American Decades
Selections from The Book of American Negro Poetry
Preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry
Essay
By: James Weldon Johnson
Date: 1922
Source: Johnson, James Weldon. Preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1922. Reprint, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958.
"If We Must Die"
Poem
By: Claude McKay
Date: 1922
Source: McKay, Claude. "If We Must Die." In The Book of American Negro Poetry, James Weldon Johnson, ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1922. Reprint, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1958, 168–169.
About the Author: James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) is considered the elder statesman of the Harlem Renaissance. In addition to his numerous literary contributions, he was an NAACP organizer and a U.S. consul to Venezuela. Johnson penned the famous "Lift Ev'ry Voice...
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1920's The Arts Primary Sources
- "The New O'Neill Play"
- New York Dada
- Documenting the Eskimos
- Selections from The Book of American Negro Poetry
- Art of Alfred Stieglitz
- Bessie Smith's Blues
- "From the Memoirs of a Private Detective"
- Rhapsody in Blue
- Dempsey and Firpo
- Calder's Circus
- The General
- The Jazz Singer
- "Blue Skies"
- "Far from Well"
- Steamboat Willie
- Lulu in Hollywood
- Blood Memory
- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgments
