Wallace Thurman
Born:	August 16, 1902 Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
Died:	December 22, 1934 New York, New York, United States
Occupation:	Novelist, dramatist, columnist, essayist, editor, publisher, intellectual

Wallace Henry Thurman (1902-1934) was an African American novelist during the Harlem Renaissance. He is best known for his novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life, which describes discrimination based on skin color among black people. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... August 16 is the 228th day of the year (229th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1902 (MCMII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Salt Lake City redirects here. ... December 22 is the 356th day of the year (357th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Nickname: Big Apple, Gotham, NYC, City That Never Sleeps, The Concrete Jungle, The City So Nice They Named It Twice Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1676 Government  - Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area... NY redirects here. ... Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... A dramatist is an author of dramatic compositions, usually plays. ... A columnist is a journalist who produces a specific form of writing for publication called a column. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and the Internet. ... An essayist is an author who writes compositions which can be about any particular subject. ... An Editor is a person who prepares text—typically language, but also images and sounds—for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas. ... 1902 (MCMII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of African American art, literature, music and culture in the United States led primarily by the African American community based in Harlem, New York City, after World War I. Literary historians and academics have yet to reach a consensus as to when the period... Manifestations Slavery · Racial profiling · Lynching Hate speech · Hate crime · Hate groups Genocide · Holocaust · Pogrom Ethnocide · Ethnic cleansing · Race war Religious persecution · Gay bashing Movements Discriminatory Aryanism · Neo-Nazism · Supremacism Fundamentalism · Kahanism Anti-discriminatory Abolitionism · Civil rights · Gay rights Womens/Universal suffrage · Mens rights Childrens rights · Youth rights...

Thurman's Life

Thurman was born in Salt Lake City in 1932 to Beulah and Oscar Thurman. Beulah Thurman was reportedly never fond of Wallace; she would marry six times during her lifetime. Between his mother's many marriages, Wallace Thurman and his mother lived with Emma Jackson, the maternal grandmother to Wallace. His grandmother's home doubled as a saloon where alcohol was served without a license. The relationship between Wallace and his father was a distant one. While Wallace was less than a month old, Oscar Thurman abandoned and lived apart from his wife and son. Wallace was almost thirty years old when he met his father. ^[1] The Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Salt Lake Citys top tourist draw. ...

Thurman's early life was marked by loneliness, family instability and poor health. He began grade school at age six in Boise, Idaho, but poor health eventually led to a two year absence from school during which he returned to Salt Lake City. Thurman lived in Chicago from 1910 to 1914 but finished grammer school in Omaha, Nebraska. ^[2] During this time, he suffered from persistent heart attacks which made him spend winter of 1918 in the lower attitude of Pasadena, California where he became infected with influenza. He returned to Salt Lake City and finished high school. Throughout it all, Thurman was a voracious reader, writing his first novel at the age of ten. He enjoyed the works of Plato, Aristotle, William Shakespeare, Havelock Ellis, Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire and many others. He attended the University of Utah from 1919 to 1920 as a pre-medical student. Later, in 1922, he transferred to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles but left without receiving a degree. While in Los Angeles, he met and befriended Arna Bontemps and became a reporter for an African American owned newspaper where he wrote his first column. Though short-lived, Thurman also started his first magazine while in Los Angeles called Outlet which was suppose to be the equivalent of The Crisis. Nickname: City of Trees Motto: Energy Peril Success Location of Boise in the State of Idaho Coordinates: Country United States State Idaho County Ada Founded 1863 Incorporated 1864 Mayor David H. Bieter (NP) Area    - City {{{area_total}}} km²  (64 sq mi) Elevation {{{elevation}}} m  (2700 ft) Population  - City 211,830  - Metro... Nickname: The Windy City, The Second City, Chi Town, City of the Big Shoulders, The 312, The City that Works Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in Chicagoland and Illinois Coordinates: Country United States State Illinois County Cook & DuPage Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government... 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... North Omaha is in the Missouri River bluffs above Eppley Airfield and Carter Lake North Omaha is a staggeringly diverse area in Omaha, Nebraska that is defined by its historical and modern neighborhoods, as well as its diverse racial and socio-economic composition. ... Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. ... For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Aristotle (Greek: AristotélÄ“s) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Henry Havelock Ellis (February 2, 1859 - July 8, 1939), known as Havelock Ellis, was a British doctor, sexual psychologist and social reformer. ... Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – Croisset, May 8, 1880) is counted among the greatest Western novelists. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The University of Utah (also The U or the U of U or the UU) is a public university in Salt Lake City, Utah. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Year 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... A pre-medical Degree is one preparing for medical school. ... The University of Southern California (commonly referred to as USC, SC, Southern California, and incorrectly as Southern Cal[1]), located in the University Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, USA, was founded in 1880, making it Californias oldest private research university. ... Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ... Arna Bontemps, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1939 Arna Wendell Bontemps (October 13, 1902 _ June 4, 1973) was an American poet and part of the Harlem Renaissance. ... A 1911 copy of the NAACP journal The Crisis depicting Ra-Maat-Neb, one of the black kings of the Upper Nile. ...

