Georgia Douglas Johnson: Difference between revisions

| image = File:Georgia Douglas Johnson.jpg

| birth_place = [[Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta]], [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], U.S.

| death_place = [[Washington, D.C.]], U.S.

| occupation = {{flatlist|
* [[Poet]],
* one of the earliest African-American female [[playwrights]],
* music teacher,
* school principal

'''Georgia Blanche Douglas Camp Johnson''', better known as '''Georgia Douglas Johnson''' (September 10, 1880 – May 15, 1966), was an [[United States|African-American]]a [[poet]], and playwright. She was one of the earliest female [[African-American female]] [[playwrights]],<ref name="Plays of" /> and an important figure of the [[Harlem Renaissance]].

She was born as Georgia Blanche Douglas Camp in 1880 in [[Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta]], [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], to Laura Douglas and George Camp<ref name="umn.edu">Atkins, Alyssa, Theresa Crushshon and Chanida Phaengdara. [http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/166237/Johnson%2c%20Georgia%20Douglas.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y "Voices from the Gaps: Georgia Douglas Johnson."] [[University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy]], December 15, 2015. Retrieved April 17, 2017.</ref> (her mother's last name is listed in other sources as Jackson).<ref name="georgiaencyclopedia.com">Palumbo, Carmine D. [httphttps://www.georgiaencyclopedia.comorg/ngearticles/Article.jsp?id=harts-989culture/georgia-douglas-johnson-ca-1877-1966/ "Georgia Johnson."] ''[[New Georgia Encyclopedia]]'', September 17, 2003. Retrieved October 7, 2013.</ref><ref name="about.com">Lewis, Jone Johnson. [https://www.thoughtco.com/georgia-douglas-johnson-3529263 "Georgia Douglas Johnson: Harlem Renaissance Writer."] ''[[Thoughtco]]'', January 7, 2015. Retrieved April 17, 2017.</ref> Both parents were of mixed ancestry, with her mother having African-American and [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native American]] heritage, and her father of [[African-American]] and [[English people|English]] heritage.<ref name="about.com"/>

Camp lived for much of her childhood in [[Rome, Georgia|Rome]], Georgia. She received her education in both Rome and [[Atlanta]], where she excelled in reading, recitations and physical education. She also taught herself to play the [[violin]]. She developed a lifelong love of music that she expressed in her plays, which make distinct use of sacred music.<ref name="Art, Activsm" />

She graduated from [[Atlanta University]]'s [[Normal School]] in 1896.<ref name="georgiaencyclopedia.com"/> She taught school in [[Marietta, Georgia|Marietta]], Georgia. In 1902 she left her teaching career to pursue her interest in music, attending [[Oberlin Conservatory of Music]] in [[Ohio]]. She wrote music from 1898 until 1959. After studying in Oberlin, Johnson returned to Atlanta, where she became assistant principal in a public school.<ref name="Plays of" />

On September 28, 1903, Douglas married [[Henry Lincoln Johnson]] (1870-19251870–1925), an Atlanta lawyer and prominent [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] party member who was ten years older than she.<ref>{{citationCite web needed|title=Georgia Douglas Johnson |url=https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/georgia-douglas-johnson |access-date=May2024-01-31 2017|website=National Women's History Museum |language=en}}</ref> Douglas and Johnson had two sons, Henry Lincoln Johnson, Jr., and Peter Douglas Johnson (d. 1957). In 1910, they moved to Washington, DC, as her husband had been appointed as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, a political patronage position under Republican President [[William Howard Taft]]. While the city had an active cultural life among the elite people of color, it was far from the [[Harlem]] literary center of New York, to which Douglas became attracted.

Douglas's marital life was affected by her writing ambition, for her husband was not supportive of her literary passion, insisting that she devote more time to becoming a [[homemaker]] than on publishing poetry. But she later dedicated two poems to him, "[[The Heart of a Woman]]" (1918) and "Bronze" (1922), to him; thesewhich were praised for their literary quality.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Johnson|first1=Georgia Douglas Camp|title=Bronze : a book of verses|url=https://archive.org/details/bronzebookofvers00john|publisher=Boston : B.J. Brimmer Co.|date=1922}}</ref>

During the 1920s, Douglas Johnson traveled extensively to give poetry readings. In 1925 her husband died, and she was widowed at the age of 45. She had to rear their two teenage sons by herself.<ref name="Oxford comp">{{cite book|authoreditor=William L. Andrews (ed.)|title=The Oxford Companion to African American Literature|year=1997|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=0195065107|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00will}}</ref> For years she struggled to support them financially, sometimes taking the clerical jobs generally available to women.

