Zora and Langston

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Zora and Langston Page 28

by Yuval Taylor


  “Harlem Night Song,” 241

  “I, Too,” 44–45, 65, 226

  “The Jester,” 15

  “Lament for Dark Peoples,” 65

  “The Little Frightened Child,” 65

  “Merry Christmas,” 182, 183

  “Mother to Son,” 144

  “Mulatto,” 103, 144

  Mulatto, 165, 224, 233

  The Mule-Bone (play), 163–67, 171, 174–75, 178, 183, 184–86, 188–89, 190–218, 220, 230, 237 (see also literary quarrel between Hughes and Hurston)

  “My People,” 41

  “The Negro” (“Proem”), 37

  “Negro,” 41

  “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” 62–64, 73, 75, 92, 94, 241, 242, 244

  “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” 38, 41

  Not Without Laughter, 135, 165, 167, 179–80, 208, 214

  “Poem,” 73

  The Poetry of the Negro, 235

  “Poet to Patron,” 227

  “Proem,” 37

  “Red Flag on Tuskegee,” 108

  “Rejuvenation Through Joy,” 223

  “Song for a Dark Girl,” 103

  “Songs to the Dark Virgin,” 15

  “Thank You, M’am,” 243

  “These Bad New Negroes: A Critique on Critics,” 93–94

  “Tower,” 181

  The Ways of White Folks, 223, 225

  The Weary Blues, 20, 44–45, 52, 62, 63, 73

  “The Weary Blues,” 13, 14–15, 37, 42

  “The White Ones,” 65

  Hull, Elizabeth, 224

  Hunt, Florence, 115–16, 122

  Hunt, Henry, 115–16, 122, 123

  Hunter, Alberta, 48

  Huntsville, Alabama, 110

  Hurst, Fannie, 13, 21, 60–61, 66–67, 231

  Hurston, Everett, 77, 82

  Hurston, John, 25, 26, 28–30, 31–32, 220

  Hurston, Lucy, 25, 26, 28

  Hurston, Sarah, 188

  Hurston, Zora Neale, 12–13, 15, 30, 50–51, 82, 217, 218. See also Hurston, Zora Neale, correspondence of; Hurston, Zora Neale, works of

  abandoned by literary establishment, 5

  African American critics of, 67, 68–69

  African American culture and, 57–58, 236

  aftermath of literary quarrel and, 219–37

  in Alabama, 98–99, 103–8, 112–14, 183

  appetite of, 30

  arrested for child abuse, 233

  arrives in Cleveland, Ohio, 209–10

  attacks Hughes for his politics, 234

  attends Howard University, 32–33

  attends performance of Hughes’s The Barrier, 233–34

  aversion to commitment, 24

  in Baltimore, Maryland, 31

  at Barnard College, 21, 61, 131, 137, 140

  becomes wardrobe girl in theater company, 31

  birth of, 25

  calls herself “Queen of the Niggerati,” 53

  in the Caribbean, 227

  character of, 238–39

  childhood of, 24, 25–28

  in Cleveland, Ohio, 210, 211–12

  collaborations with Hughes, 61–62, 128–29, 135–36, 161–67, 171, 174–78, 183–88, 190–218, 230, 236–37

  at Columbia University, 57–60

  condemned by black literati, 242

  condemns court-ordered desegregation, 235–36

  cooks dinner in Langston’s honor, 81–82

  death of, 237, 243

  decides literature is her calling, 31

  defended by Hughes, 94

  defiant view of black literary production, 70

  distances herself from Hughes, 178

  divorce from Sheen, 136

  in Du Bois’s theater company, 164

  in Eatonville, Florida, 24, 220

  enrolls at Morgan Academy, 31

  expeditions to the South, 133, 135, 136, 139, 140–44, 148, 174, 194

  on faculty of North Carolina College for Negroes, 227

  falls out of favor, 235–36

  fights with her stepmother, 29–30

  film footage from the South, 157

  finances of, 23

  Fire!! and, 77, 81

  flamboyance of, 21–22

  in Florida, 24, 99, 220, 233

  folklore research by, 57–61, 68, 91–92, 98–99, 101, 113, 120, 132–33, 135–45, 158, 160–61, 174, 178, 188–89, 224–25, 242

  on friendship, 240

  in Georgia, 114–24

  graduates from Barnard, 140

  helps found Little Negro Theatre, 164

  homosexuality and, 158–59

  on Hughes’s character, 238, 239

  identity as African American, 57

  included in The Book of Negro Folklore, 235

  increasing conservatism of, 234

  initiated into hoodoo, 141–42

  in Jacksonville, Florida, 29

  jealousy of, 175–78, 217–18, 228, 230, 239

  at Johnson’s literary salon, 33

  leaves Langston out of her autobiography, 3, 231

  leaves Westfield, New Jersey, 174, 185, 203

  legacy of, 243–44

  life before arriving in Harlem, 25–34

  literary quarrel with Hughes, 3, 178–79, 190–218, 219, 230, 238

  lives with sister in Asbury Park, New Jersey, 188–89

  Locke and, 142–43, 207, 208, 209–10, 215, 222–23, 225, 226–27, 236, 238

  loneliness of, 91

  marriage to Price, 228

  marriage to Sheen, 91–92, 100

  Mason and, 83–84, 127–37, 142–48, 152, 157–62, 166–80, 183–84, 188–89, 194–96, 201–9, 215–17, 220–21, 225–26, 231–32, 235, 238–39, 244

  minimization of African American resentment, 65, 67, 68–69

  in Mobile, Alabama, 98, 103–7

  on Negro storytellers, 67–68

  in New Orleans, Louisiana, 141–42

  in New York, New York, 21, 34, 52–53, 57–61, 128–34, 137, 140, 159, 166, 174

  Nugent and, 77–78, 219–20

  as only black student at Barnard College, 21

  at Opportunity award ceremony, 10

  photographs with Hughes, 113–14

  plan to create artists’ colony, 143–44

  playwriting and, 5–6, 161–67

  politics and, 234, 235–36

  portrayed in Hughes’s The Big Sea, 227–31

  primitivism and, 153

  profile of Hurst in Saturday Review of Literature, 60

  publishes her first short story, 33

  publishes in Opportunity, 33–34

  racial injustice and, 64, 65, 66–70, 76

  reads Hughes’s The Big Sea, 231

  reception of, 90, 224

  represented as Sweetie May Carr in Thurman’s Infants of the Spring, 221–22

  scholarship to Barnard College, 21

  sexual and emotional solitude of, 57

  in the South, 157, 98–126, 227, 230

  studies anthropology under Franz Boas at Columbia, 57–60

  the supernatural and, 27–28

  theater and, 137–38, 161–65

  Thompson and, 158–59, 170, 175–78, 184–87, 196, 201–4, 210–12, 217–18, 225, 228, 234, 239

  tools of, 140

  Van Vechten and, 20–21, 54, 75–76, 186, 188, 194, 197, 200–201, 204, 224, 231–32, 237

  vernacular prose of, 19

  visions of, 27–28, 30, 128

  Washington, D.C., 32–33

  in Westfield, New Jersey, 159, 166, 174

  wins prizes in Opportunity contest, 14–16

  work featured in The New Negro, 17, 19

  work in Fire!! 78

  works on volumes about religion, 144

  works for Fannie Hurst, 60–61

  writes about Harlem for Pittsburgh Courier, 90

  Hurston, Zora Neale, correspondence of

  with Hughes, 91, 92, 135, 142–45, 148, 183, 195–98, 202–8, 213–16, 220, 236, 240–41


  with Locke, 138

  with Mason, 83–84, 185, 188, 202–3, 212, 215–17, 220–21, 226

  with Van Vechten, 118

  Hurston, Zora Neale, works of

  “Art and Such,” 66

  autobiography of (see Hurston, Zora Neale, works of, Dust Tracks on a Road)

  “The Back Room,” 90–91

  Barracoon, 106, 189, 224

  “Black Death,” 16

  “The Bone of Contention,” 162, 163, 164, 198

  “The Characteristics of Negro Expression,” 71, 75, 136, 226, 244

  Collected Plays, 192

  Color Struck, 15, 78, 80, 193

  “Crazy for This Democracy,” 67

  “Cudjo’s Own Story of the Last African Slaver,” 106

  “Dance Songs and Tales from the Bahamas,” 157

  De Turkey and de Law, 192–94, 198, 217

  “Drenched in Light,” 33–34

  Dust Tracks on a Road, 3, 28, 30, 68, 91–92, 129, 133, 142, 159, 231, 235, 238, 240, 242

  “The Eatonville Anthology,” 59–60, 164–65

  The First One, 193

  “The Gilded Six-Bits,” 243

  The Great Day, 224

  “Hoodoo in America,” 224

  “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” 64, 67, 70, 72–73, 147, 244

  “The Inside Light—Being a Salute to Friendship,” 240, 241

  “John Redding Goes to Sea,” 33

  Jonah’s Gourd Vine, 30, 61, 102, 180, 224, 225, 235

  Meet the Momma, 16, 192

  The Mule-Bone (play), 3, 5–6, 16, 59, 163–67, 171, 174–75, 178, 183–89, 190–218, 220, 224–26, 230–32, 236–37

  Mules and Men, 58, 67–68, 141, 142, 189, 190–92, 220, 224, 235, 236

  “My Most Humiliating Jim Crow Experience,” 67

  The Negro and His Songs, 147

  Polk County, 194

  “The Race Cannot Become Great Until It Recognizes Its Talents,” 64

  “Seeing the World as It Is,” 242

  Spears, 16, 193

  “Spunk,” 14, 17

  Spunk, 194

  “Sweat,” 79, 80

  Their Eyes Were Watching God, 4, 16, 59, 224, 226–27, 229, 242

  “What White Publishers Won’t Print,” 67

  Hutchinson, George, 18

  identity, black arts and, 64

  Imes, Elmer, 128

  Immigration Act of 1924, 70

  Inter-State Tattler, 154

  Jackman, Harold, 47, 177

  Jacksonville, Florida, 29, 220

  jazz, 11, 54, 63, 65, 92

  Jelliffe, Rowena, 192, 195, 199, 202, 208, 209–13, 218, 231

  Jelliffe, Russell, 192, 195, 199, 202, 211–13, 218, 231

  Jewish Americans, 15

  Jim Crow laws, 67, 183

  Jim Crow South, 148

  John Reed Club, 183

  Johnson, Charles Spurgeon, 8, 9, 11–13, 18, 23, 33, 34, 48, 75, 116, 219

  Johnson, Georgia Douglas, 33

  Johnson, Hall, 11, 89, 129

  Johnson, Jack, 111

  Johnson, James Weldon, 6, 9, 11–13, 18, 19, 48, 51, 75, 82, 89, 215, 243

  Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, 12

  The Book of American Negro Poetry, 12

  at Fisk University, 219

  funeral of, 227

  in Harlem, 39–40

  “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 14

  Johnson, J. Rosamond, 82

  Jones Point, 42

  Jook (collaborative opera), 136

  Joplin, Scott, 61

  Jordan, Larry, 165, 170

  Journal of American Folklore, 224

  Journal of Negro History, 49

  Kaplan, Carla, 85, 86, 96, 153, 170, 171

  Karamu House, 210

  Karamu Theatre, 192, 200

  Keck, Charles, 113

  Kellogg, Paul, 18

  King, Martin Luther, Jr., 107

  Kinstler, Everett, 236

  Knopf, Alfred A., 11, 93, 155, 189

  Knopf, Blanche, 11

  Knopf, Samuel, 93

  Koestler, Arthur, 57

  Krigwa Players, 164

  Ku Klux Klan, resurgence of, 10

  labor practices, unfair, 101

  Lafayette Theater, 162

  Langston, Carolyn. See Hughes, Carrie

  Langston, Charles, 34–35

  Langston, John Mercer, 35, 49

  Langston, Lucy, 34

  Langston, Mary, 35–36

  Larsen, Nella, 128, 177, 180

  Lawrence, Kansas, 24, 35–36

  Leary, Sheridan, 35

  Leslie, Lew, 138

  Lewis, Cudjo, 98, 105–6, 113

  Lewis, David Levering, 13, 54, 76, 180

  Lewis, Sinclair, 75

  liberation, literacy and, 43

  The Liberator, 11–12

  Lincoln, Abraham, 111

  Lincoln, Illinois, 36

  Lincoln University, 52, 81, 108, 125, 153–54

  Lindsay, Vachel, 51–52

  Lippincott, 224

  literacy, abandonment of, 43

  literary innovation, 78–79

  literary models, independence from, 78–79

  literary quarrel between Hughes and Hurston, 3, 178–79, 190–218, 219–37, 230, 238

  Little Negro Theatre, 164

  Little Theatre, 226

  Liveright, Horace, 11

  Locke, Alain, 5–6, 9–13, 17–19, 33, 45–49, 73–75, 80, 113, 129, 131–33, 135, 177, 188, 190, 242