In 1925 he moved to Harlem in New York City. During his time in Harlem and in less than ten years, he obtained various employments as a publisher, an editor for magazines and a major publisher, a writer of novels, plays, and articles, and at various times he served as a ghostwriter to various persons.^[3] The following year he became the editor of The Messenger, a socialist journal aimed at black audiences. While at the Mesenger, Thurman became the first person to publish the adult-themed stories of Langston Hughes.^[4] Thurman left the Messenger in October of 1926 to become the editor of a white owned magazine called World Tomorrow. The following month, he collaborated in the publishing of the literary magazine Fire!! Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists whose contibutors were Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Bruce Nugent, Aaron Douglas, Gwendolyn B. Bennett and others. Only one issue of Fire!! was ever published. Fire!! challenged the ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois who believed that black art should serve as propaganda and many within the African American bourgeoisie who sought social equality and racial integration at the expense denying certain less-than-stellar aspects of black life in the United States, aspects not aligned with a more traditional and eurocentric model. Thurman, like his fellow contributors to the magazine, attempted to show the real lived lives of African Americans , both the good and the bad. He opined that black artists should be more objective in their writings and not so self-conscious that they did not acknowledge and celebrate the arduous conditions of African American lives, as many actually existed instead of presenting a singular false facade to win white approval.^[5] This was in contrast to African American leaders and middles class who saw the goal of the New Negro movement as showing white Americans that blacks were not inferior.^[6] 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar). ... For other uses, see Harlem (disambiguation). ... Nickname: Big Apple, Gotham, NYC, City That Never Sleeps, The Concrete Jungle, The City So Nice They Named It Twice Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1676 Government  - Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... An Editor is a person who prepares text—typically language, but also images and sounds—for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it. ... The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... A play (noun) is a common literary form, usually consisting chiefly of dialog between characters, and usually intended for performance rather than reading. ... A ghostrider is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, or reports which are officially credited to another person. ... Socialism is a social and economic system (or the political philosophy advocating such a system) in which the economic means of production are owned and controlled collectively by the people. ... Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and newspaper columnist. ... Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American folklorist and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, best known for the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. ... Richard Bruce Nugent (known professionally as Richard Bruce)(July 2, 1906 - May 27, 1987) was an important figure, albeit a fleeting one, in the Harlem Renaissance. ... Power Plant, Harlem by Aaron Douglas in oil, 1939. ... Gwendolyn B. Bennett (July 8, 1902–May 30, 1981) was an African American writer who contributed greatly to the Harlem Renaissance. ... W. E. B. Du Bois in 1904 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced ) (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. ... An Australian anti-conscription propaganda poster from World War One U.S. propaganda poster, which warns against civilians sharing information on troop movements (National Archives) The much-imitated 1914 Lord Kitchener Wants You! poster Swedish Anti-Euro propaganda for the referendum of 2003. ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... Bourgeoisie (RP [], GA []) is a classification used in analyzing human societies to describe a class of people who are in the middle class nobility, whose status or power comes from employment, education, and wealth as opposed to aristocratic origin. ... Social equality is a social state of affairs in which certain different people have the same status in a certain respect, minimally at least in voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and property rights. ... Children at a parade in North College Hill, Ohio Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation). ... A tradition is a story or a custom that is memorized and passed down from generation to generation, originally without the need for a writing system. ... Eurocentrism is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing emphasis on European (and, generally, Western) concerns, culture and values at the expense of those of other cultures. ... The phrase New Negro was in use long before the Harlem Renaissance. ...

During this time, Thurman's rooming house apartment at 267 West 136th Street in Harlem became the main place where the African American literary avant-garde and visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance met and socialized.^[7] Thurman and Hurston mockingly called the room Niggerati Manor, in reference to all of the black literati who showed up there. The walls of Niggerati Manor were painted red and black, colors to be emulated on the cover of Fire!! The residents, Thurman, Hughes, Nugent and others were described as unconventional by Jessie Redmon Fauset. Painted on the walls were said to be homoerotic murals by Nugent. A boarding house can also be called a rooming house (mainly in the United States) or a lodging house. It is a house (often a family home) in which people on vacation or lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of... A work similar to Marcel Duchamps Fountain Avant garde (written avant-garde) is a French phrase, one of many French phrases used by English speakers. ... An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. ... Jessie Redmon Fauset (April 27, 1882 - April 20, 1961) was an African American editor, poet, essayist and novelist. ... Homosexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by esthetic attraction, romantic love, or sexual desire exclusively for another of the same sex. ...

