James Weldon Johnson’s birthday, June 17, 1871
Today is the birthday of James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), the first black head of the NAACP, diplomat, political activist, teacher, novelist, poet, historian, editor, lecturer, key promoter of the Harlem Renaissance and co-founder of the ACLU. Johnson was a hero of the “Red Summer” of 1919 and one of the leading civil rights activists of the early 20th Century.
“I will not allow one prejudiced person or one million or one hundred million to blight my life. I will not let prejudice or any of its attendant humiliations and injustices bear me down to spiritual defeat.”
— from Johnson’s Negro Americans, What Now?
Review of Van Vechten bio in Harvard Review
Here is my just published review for the Harvard Review Online of Emily Bernard’s book, CARL VAN VECHTEN AND THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE: A PORTRAIT IN BLACK AND WHITE.
Video posted of “Red Summer” talk in Alexandria, Va. during Black History Month
Watch the February 2013 talk at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria here.
Thanks to everyone who came to the Red Summer talk at Northern Virginia Community College today
Great visiting at NOVA’s Alexandria campus today and talking with students and staff, especially Prof. Shonette Grant, who organized the event.
Red Summer talk at Northern Virginia Community College, Feb. 19
I’ll be giving a talk on the Red Summer at NOVA at 2 p.m. on Feb. 19. Looking forward to talking with students and faculty about the book.
For location, click here.
Chicago Magazine on Carl Sandburg, mentions Red Summer
Whet Moser discusses Carl Sandburg’s reporting in 1919 about the racial tensions that led to the worst race riot of the “Red Summer.” Moser mentions that he plans to read Red Summer. Red Summer reviewed by The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
“McWhirter’s book is thoroughly researched, listing an impressive thirty-four libraries and archives in the bibliography, and its author displays a keen knowledge of the literature on race produced during the Red Summer era and since…Using a journalist’s clipped sentences and dividing the chapters into short sections, McWhirter packed in as much human drama as possible to vividly explicate the tangled web of economic, political, and cultural factors at work in the conflagration…The book deserves wide readership.”
–Adam J. Hodges
The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project discusses Red Summer
Interesting blog for the project, which seeks to mark locations of historical importance relating to the slave trade, discusses Red Summer in a post here.
Red Summer paperback edition reviewed in San Francisco City Book Review
Reviewer Claude Ury gives it five out of five stars. Read here.
Thanks to every one who came out to Augusta library for Red Summer talk
Great crowd and productive two-hour discussion (and nice lunch afterward) at the Jeff Maxwell Library in Augusta. Thanks so much to everyone who came out and thanks to the library’s book club for organizing.
