Robert Nathaniel Dett entered the world on October 11, 1882, in the small village of Drummondville, Ontario—now absorbed into the bustling splendor of Niagara Falls, Canada—amid the roar of one of nature’s most awe-inspiring wonders. He left it on October 2, 1943, at the age of sixty, felled by a heart attack in Battle Creek, Michigan, while tirelessly touring with a USO chorus to lift the spirits of troops during Wo…
“I am a musician whose ambition in life is the advancement of my people, and who believes absolutely in equality of opportunity for all peoples, regardless of race, creed, or color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Devotional Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Love Poets, Poet-Musicians
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Joy, Longing
James Weldon Johnson entered the world on June 17, 1871, in Jacksonville, Florida, a bustling port city where the St. Johns River met the Atlantic and where the scars of Reconstruction still lingered in the humid air. He left it on June 26, 1938, in a car accident near Wiscasset, Maine, at the age of sixty-seven, his body laid to rest in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Between those dates stretched a life of astonish…
“The future of the Negro in this country is precisely as bright or dark as the future of the country.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Wonder, Longing