In 1928, Thurman published another magazine called Harlem: a Forum of Negro Life whose contibutors were Alain Locke, George Schuyler, and Alice Dunbar-Nelson. The publication lasted for only two issues. Afterwards, Thurman became a reader for a major publishing company. He was the first African American such a position in a New York publishing house. Alain LeRoy Locke (1886-1954) was born on September 13, 1886, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania He was an American educator, writer, and philosopher, and is best remembered as a leader and chief interpreter of the Harlem Renaissance. ... George S. Schuyler photo taken by Carl Van Vechten, 1941 George S. Schuyler (1895-1977), an African American writer known for his conservative views, was born in 1895 in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.. In 1912, Schuyler dropped out of school to join the US Army and soon rose to... Alice Dunbar-Nelson (July 19, 1875 - September 18, 1935) was an African American poet, journalist and political activist. ...

Thurman married Louise Thompson Patterson on August 22, 1928. The marriage lasted only six months. Thompson noted that Wallace was a homosexual and thus their union was incompatible. ^[8]. ^[9] Louise Thompson Patterson (1901-09-09–1999-08-27) was an American social activist and college professor. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... Since its coinage, the word homosexuality has acquired multiple meanings. ...

Thurman died in 1934 at the age of 32 from tuberculosis, which many suspect was exacerbated by his long fight with alcoholism. Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for Tubercle Bacillus) is a common and deadly infectious disease caused by the mycobacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis or Mycobacterium bovis. ... Alcoholism is the consumption of, or preoccupation with, alcoholic beverages to the extent that this behavior interferes with the drinkers normal personal, family, social, or work life, and may lead to physical or mental harm. ...

Thurman's Writings

According to Langston Hughes who also referenced Thurmans very dark complextion in this statement, Thurman was "...a strangely brilliant black boy, who had read everything and whose critical mind could find something wrong with everything he read." Though it was to become the basis for some of his strongest writings, from the very beginning Wallace Thurman's very dark skin color was an issue and prompted negative comments and reactions from various black and white Americans.^[10]

Thurman wrote a play, Harlem, which debuted on Broadway in 1929 to mixed reviews. The same year his novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life was published. The novel is now recognized as a groundbreaking work of fiction because of its focus on intraracial prejudice, specifically between light-skinned and dark-skinned black people. However, at the time many African Americans did not like the public airing of their community's so-called "dirty laundry."

Thurman was a great man. Three years later Thurman published Infants of the Spring, a satire about the themes and the individuals of the Harlem Renaissance. He co-authored a final novel with A.L. Furman, The Interne, published in 1932.

Notes

1. ^ Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissafkdkdkdnce. In Aberjhani & Sandra West (Ed.), Wallace Thurman, pp.328-330
2. ^ Singh & Scott. (2003), p.3
3. ^ Aberjhani.(2003). p.328
4. ^ Aberjhani.(2003). p.328
5. ^ Thurman's Harlem Renaissance is, thus, staunch and revolutionary in its commitment to individuality and critical objectivity: the black writer need not pander to the aesthetic preferences of the black middle class, nor should he or she write for an easy and patronizing white approval. Singh & Scott. (2003), p.19-20
6. ^ Hardy, Sheila J. & Hardy, P.S. (2000). In Wallace Thurman. Extraordinary People of the Harlem Renaissance, p.136. Children's Press
7. ^ ....in the Big Sea, Langston Hughes writes that he lived with Thurman rooming house.... West.(2003). p.242
8. ^ Aberjhani. (2003).p.329
9. ^ Louise Thompson said, "I never understood Wallace. He took nothing seriously. He laughed about everything. He would often threaten to commit suicide but you knew he would never do it. And he would never admit that he was a homosexual. Never, never, not to me at any rate." Rampersad, vol.1,(1986),p. 172
10. ^ Aberjhani.(2003). Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. In Aberjhani & Sandra West (Ed.), Wallace Thurman, pp.328-330

References

• Singh, Amritjit, & Scott, Daniel M. (2003). The Collected Writings of Wallace Thurman: A Harlem Renaissance Reader. Rutgers University Press ISBN 0-8135-3301-5
• Aberjhani. (2003). Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. In Aberjhani & Sandra West (Ed.), Wallace Thurman. Checkmark Press ISBN 0-8160-4540-2
• Rampersad, Arnold (1986). The Life of Langston Hughes Volume 1: I, Too, Sing America. Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-514642-5

See also

• Harlem Renaissance
• African American literature

The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of African American art, literature, music and culture in the United States led primarily by the African American community based in Harlem, New York City, after World War I. Literary historians and academics have yet to reach a consensus as to when the period... The Color Purple by Alice Walker African American literature is literature written by, about, and sometimes specifically for African Americans. ...

External links

African American Portal

• Thurman's bibliography and a copy of table of contents from literary magazine Fire!!
• Detailed biography of Thurman