A Tribute To Poet Georgia Douglas Johnson

Of all the forms of writing that exist in the world today, poetry rests at the center of my heart – especially poetry from the Harlem Renaissance, an explosive period in Black history in which excellence in all forms of art, particularly literature and music, took the nation by storm.

It gave a much needed, militant voice to black Americans, and defined a new wave of necessary defiance through cultural expression.

This renaissance became the cultural center for “the new negro,” with a creative legacy so profound that it stands at the epoch of the black diaspora – shining light on the beauty and majesty of persevering people.

This movement was baaaaad! (Check out this 3-minute video, The Harlem Renaissance)

On My Love For Poetry

I owe my poetic awakening to my first-grade teacher in the 1970s who would read the works of Black poets in homeroom every morning. She would bring the words from the book to life!

I would slouch in my wooden desk as she enunciated every word with such grace, elegance and power as my pigtails swung back and forth and the heels of my Buster Browns tapped the floor. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. My ears were trained to hear every poem from I read from that point forward in power.

I was captivated: A black girl lost in poetry.

While the first poem I remember my teacher reading was, “A Negro Speaks of Rivers,” by Langston Hughes, it was the writings of Georgia Douglas Johnson and Margaret Walker that captivated my soul. (Check out, A Tribute To Georgia Douglas Johnson”)

Particularly, Johnson – whose poetry was quite mature – spoke to me over the course of my adolescence. I dug through the following works: The Crisis (1916), The Heart of a Woman (1918), Bronze (1922), An Autumn Love Cycle (1928) and Share My World (1962). As I came of age, I secretly identified with her journey to rationalize life, its struggles, womanhood and being black in America at the dawn of hip-hop.

Her Writing Is Still Magnified Today

I stood in awe knowing that she was born in Atlanta (near me); and raised in Rome. She graduated from Atlanta University’s Normal School in 1896.[1]

People may not realize this today, but she is considered the most widely read and famous black author in America outside of Abolitionist Francis G. Harper and Alice Walker.[2]

James Weldon Johnson said this about his dear friend, “Georgia Douglas Johnson is a poet neither afraid nor ashamed of her emotions. She limits herself to the purely conventional forms, rhythms and rhymes, but through them, she achieves striking effects. The principal theme of Mrs. Johnson’s poems is the secret dread down in every woman’s heart, the dread of the passing of youth and beauty, and with them love.” [3]

I cannot help but agree with this hard-hitting assessment of her work.

I, too, felt her emotions, especially indignation and longing for a better world, and drew from her strength to speak her truth. She was the epitome of poetry for me, able to reveal the times as her heart meditated and pondered both light and darkness with raw, unapologetic honesty.

There was no need to be politically correct. Rather, she clung to revealing the world around it from both its despicable and glorious places, true to poetic form.

My Favorite Poem

Sometimes when I sit and contemplate, I hear her poetic voice in me trying to make sense of an unconcerned, unempathetic world. (Check out, “Some Thoughts on the Ida B. Wells Barbie Doll”)

Perhaps my favorite poem from her collection is entitled, “Common Dust.” It is believed to be based on Genesis 3:19 and reads:

And who shall separate the dust

What later we shall be:

Whose keen discerning eye will scan

And solve the mystery?

The high, the low, the rich, the poor,

The black, the white, the red,

And all the chromatic between,

Of whom shall it be said:

Here lies the dust of Africa;

Here are the sons of Rome;

Here lies the one unlabeled,

The world at large his home!

Can one then separate the dust?

Will mankind lie a part,

When life has settled back again

The same as from the start?

(Poem from the Poetry Foundation)

The majesty and depth of her writing still floors me. Her words are as relevant now as they were over a half-century ago.

My high school and college teachers would note these subtle influences from her in my writings as a teen.

Her Honorable Achievements

Georgia Douglas Johnson gave me clarity of identity, beauty in heritage and a profound view of life during Jim Crow. It is fitting for me to celebrate poetry month in remembrance of her, reflecting on the woman who provided definition to my honesty as a poet.

She walked with the greats: Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, W.E.B. Dubois, Zora Neal Hurston, William Stanley Braithwaite, etc.

She wrote 28 plays, numerous songs, short stories and left a legacy of unpublished works.[4] She was an educator in the public school system, a school principal and a self-taught violinist.

Johnson was active in civil rights; and received numerous honors and recognitions for her writing, including being inducted in the Georgia Writer’s Hall of Fame.

The Transformation of the Black Woman

I cannot imagine my writing life without her influence.

But I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to grow and learn from her literary life’s legacy. How fitting it is to conclude my tribute with this poem she wrote, “Black Woman,” which is in public domain.

Despite what the world presented during her time, the black woman has so much to be thankful for today in strength, power, cultural influence, education and on so many fronts. I chose this heart-wrenching poem simply to contrast then-now, while also reminding us that we are still moving forward.

May everyone who reads this in empathy and consideration of black heritage, appreciate the art form and her interpretation of the world in which she lived and died.

Black Woman
Georgia Douglas Johnson

Don’t knock at the door, little child,

I cannot let you in,

You know not what a world this is

Of cruelty and sin.

Wait in the still eternity

Until I come to you,

The world is cruel, cruel, child,

I cannot let you in!

Don’t knock at my heart, little one,

I cannot bear the pain

Of turning deaf-ear to your call