William Stanley Beaumont Braithwaite entered the world on December 6, 1878, in Boston, Massachusetts, a city pulsing with literary ambition and the lingering echoes of abolitionist fervor. He departed it on June 8, 1962, at his home on Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem, New York, after a brief illness, at the age of eighty-three. In the eighty-three years between those dates, Braithwaite forged a remarkable life as poet, cr…
“Only gradually through the dull purgatory of the Age of Discussion, has Negro life eventually issued forth to an Age of Expression.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Love Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Wonder, Peace
Gwendolyn B. Bennett was a radiant force in American literature and art, a woman whose life wove together the threads of creativity, resilience, and quiet revolution during one of the most electrifying cultural awakenings in the nation's history. Born on July 8, 1902, in Giddings, Texas, and passing away on May 30, 1981, in Reading, Pennsylvania, at the age of seventy-eight, Bennett embodied the spirit of the Harlem…
“You were always glad to see them. You always had an exciting time when you were with them.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Love Poets, Modernist Poets, Political Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow