Who Was Marian Anderson? Born February 27, 1897, in Philadelphia, Marian Anderson displayed vocal talent as a child, but her family could not afford to pay for formal training. Members of her church congregation raised funds for her to attend a music school for a year, and in 1955 she became the first African American singer to perform as a member of the Metropolitan Opera … Continue reading Profile: Marian Anderson
Synopsis Arna Bontemps was an award-winning African American author and poet born on October 13, 1902, in Alexandria, Louisiana. Known for his books featuring black characters, he wrote many notable works, including God Sends Sunday (1931), Black Thunder (1936), Story of the Negro (1948) and Great Slave Narratives (1969). He died June 4, 1973, in Nashville, Tennessee, while working on his autobiography. Early Years Arna Wendell … Continue reading Profile: Arna Bontemps
Aaron Douglas was an African-American painter and graphic artist who played a leading role in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Synopsis Aaron Douglas was an African-American painter and graphic artist who played a leading role in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. His first major commission, to illustrate Alain LeRoy Locke’s book, The New Negro, prompted requests for graphics from other Harlem … Continue reading Profile: Aaron Douglas
As Langston Hughes pointed out in his famous essay “200 Years of American Negro Poetry,” “Poets and versifiers of African descent have been publishing poetry on American shores since the year 1746 when a slave woman named Lucy Terry penned a rhymed description of an Indian attack on the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts.” He went on to write, “art is to be an intensification or … Continue reading 10 Poems by African-American Poets Poems by African-American poets, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Kwame Dawes, Rita Dove, Langston Hughes, Tyehimba Jess, Kevin Young, and more.
Black Art Story 