Harlem Writers Guild

Group of African American writers who have addressed ethnic experiences and history in their work. The guild's first members were young, ambitious black authors who felt excluded from the mainstream [Page 403]literary culture of New York in the late 1940s. The success that established black authors such as Langston Hughes had enjoyed during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s seemed unobtainable to this new generation of writers. John Henrik Clarke, Rosa Guy, Walter Christmas, and John Oliver Killens were among the emerging talents who sought an alternative forum in which to develop their craft.

Unlike the previous generation, young African American writers in the 1950s interacted often with their white peers. Some had attended prestigious universities; others joined white-led writing workshops in New York's Greenwich Village. Such experiences, however, led many blacks to conclude that white critics, however progressive, could not fully appreciate African American literature.

A young writer named John Oliver Killens became disillusioned with the type of writing taught at New York University, where he was a student in the late 1940s. In 1950, Killens invited other African American authors to meet in a Harlem storefront office on the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue to critique each other's work. Of the first participants, only John Henrik Clarke had published a book, The Boy Who Painted Christ Black (1948). The group, known as the Harlem Writers' Club, continued to meet under Killens's leadership in the homes of early guild members, including Aaron Douglas, Julian Mayfield, and Paule Marshall. The group later changed its name to the Harlem Writers Guild to emphasize the craft of writing.

Killens published the first work by a guild member, the novel Youngblood (1954). Lonne Elder III followed with several published screenplays; his screenplay for the movie Sounder (1972) was nominated for an Academy Award. Sidney Poitier, Amiri Baraka, Ossie Davis, and Harry Belafonte also joined the guild in the 1950s. Members contributed to various prestigious African American journals, such as the Liberator, The Crisis, and Freedomways.

By the late 1950s, many guild members wanted to use their talents to effect social change. At meetings, the authors discussed topics that transcended the literary. Several members at the time were union organizers or members of the Progressive and Communist Parties. Issues of race continued to unite many of the participants.

Writers in the guild described the discrimination they endured in both their literary endeavors and daily lives. Some of the members, who increasingly resided outside of Harlem, often in Greenwich Village or the Lower East Side, faced hostile landlords and neighbors. Guild meetings thus served as supportive enclaves in the new neighborhoods. At meetings, members exchanged information about freedom rides, sit-ins, and marches. The visit of Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro to New York in 1960 became a cause célèbre. In later years, guild members united behind controversial Black Muslim leader Malcolm X, organized to oppose the racist policy of apartheid in South Africa, and supported independence struggles in Angola and Mozambique.

In 1961, a group of authors who were inspired by the Harlem Writers Guild founded the Umbra Workshop to advance African American literary independence in the arts. The Umbra Workshop was based in the Lower East Side, signifying a break with the literary traditions of Harlem. Umbra participants moved toward a more radical black separatist view of American politics and culture. Some members of the Harlem Writers Guild—among them, Amiri Baraka and writer/actor Ossie Davis—also endorsed the idea of literature as a revolutionary tool.

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