Georgia Douglas Johnson Research Paper

Georgia Douglas Johnson: “Lady Poet” The most powerful movement in African American literary and musical history is The Harlem Renaissance. It started in the 1920s, in Harlem, New York, the Great Migration allowed for more African Americans to move to the North. Additionally, World War I led to the creation of new industrial work opportunities for many people. The movement was important because African Americans had freedom to express themselves through writing, art, and music. One of the most influential poets of the Harlem Renaissance was Georgia Douglas Johnson. Her writing demonstrates the many challenges that women were faced with during the Harlem Renaissance. Examples of this are visible in her poems “The Heart of a Woman” and “Let Me

Georgia Douglas Johnson was considered one of its leading figures. She was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1880, but “There is debate surrounding Georgia Camp's birth date; some scholars maintain that she was born in 1866, 1880, or 1886” (Effinger 3). Scholars may not know her exact birth year, but they know her poetry. Her work ranged from being a poet, playwright, and activist who contributed to African American literature and culture. She related to the current social issues through her writing, which was part of the Harlem Renaissance. It led to her contribution to a bigger discussion on race, identity, and equality in America. She married her husband and bought a house that would host famous poets for poetry sessions, allowing them to share their work. These famous poets include, “Jessie Fauset, Anne Spencer, Wallace Thurman, James Weldon Johnson” (Effinger 4). She also owned a hair salon, fostering a sense of community among those who visited. Even though her husband died in 1925, she never gave up on her work. She continued to write and give support to other

She made a legacy that will forever empower and influence writers to stand up for their beliefs. In the poem “The Heart of a Woman” Georgia Douglas uses a metaphor of women being trapped that is very unique because not many women writers use this metaphor and even mention being stuck. In this poem, Georgia was able to express her emotions and what being a woman in the Harlem Renaissance was like. Based on the following, “The heart of a woman falls back with the night, And enters some alien cage in its plight” (Johnson 5 and 6). This quote by Georgia Douglas Johnson demonstrates the world of being a woman, using bright imagery and metaphors to convey her emotional state. She uses the metaphor “alien cage” to evoke a sense of being constrained and controlled. In summary, this quote by Georgia Douglas Johnson is a vibrant metaphor to explain the emotional issues of womanhood. Another way that Georgia Douglas was suppressed is by the name she has in poetry, “McHenry raises the question of Johnson’s complicity in the production of narrow and stereotypical veins of her “feminine poetry” by suggesting that this endorsement of her literary talent probably made her less and less willing to develop her writing” (Stephens