But as a gesture to her late husband's loyalty and political service, Republican President [[Calvin Coolidge]] appointed Douglas Johnson as the [[Commissioner]] of [[Conciliation]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), South Africa {{!}} Access|url=http://www.accessfacility.org/commission-conciliation-mediation-and-arbitration-ccma-south-africa|website=www.accessfacility.org|language=en}}</ref> a political appointee position within the [[United States Department of Labor|Department of Labor]]. In 1934, during the Democratic administration of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], she lost this political appointee job. She returned to supporting herself with temporary clerical work.<ref name="Poetry Foundation">{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/georgia-douglas-johnson|title=Georgia Douglas Johnson|date=2017-05-May 28, 2017|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en-us|access-date=2017-05-May 29, 2017}}</ref>

Johnson was well recognized for her poems collected in ''The Heart of a Woman'' (1918). She explores themes for women such as isolation, loneliness, pain, love and the role of being a woman during this time. Other poems in this collection consist of motherly concerns.<ref>{{CitationCite web |last=Baldwin |first=Emma needed|date=May2018-08-14 2019|title=The Heart of a Woman by Georgia Douglas Johnson |url=https://poemanalysis.com/georgia-douglas-johnson/the-heart-of-a-woman/ |access-date=2024-01-31 |website=Poem Analysis |language=en-US}}</ref>

{{poemquotepoem quote|"The Heart of a Woman"

In the wake of those echoes, the heart calls home.

Johnson's collection published as ''Bronze'' had a popular theme of racial issues; she continued to explore motherhood and being a woman of color. In the foreword of ''Bronze'' she said: "Those who know what it means to be a colored woman in 1922-1922– know it not so much in fact as in feeling ..."[1]

Like several other plays that prominent women of the Harlem Renaissance wrote, ''[[A Sunday Morning in the South]]'' (1925) was provoked by the inconsistencies of American life. These included the contrast between Christian doctrine and white America's treatment of black Americans, the experience of black men who returned from fighting in war to find they lacked constitutional rights, the economic disparity between whites and blacks, and [[miscegenation]].<ref name=PlaceStage/>

In 1926, Johnson's play ''Blue Blood'' won honorable mention in the ''[[Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life|Opportunity]]'' drama contest. Her play ''[[Plumes (play)|Plumes]]'' also won in the same competition in 1927.<ref name="Encyclopedia of Af ...">{{cite book|editor-last=Williams|editor-first=Yolanda (ed.)|title=Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers|year=2007|publisher=[[Greenwood Press]]|location=[[Westport, CT]]|isbn=978-0313334290}}</ref> ''Plumes'' is a folk drama that relates the dilemma of Charity, the main character, whose baby daughter is dying. She has saved up money for the doctor, but also she and her confidante - Tilde - don't believe the medical care would be successful. She has in mind an extravagant funeral for her daughter instead - with plumes, [[wiktionary:hack#Etymology_3Etymology 3|hacks]], and other fancy trimmings. Before Charity makes a decision, her daughter dies.<ref name=PlaceStage/> ''Plumes'' was produced by the Harlem Experimental Theatre between 1928 and 1931.

''[[Blue-Eyed Black Boy]]'' is a 1930 [[Lynching in the United States|lynching]] genre play written to convince Congress to pass anti-lynching laws. This lesser known play premiered in Xoregos Performing Company's program: "[[Songs of the Harlem River]]" in [[New York City]]'s Dream Up Festival, from August 30 to September 6, 2015. "Songs of the [[Harlem River]] - a collection of five one-act plays including ''[[Blue-Eyed Black Boy]]'' also opened the [[Langston Hughes]] Festival in [[Queens, New York]], on February 13, 2016.

In 1935, Johnson wrote two historical plays, ''William and Ellen Craft'' and ''Frederick Douglass.'' ''William and Ellen Craft'' describes the escape of a black couple from slavery, in a work about the importance of self-love, the use of religion for support, and the power of strong relationships between black men and women. Her work ''Frederick Douglass'' is about [[Frederick Douglass|his]] personal qualities that are not as much in the public eye: his love and tenderness for Ann, who he met while still enslaved, and then was married to in freedom for over four decades. Other themes include the spirit of survival, the need for self-education, and the value of the community and of the extended family.<ref name=PlaceStage>{{Cite book| last=Brown-Guillory|first=Elizabeth|authorlinkauthor-link=Elizabeth Brown-Guillory|title=Their Place on the Stage: Black Women Playwrights in America|publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group|Greenwood Press]]|year=1988|isbn=9780313259852|location=[[New York City]], [[New York (state)|New York]]|pages=| url=https://archive.org/details/theirplaceonstag0000brow |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

