Hill used works such as “Ode to Patriotism,” “A
Call to Poets,” and “To All Leaders of Men” to ex-
hort readers and poets to debate the power and
destiny of the race. The volume is a powerful ex-
ample of the uncompromising race literature of the
Harlem Renaissance.
Bibliography
Hill, Leslie Pinckney. Wings of Oppression.Boston: Strat-
ford Company, 1921.
Wood, Clement (1880–1950)
A white, American author who in 1925 celebrated
the publication of the Harlem issue of SURVEY
GRAPHICand noted that “There is no more signifi-
cant transition in America today than that of the
Negro from the position of an awakening chattel to
that of full manhood, economically, politically, so-
cially, and artistically.” Wood also was one of sev-
eral white judges who participated in the annual
OPPORTUNITYliterary contests. He judged poetry
submissions in the 1924 and 1925 contests and in
1928 judged entries in the August round of the
CHARLESWADDELLCHESNUTTHonoraria.
Wood was the author of NIGGER(1922), a
work that preceded the controversial NIGGER
HEAVEN(1926) by CARLVANVECHTEN. He pub-
lished several works on poetry as well as biogra-
phies of Amy Lowell and Julius Caesar.
Bibliography
Survey Graphic.May 1925.
Wood, Clement. Nigger: A Novel.New York: E. P. Dut-
ton & Company, 1922.
Wood, L. Hollingsworth(1873–1956)
Vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of FISK
UNIVERSITY. He provided the foreword to the vol-
ume EBONY ANDTOPAZ: A COLLECTANEAthat
CHARLESS. JOHNSON, future president of the uni-
versity, edited and published in 1927.
Wood, Lillian (fl. 1922)
A teacher and still obscure writer who published a
single novel during the Harlem Renaissance. In
1922 Wood published LETMYPEOPLEGO,a mov-
ing novel about LYNCHINGand the power of orga-
nized and visionary political protest. The book,
published by the respected PHILADELPHIAA.M.E.
Book Concern, included a preface by the
Methodist Episcopal Bishop Robert Jones, a former
editor and the former president of Wiley Univer-
sity, Samuel Houston College, and New Orleans
University.Bibliography
Wood, Lillian. Let My People Go.Philadelphia: A.M.E.
Book Concern, 1922.Woodson, Carter Godwin(1875–1960)
Regarded as the “Father of Black History,” Wood-
son was a pioneering scholar, author, and editor
who shaped the scholarship and intellectual tenor
of African-American history. It was he who inau-
gurated “Negro History Week,” the forerunner of
Black History Month, in an effort to honor Freder-
ick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, both of whom
had February birthdays.
The son of Ann and James Henry Woodson,
formerly enslaved people, was born in New Canton,
Virginia. One of nine children, he worked alongside
his sharecropper parents when he was not attend-
ing the impoverished school for African-American
children that was open for only four months of the
year. The family, who valued education and culti-
vated Woodson’s love of learning and appreciation
of the political power of education, relocated to
Huntington, West Virginia. There, 20-year-old
Woodson received a more steady education at the
Frederick Douglass High School. Following his
graduation, he enrolled at Berea College for two
years, from 1896 through 1898. In 1903, after hav-
ing begun a teaching career and attending the UNI-
VERSITY OFCHICAGOfor one year, he returned to
Berea and completed his B.A. in 1903. He later
reenrolled at the University of Chicago, where he
worked toward both a B.A. and an M.A. He en-
rolled at HARVARDUNIVERSITYand began doctoral
studies in history. He taught at the selective M
Street High School, also known as DUNBARHIGH
SCHOOL, while completing the requirements for his
Ph.D., which he received in 1912.
Woodson was one of the most eminent and at-
tentive members of the vibrant WASHINGTON, D.C.,566 Wood, Clement