George Marion McClellan was born on 29 September 1860 near Belfast, Tennessee, and died on 17 May 1934. His lifetime stretched from the final year of slavery in the United States through the Civil War, Reconstruction, the consolidation of Jim Crow segregation, the Great Migration, and the Harlem Renaissance. To read his poetry only as the work of a minor late-Victorian versifier would be to miss the extraordinary his…
“This is a domain that mocks at legislative restrictions, caste, exclusionism and what not.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Death & Mortality, Harlem Renaissance, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
On May 30, 1903, a child was born who would become one of the most celebrated voices of the Harlem Renaissance, yet whose origins remain shrouded in the kind of mystery that seems almost poetic in retrospect. Countee Cullen's exact birthplace has been disputed—some records suggest New York City, others Louisville, Kentucky, and still others Baltimore, Maryland. This uncertainty about his origins would prove oddly fit…
“In spite of myself I find that I am actuated by a strong sense of race consciousness. This grows upon me, I find, as I grow older, and although I struggle against it, it colors my writing, I fear, in spite of everything I can do.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Tenderness
