Author Description

Opportunity: A Journal for Negro Life, founded by Charles S. Johnson and published monthly by the National Urban League from 1923 until 1949, was one of the first national periodicals by-and-for African Americans. In the pages of this invaluable Harem Renaissance resource are articles, essays, short stories, poems, plays and visual art by legendary artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Aaron Douglas, Dorothy West, and Countee Cullen. The cover art of this July 1926 issue is by Gwendolyn Bennett, a prominent member of Harlem's community of artists and writers. She was a trained visual artist who also wrote prose and poetry. In addition to poems by Bennett, Countee Cullen, Georgia Douglas Johnson, and others, this issue contains historically significant editorials and articles, and Dorothy West's celebrated short story, "The Typewriter."