Although Johnson spoke out against race inequity as a whole, she is more known as a key advocate in the [[anti-lynching movement]] as well as a pioneering member of the [[Lynching in the United States|lynching]] drama tradition. Her activism is primarily expressed through her plays, first appearing in the play ''Sunday Morning in the South'' in 1925.<ref name=PlaceStage>< /ref> 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.<ref name="Art, Activsm" /> Unlike many African-American playwrights, Johnson refused to give her plays a happy ending since she did not feel it was a realistic outcome. As a result, Johnson had difficulty getting plays published.<ref name="umn.edu"/> Though she was involved in the [[NAACP]]'s anti-lynching campaigns of 1936 and 1938,<ref name="Art, Activsm" /> the NAACP refused to produce many of her plays claiming they gave a feeling of hopelessness.<ref name="Johnson letter">Prentiss, Craig R. [https://books.google.com/books?id=qn0UCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=walter+white+georgia+douglas+johnson&sourcepg=bl&ots=8sgNu2-jwN&sig=cpklI-aIwlIVOjVMlelJX1EsbgA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZw6bOr7HTAhXBKJQKHSxSAVwQ6AEIPzAJ#v=onepage&q=walter%20white%20georgia%20douglas%20johnson&f=falsePA188 "Letter from Walter White to Georgia Douglas Johnson, January 18, 1937"], ''Staging Faith: Religion and African American Theater from the Harlem Renaissance to World War II.'' [[New York City|New York]]: [[New York University Press]], 2014. {{ISBN|0814708080}}. [[Google Books]]. Retrieved April 19, 2017.</ref> Johnson was also a member of the Writers League Against Lynching, which included [[Countee Cullen|Countée Cullen]], [[James Weldon Johnson]], [[Jessie Fauset]], and [[Alain Locke]]. The organization sought a federal anti-lynching bill.<ref name="Art, Activsm" />

Gloria Hull in her book ''Color, Sex, and Poetry'', argues that Johnson's work ought to be placed in an exceedingly distinguished place within the [[Harlem Renaissance]], and that for African-American women writers "they desperately need and deserve long overdue scholarly attention". Hull, through a black feminist critical perspective, appointed herself the task of informing those within the dark of the very fact that African-American women, like Georgia Douglas Johnson, are being excluded from being thought of as key voices of the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson's anti-lynching activism was expressed through her plays such as ''The Ordeal'', which that was printed in Alain Locke's anthology ''[[The New Negro: An Interpretation|The New Negro]]''. Her poems describe African Americans and their mental attitude once having faced prejudice towards them and the way they modify it. Isolationism and anti-feminist prejudice however prevented the sturdy African-American women like Johnson from getting their remembrance and impact with such contributions.<ref name=":1" />

Soon after her husband's death, Johnson began to host what became 40 years of weekly "Saturday Salons" for friends and authors, including [[Langston Hughes]], [[Jean Toomer]], [[Anne Spencer]], [[Richard Bruce Nugent]], [[Alain Locke]], [[Jessie Redmon Fauset]], [[Angelina Weld Grimké]] and [[Eulalie Spence]] — all major contributors to the New Negro Movement, which is better known today as the [[Harlem Renaissance]].<ref name=":02">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nx7po3C2ENYC&q=S+street+Salon+Georgia+Douglas+Johnson&pg=PA106|title=The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights|last=Murphy|first=Brenda|date=1999-06-June 28, 1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521576802|language=en}}</ref> Georgia Douglas Johnson's house at 1461 SouthS Street NW would later become known as the S Street Salon. The salon was a meeting place for writers in Washington, D.C., during the Harlem Renaissance.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" /><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/where-we-live/wp/2018/06/01/a-poets-rowhouse-in-northwest-washington-has-a-renaissance/|title=A poet's rowhouse in Northwest Washington has a renaissance|last=Orton|first=Kathy|date=June 1, 2018-06-01|worknewspaper=Washington Post|access-date=June 4, 2018-06-04|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286}}</ref> Johnson's S Street Salon helped to nurture and sustain creativity by providing a place for African-American artists to meet, socialize, discuss their work, and exchange ideas. According to [[Akasha Gloria Hull]], Johnson's role in creating a place for black artists to nurture their creativity made the movement a national one because she workworked outside of Harlem and therefore made a trust for intercity connections.<ref name=":02" /> She has been described as "a woman of tremendous energy, much of which she channeled into her effort to create for the writers who gathered in her home on Saturday nights an atmosphere that was both intellectually stimulating and properly supportive."<ref name="Forgotten Readers">{{cite book |last1=McHenry |first1=Elizabeth |title=Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies |date=2002 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-2995-4 |pages=269}}</ref>

