Literary Birthday – 10 September – Georgia Douglas Johnson

Georgia Douglas Johnson was born on  10 September 1880 and died on 10 May 1966.

Common Dust

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 chromatique between,
Of whom shall it be said:

Here are the sons of Africa;
Here lies the dust of Rome;
Here lies the one unlabelled,
The world at large his home!

Can one then separate the dust?
Will mankind lie apart,
When life has settled back again
The same as from the start?

Georgia Douglas Johnson Quotes

1. The heart of a woman falls back with the night, And enters some alien cage in its plight, And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars, While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.
2. Rise with the hour for which you were made.
3. I’ve learned of life this bitter truth Hope not between the crumbling walls Of mankind’s gratitude to find repose, But rather, Build within thy own soul Fortresses!
4. Your world is as big as you make it.
5. I want to die while you love me, And never, never see The glory of this perfect day Grow dim, or cease to be!

Georgia Douglas Johnson was an African-American writer and an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance. She was one of the best-known Black female poets and playwrights of her time.  Much of Johnson’s writing explored love, womanhood, and the experiences of Black women. Her work appeared in many of the most widely read Black publications of the 20th century. She wrote four collections of poetry: The Heart Of A Woman (1918), Bronze (1922), An Autumn Love Cycle (1928), and Share My World (1962). Johnson also made important contributions to theatre. Her plays can be read in The Plays of Georgia Douglas Johnson. The author, W.E.B. Du Bois praised her for creating countless ‘little things of value and beauty’. Her final collection, Share My World, contained 37 poems and was published in 1962. In 1965, Johnson received an honorary doctorate in Literature from Atlanta University. She was posthumously inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2010. She is remembered as one of Georgia’s most important writers.

Source for image: Cornelius Marion Battey, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Source for quotes