in
major literary anthologies. Her early mentor James
Weldon Johnson included her work in his 1922
edition entitled THEBOOK OFAMERICANNEGRO
POETRY. She also was featured in Robert Kerlin’s
NEGROPOETS ANDTHEIRPOEMS(1923) and was
the only woman of color featured in Louis Unter-
meyer’s American Poetry Since 1900 (1923). In
1925 Spencer’s poems were included in ALAIN
LOCKE’s THENEWNEGRO,the celebrated and in-
fluential 1925 collection of works by and about
African Americans. Her work also appeared in two
major anthologies published in 1927, COUNTEE
CULLEN’s CAROLINGDUSKand Charles Johnson’s
EBONY AND TOPAZ. Cullen featured 10 of
Spencer’s poems. In 1941, just after the close of
the Harlem Renaissance, her work appeared in
STERLING BROWN’s THE NEGRO CARAVAN. In
1963 ARNA BONTEMPS included three of her
works in American Negro Poetry.
During the Harlem Renaissance, Spencer was
based primarily in Lynchburg, Virginia. In 1923 she490 Spencer, Anne Bethel Scales Bannister