Johnson’s long preface argues that the measure of a people’s greatness lies in what it creates in literature and art, and traces Black American contributions from spirituals to ragtime. The anthology follows, from Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Little Brown Baby” and dialect pieces to poems by Claude McKay, W. E. B. Du Bois and many others.
A landmark of the Harlem Renaissance and still a fine introduction to its poets. Download the free EPUB.