  on African American art, 88

  “Art or Propaganda?,” 65

  “Beauty Instead of Ashes,” 65

  correspondence with Hughes, 140

  exoticism and, 73

  Hughes and, 153, 172, 178, 207, 213, 215, 217, 222, 238, 241

  Hurston and, 138, 142–43, 207–10, 215, 222–23, 225–27, 236, 238

  jealousy of, 210

  Mason and, 88–90, 94–97, 146–47, 160, 181, 188, 201–2, 210, 215–16, 222–23, 233

  The New Negro, 17–19, 94, 227

  review of Fire!! 81

  review of Hughes’s Fine Clothes to the Jew, 93

  review of Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, 226–27

  takes Hurston’s side in dispute over Mule Bone, 207, 208, 209–10, 215

  Thompson and, 150, 187–88

  Van Vechten and, 215

  Louisiana, 101–2

  love, 177

  “low” culture, 64

  Lucy (sworn enemy of Zora), 141

  lynchings, 11, 69, 101, 102, 103

  Macon, Georgia, 120, 121, 122, 123

  magazines, black, 74. See also specific magazines

  Maine, 61

  Maitland, Florida, 25–26

  Maran, René, 44

  Marbury, Elizabeth, 216

  Marbury agency, 216, 217

  Marinoff, Fania, 81, 82, 121

  Marshall, Thurgood, 52

  Mason, Charlotte Osgood, 4, 5, 43, 62, 73, 83–90, 130, 190

  account of Mule-Bone dispute, 209

  African American culture and, 236

  anti-Semitism and, 223–24

  background of, 85

  correspondence with Hughes, 170–74, 178–81, 182, 189, 213–14, 241

  death of, 232–33

  falling out with Hughes, 166–71, 176–83, 188, 189

  Hughes and, 89, 94–97, 100, 109–12, 127–28, 131–48, 152–55, 158–61, 166–83, 188–89, 201–9, 212–17, 220–27, 231–32, 238–41, 244

  Hurston and, 127–34, 135–48, 152, 157–62, 166–80, 183–84, 188–89, 194–96, 201–9, 212, 215–17, 220–21, 225–26, 231–32, 235–39, 244

  Locke and, 88–90, 146–47, 160, 180, 188, 201–2, 210, 215, 222–23, 233

  loses half her fortune on Black Tuesday, 154

  McKay and, 146

  mysticism and, 171

  “The Passing of a Prophet,” 85

  portrayed in Hughes’s The Ways of White Folks, 223–24

  primitivism and, 85–86
, 131–32, 152, 153, 171

  telepathic abilities of, 129

  Thompson and, 150–52, 154, 160, 166–74, 175, 186–88, 201–2, 212

  Mason, Rufus Osgood, 85

  Matheus, John F., 13–14, 94

  Matthias, Blanche, 84, 87

  McKay, Claude, 11–12, 89, 137, 146, 154

  Harlem Shadows, 12

  Home to Harlem, 140

  Negroes in America, 12

  Memphis, Tennessee, 29

  Mencken, H. L., 54, 74

  The Messenger, 8, 51, 59–60, 74, 93

  Mexico City, Mexico, 38

  Meyer, Annie Nathan, 21, 59, 216

  Meyerowitz, Jan, 233

  Miami, Florida, 144

  Micheaux, Oscar, 12

  Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 79

  Miller and Lyles, 11

  Mills, Florence, 11, 48, 138

  minstrelsy, 161–62, 163

  Mississippi, 102

  Mobile, Alabama, 98–99, 103–7, 136, 148, 194

  modernism, 72

  Montgomery, Alabama, 107

  Moore, Marianne, 44

  Morgan Academy, 31

  Moylan, Pennsylvania, 184, 186

  Ms. magazine, 243

  Mtendaji, Imani, 119, 235

  music, 14–15, 31, 48, 54, 63, 65, 78–79, 137

  blues, 14–15, 54, 62, 63, 65, 68, 92, 120–21, 136–37

  jazz, 11, 54, 63, 65, 92

  musicals, 11, 16

  opera, 61–62

  spirituals, 54, 92

  musicals, 11, 16

  mysticism, 131–32, 171

  NAACP, 8, 48, 52, 74, 76, 148, 183, 206

  Nassau, Florida, 144

  The Nation, 62–64

  National Urban League, 8, 51

  the Negro, vs. the Nordic, 70

  Negro Digest, 67

  Negro idiom, 63–64

  Negrophilia, 71–72

  “Negrotarians,” 53, 54

  Negro World, 33

  the Nest, 54

  New Gayety, 233

  New Masses, 183

  The New Negro, 80

  “New Negro,” 18

  New Negro writers, 94

  New Orleans, Louisiana, 102, 136, 141

  New School for Social Research, 148

  New World Cabaret, 54, 72–73

  New York, New York, 52–54, 57, 82, 127, 128–34, 144, 153–54, 174, 217. See also Harlem, New York

  black music scene in, 48

  as epicenter of African American music and theater, 11

  nightclubs in, 154

  New York Age, 51, 93

  New York Botanical Gardens, 7

  Niagara Falls, 61

  Nichols, Charles H., 4

  “Niggerati,” 50–82, 90, 143, 221, 226, 229

  “Niggerati Manor,” 51

  nightclubs. See also specific nightclubs

  nonpropaganda work, 64–65

  the Nordic vs. the Negro, 70

  North Carolina College for Negroes, 227

  Notasulga, Alabama, 25, 113

  Nugent, Bruce, 8–9, 17–19, 23, 33, 51–58, 72, 74, 80–82, 89–90, 131, 139, 143, 177, 231

 

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