1. Billie Holiday Singer,
jazz vocalist.
and she and her mother went to court
over Holiday’s truancy. She was then
Born Eleanora sent to the House of Good Shepherd,
Fagan on April a facility for troubled African American
7, 1915, in girls, in January 1925. Only 9 years old
MUSIC Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
at the time, Holiday was one of the
youngest girls there. She was returned
(Some sources to her mother’s care in August of that
say Baltimore, year. According to Donald Clarke’s
Maryland. Her biography, Billie Holiday: Wishing on the
birth certificate reportedly reads Moon, she returned there in 1926 after
“Elinore Harris.”) One of the most she had been sexually assaulted.
influential jazz singers of all time, Billie In her difficult early life, Holiday
Holiday had a thriving career for many found solace in music, singing along to
years before her battles with substance the records of Bessie Smith and Louis
abuse got the better of her. Armstrong. She followed her mother
Holiday spent much of her child- who had moved to New York City in
hood in Baltimore, Maryland. Her the late 1920s and worked in a house
mother, Sadie, was only a teenager of prostitution in Harlem for a time.
when she had her. Her father is widely Around 1930, Holiday began singing in
believed to be Clarence Holiday, who local clubs and renamed herself “Billie”
eventually became a successful jazz mu- after the film star Billie Dove.
sician, playing with the likes of Fletcher
Henderson. Unfortunately for Billie, he
was only an infrequent visitor in her life
growing up. Sadie married Philip Gough
in 1920 and for a few years Billie had
a somewhat stable home life. But that
marriage ended a few years later, leav-
ing Billie and Sadie to struggle along on
their own again. Sometimes Billie was
left in the care of other people.
Holiday started skipping school,
PLAY MOVIE
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE | SS1101

2. Paul Robeson The son of a former slave turned Increasing political awareness
preacher, Robeson attended Rutgers impelled Robeson to visit the Soviet
University in New Brunswick, N.J., Union in 1934, and from that year he
where he was an All-America football became increasingly identified with
player. Upon graduating from Rutgers strong left-wing commitments, while
THEATER at the head of his class, he rejected a continuing his success in concerts,
career as a professional athlete and recordings, and theatre. In 1950 the
instead entered Columbia University. U.S. State Department withdrew his
He obtained a law degree in 1923, but, passport because he refused to sign
because of the lack of opportunity for an affidavit disclaiming membership in
blacks in the legal profession, he drifted the Communist Party. In the following
to the stage, making a London debut years he was virtually ostracized for
in 1922. He joined the Provincetown his political views, although in 1958 the
Players, a New York theatre group that Supreme Court overturned the affida-
included playwright Eugene O’Neill, vit ruling. Robeson then left the United
and appeared in O’Neill’s play All States to live in Europe and travel in
God’s Chillun Got Wings in 1924. His countries of the Soviet bloc, but he
subsequent appearance in the title role returned to the United States in 1963
of O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones caused because of ill health.
a sensation in New York City (1924) Robeson appeared in a number of
and London (1925). He also starred in films, including Sanders of the River
the film version of the play (1933). In (1935), Show Boat (1936), Song of
addition to his other talents, Robeson Freedom (1936), and The Proud Valley
had a superb bass-baritone singing (1940). His autobiography, Here I Stand,
voice. In 1925 he gave his first vocal was published in 1958.
recital of African American spirituals
in Greenwich Village, New York City,
and he became world famous as Joe
in the musical play Show Boat with his
version of “Ol’ Man River.” His charac-
terization of the title role in Othello
in London (1930) won high praise, as
did the Broadway production (1943),
which set an all-time record run for a
Shakespearean play on Broadway.
PLAY MOVIE
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE | SS1101

3. Langston Hughes
Poet, writer, playwright. Born Febru- (1949), in the 1960s he returned to the
ary 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. After stage with works that drew on black
LITERATURE publishing his first poem, “The Negro gospel music, such as Black Nativity
Speaks of Rivers” (1921), he attended (1961).
Columbia University (1921), but left A prolific writer for four decades,
after one year to work on a freighter, he abandoned the Marxism of his
travelling to Africa, living in Paris and youth, but never gave up protesting the
Rome, and supporting himself with odd injustices committed against his fellow
jobs. After his poetry was promoted African Americans. Among his most
by Vachel Linday, he attended Lincoln popular creations was Jesse B Semple,
University (1925–9), and while there his better known as “Simple,”a black Every-
first book of poems, The Weary Blues man featured in the syndicated column
(1926), launched his career as a writer. he began in 1942 for the Chicago
As one of the founders of the cul- Defender.
tural movement known as the Har- In his later years, Hughes completed a
lem Renaissance, which he practically two-volume autobiography and edited
defined in his essay, “The Negro Artist anthologies and pictorial volumes. Be-
and the Radical Mountain” (1926), he cause he often employed humour and
was innovative in his use of jazz rhythms seldom portrayed or endorsed violent
and dialect to depict the life of urban confrontations, he was for some years
blacks in his poetry, stories, and plays. disregarded as a model by black writers,
Having provided the lyrics for the musi- but by the 1980s he was being reap-
cal Street Scene (1947) and the play praised and was newly appreciated as a
that inspired the opera Troubled Island significant voice of African-Americans.
One of Langston Hughes’ most poignant poems is
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1921). Click the icon
to the left to hear it.
PLAY
STOP
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE | SS1101