Johnson called her home the "Half Way House" for friends traveling, and 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.<ref name="umn.edu" /> Although black men were allowed to attend, it mostly consisted of black women such as [[May Miller]], [[Marita Bonner]], [[Mary P. Burrill|Mary Burrill]], [[Alice Dunbar Nelson|Alice Dunbar-Nelson]], [[Zora Neale Hurston]], and [[Angelina Weld Grimké|Angelina Weld Grimke]].<ref name=":02" /> Johnson was especially close to the European-American writer Angelina Weld Grimké. This Salon was known to have discussions on issues such as [[Lynching in the United States|lynching]], [[women's rights]], and the problems facing African-American families.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=86uzDgAAQBAJ&q=S+street+Salon+Georgia+Douglas+Johnson&pg=PT136|title=Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington|last=Lindsey|first=Treva B.|date=2017-04-April 15, 2017|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=9780252099571|language=en}}</ref> They became known as the "Saturday Nighters."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Text/86002923|title=National Register of Historic Places Registration Form}}</ref>

Between 1926 and 1932, she wrote short stories, started a letter club, and published a weekly newspaper column called "Homely Philosophy.".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/author-biography/georgia-douglas-johnson/|title=Georgia Douglas Johnson|last=Atlas|first=Nava|date=March 29, 2018|website=Literary Ladies Guide}}</ref>

The column was published in 20 different newspapers, including the ''[[New York News]]'', ''[[Chicago Defender]]'', ''[[Philadelphia Tribune]]'', and ''[[Pittsburgh Courier]]'' and ran from 1926 to 1932. Some of the topics she wrote on were considered inspirational and spiritual for her audience, such as "Hunch"," "Magnetic Personality,", and "The Blessing of Work." Some of her work was perceived{{By whom|date=May 2018}}known to help people cope with the hardships of the [[Great Depression]].<ref name=":1" />

One of the articles that focused on spirituality was "Our Fourth Eye", in which she wrote thatabout "closing one's natural eyes" to look with the "eyes of one's mind". She explains that the "fourth eye" assists with viewing the world in this way. Another essay of Johnson's, titled "Hunch", discusses the idea that people have hunches, or intuition, in their lives. She goes on to explain that individuals must not quiet these hunches because they are their "sixth sense-sense– your instruction".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Color, Sex & Poetry: Three Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance|last=Hull|first=Gloria T.|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=1987|isbn=0253349745|location=Bloomington and Indianapolis|pages=[https://archive.org/details/colorsexpoetryth00hull/page/185 185, 186]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/colorsexpoetryth00hull/page/185}}</ref>

== Legacy and honors ==

Throughout her life, sheJohnson had written 200 poems, 28 plays and 31 short stories which is a pretty great achievement to have especially during this period of time.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://washingtonart.com/beltway/gdjohnson.html|title=Georgia Douglas Johnson|last=Jean|first=Valerie|website=Washington Art}}</ref> In 1962, she then published her last poetry book, calledentitled "''Share My World". Throughout "Share My World" and'', the poems inside,in theywhich reflect on love towards all people and forgiveness, which showsshowing how much wisdom she has gained throughout her entire life. In 1965 Atlanta University had presented Douglas with an honorary doctorate of literature which praised her for all the accomplishments she has had and for the great woman she was and still is known as.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://georgiawritershalloffame.org/honorees/georgia-douglas-johnson|title=Georgia Douglas Johnson|website=Georgia Writers Hall of Fame}}</ref>

*''The Ordeal''<ref>{{Cite book|title=The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance|last=Locke|first=Alain|publisher=Touchstone|year=1999|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref>

*''[[Starting Point (play)|Starting Point]]'' (1930s)

*''[[And Yet They Paused]]'' (1938)

*''A Bill to Be Passed'' (1938)<ref name="Plays of">Stephens, Judith L. (ed.), ''The Plays of Georgia Douglas Johnson: From the New Negro Renaissance to the Civil Rights Movement.''. [[Urbana, IL]]: [[University of Illinois Press]], 2005. {{ISBN|0252073339}}.</ref>

* Countee Cullen, ed., ''[[Caroling Dusk]]: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets'' (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927).

* Judith Stephens, {{"'}}And Yet They Paused' and 'A Bill to Be Passed': Newly Recovered Lynching Dramas by Georgia Douglas Johnson", ''African American Review'' 33 (Autumn 1999): 519–22.