ESTHER POPEL
One of the major poetess of the Harlem Renaissance, Esther Popel Shaw was born on July 16, 1896 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She graduated from the Harrisburg’s Central High School. Popel made history when she went to Dickenson College, the liberal arts college in Carlisle, as she was the first African American to do so. There she studied both Latin and modern languages and graduated as one of the top students in her year, receiving the John Patten Memorial Prize. Esther graduated from Dickinson in 1919. While at Dickinson, Esther Popel joined Delta Sigma Theta, an African American sorority founded in 1913.
Esther was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa national honors society upon her graduation from Dickinson. She self-published her first collection of poems, "Thoughtless Thinks" by a Thinkless Thoughter, while in high school. As America entered the 1920s, movements such as the Harlem Renaissance began to gain headway and Popel was an integral part of it. Esther was actively involved in a number of Black and women’s organizations. During the early 1920's she was a member of the College Alumnae Club, a group of college-educated Black women activists who supported education, especially for Black girls.
She served as vice president and president during her involvement with the organization. When the Club evolved into the National Association of College Women (NACW) in 1923, Esther was a charter member and was appointed chair of the Committee on the Constitution. She held the position of secretary of the NACW’s executive board for 19 years, during which time she served as the organization’s spokeswoman. She married in 1925 to William Shaw, a chemist, and they would have one daughter together. Whilst she continued to write, she worked as a high school teacher mainly in Washington DC where the family finally settled.
Esther had a long career as a teacher. She taught for short periods at Douglass Junior High in Baltimore and Shaw Junior High in Washington, DC, before accepting a position at Francis Junior High in DC. With her background in education she also played a role developing teaching policies throughout the Washington area and was eventually asked to work on long term plans for the country by the National Education Association. In 1936, Esther was selected to serve as an ex-officio consultant to the Educational Policies Commission.
The commission was appointed by the National Education Association and the Department of Superintendence “to develop long-range planning for the improvement of the American schools.” Esther Popel began publishing her poems in various African American publications including "Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life", produced by the National Urban League. Esther also published poems in "The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races", official publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
It was for this latter journal that she wrote perhaps her best known poem "Flag Salute". “Flag Salute” was in response to the October 18th, 1933 lynching of George Armwood. This young Black man was accused of attacking an elderly White woman named Mary Denston in Princess Anne, Maryland. This young Black man was accused of attacking an elderly White woman named Mary Denston in Princess Anne, MD. The incident received a large amount of press coverage. The Crisis printed Esther’s poem in August 1934 and featured it on the cover of the November 1940 issue.
It was published to much controversy with its style of intermingling quotes of the angry mob with lines from the pledge of allegiance. The poem was eventually being brought to a state committee to determine if it was permissible to be allowed in schools. That same year Popel published "Blasphemy American Style" in the journal "Opportunity". In 1933, Esther represented the NACW when the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom presented disarmament petitions to President Roosevelt in the White House.
The next year she published the anthology "A Forest Pool" and dedicated it to the memory of her mother, who had passed away recently. In 1942, she was appointed the NACW’s liaison to the Washington Department of the Office of Price Administration during World War II. She eventually settled down in Washington, D.C. where she became a high school teacher. The experience she gained teaching led to her work on contributions made to the educational system, both locally and on a national scale.
She assisted in the development of numerous teaching policies that would be adopted in the Washington, D.C. area, and ultimately worked for the National Education Association to create long term plans for the educational system throughout the country. Esther also served on the editorial board for the Negro History Bulletin, a publication of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, established by Carter G. Woodson, the father of Black history. When Woodson passed away in 1950, Esther was named among those who would carry on his legacy.
Esther also regularly published book reviews in The Journal of Negro History and The Journal of Negro Education. In it she voiced her opinions about race relations in the United States. Among her friends and admirers were such poets as Langston Hughes, Marita Bonner, and Georgia Douglas Johnson. Popel was a member of the latter's Saturday Nighters literary salon in Washington D.C. Popel’s poetry spans the range of her era’s interest in both lyrical nature meditations and condemnation of lynches. In 1952, a heart condition forced Popel Shaw to retire from teaching. In her retirement she took up painting as a hobby.