Born in 1876 amid the lingering shadows of slavery in Tennessee, Charles Frederick White entered a world still scarred by the chains his parents had worn. The oldest of ten children born to formerly enslaved parents, he carried the weight of their hard-won freedom from the very beginning. His family soon migrated northward to Springfield, Illinois, seeking better opportunities in a state that had once sheltered Abrah…
“This same person has absolutely no prejudice towards any human being on account of race, color or creed”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Devotional Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Anger, Sorrow, Despair
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois entered the world on February 23, 1868, in the small, rolling hills of Great Barrington, Massachusetts—a town where the air carried the crisp scent of New England pines and the quiet rhythms of rural life. Born into a family of mixed African, Dutch, and French Huguenot heritage, he was the son of Alfred Du Bois, a restless barber and laborer of Haitian descent who soon vanished from t…
“One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
