So Much History

GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON

She was born as Georgia Blanche Douglas Camp on September 10th 1880 in Atlanta, GA. Although, Camp lived for much of her childhood Rome GA., she received her education in both Rome and Atlanta. Georgia excelled in reading, recitations and physical education. There she developed a lifelong love of music that she expressed in her plays, which make distinct use of sacred music. Georgia graduated from Atlanta University‘s Normal School  in 1896. In 1902 she left her teaching career to pursue her interest in music, attending Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. On September 28, 1903, Douglas married Henry Lincoln Johnson, an Atlanta lawyer and took his last name. Thereafter, she was known as Georgia Douglas Johnson.

In 1910, they moved to Washington, DC, as her husband had been appointed as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. Douglas was one of the architects of Washington D.C.’s version of the “New Negro Movement” or the Harlem Renaissance. Georgia Douglas Johnson was a close friend of its philosophical leader, Dr. Alain Locke, Dean of the Humanities at Howard University. Her home at 1461 S Street NW became an important gathering place for Black writers and artists.

Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Black artists, poets, and playwrights would met for weekly cultural gatherings, which became known as “The S Street Salon“. This was a place where they “could freely discuss politics and personal opinions” and where those with no money and no place to stay would be welcome. It mostly consisted of Black women such as May Miller, Marita Bonner, Mary Burrill, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Zora Neale Hurston, and Angelina Weld Grimke. Johnson was especially close to the writer Angelina Weld Grimké.

This Salon was known to have discussions on issues such as lynching, women’s rights, and the problems facing Black families. They became known as the “Saturday Nighters.” Black men intellectuals and writers such as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, and Wallace Thurman, were also allowed to attend. Johnson, however, was more than a salon host. Her volumes of poetry made her the most important female poet of the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson published her first poems in 1916 in the NAACP’s “The Crisis“, the journal of the NAACP magazine.

Two years later, she released her first book of poetry, “The Heart of a Woman and Other Poems,” which established her as one of the notable African American woman poets of her time. The poems in “The Heart of a Woman” are largely apolitical. Jessie Redmon Fauset, a Black editor, poet, essayist, novelist, and educator, helped Johnson select the poems for the book. Her poems were published in several issues of The Crisis. “Calling Dreams” was published in January 1920, “Treasure” and “Bronze” July 1922, “To Your Eyes” in November 1924, and “An Autumn Love Cycle” (1928).

With the appearance of “Bronze“, she began to examine racial themes including the impact of lynching on Black families and communities, miscegenation, passing, and race-based oppression. Many of the poems in “Bronze” have an optimistic tone. There is a sense of faith that racial justice will be possible, even if it is not yet here. A recommended poem along these lines might be “Hope.” Johnson wrote about 28 plays. Many of her plays were never published because of her gender and race. During the fall of 1926, her play “Blue Blood” was performed by the Krigwa Players in New York City and was published the following year.

In 1927 “Plumes,” a folk tragedy set in the rural South, won first prize in a literary contest sponsored by the National Urban League‘s magazine “Opportunity.” The play Plumes also won in the same competition in 1927. “Blue-Eyed Black Boy” is a 1930 lynching genre play written to convince Congress to pass anti-lynching laws. Many of her plays, written in the 1920s, fall into the category of lynching drama. She was writing at a time when organized opposition to lynching was part of social reform. Her activism is primarily expressed through her plays, first appearing in the play Sunday Morning in the South in 1925.

This outspoken, dramatic writing about racial violence is sometimes credited with her obscurity as a playwright since such topics were not considered appropriate for a woman at that time. Though she was involved in the NAACP’s anti-lynching campaigns of 1936 and 1938, the NAACP refused to produce many of her plays claiming they gave a feeling of hopelessness. In 1934 she lost her job in the Department of Labor and returned to supporting herself with temporary clerical work. Johnson worked as a teacher, librarian, and file clerk in the 1930s and 1940s. She found it difficult to get her works published.

During World War II, Johnson published poems and read some on radio shows. She continued writing plays into the era of the civil rights movement, though by that time other Black women writers were more likely to be noticed and published. Johnson’s literary success resulted in her becoming the first African-American woman to get national notice for her poetry since Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. In 1962 she published her last poetry collection, “Share My World“. Throughout her life, Johnson had written 200 poems, 28 plays and 31 short stories.