The Black Chicago Writers' Movement

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Richard A. Courage (Westchester Community College, SUNY)

Ed. by A Yemisi Jimoh, University of Massachusetts Amherst
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.5: African American Writing and Culture of the United States.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Philathia Bolton (University of Akron), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

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Literature Topic
Movements, styles and periods (literature)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1936-1950

Places

United States (Location)

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From the Depression to the early 1950s, Chicago was the hot center of African American creative expression in literature. On the South Side, sometimes called Bronzeville, young writers such as Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, William Attaway, Theodore Ward, Frank Marshall Davis, Frank Yerby, Willard Motley, Era Bell Thompson, and Margaret Danner honed their craft, launched careers, and authored works that would equal the achievements of the Harlem Renaissance. Supported and mentored by such veterans of the Harlem movement as Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes, Chicago writers broke new ground in African American letters and achieved unprecedented critical and commercial success. Working variously in fiction, poetry, drama, journalism, and memoir, and interacting regularly…

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3824 words

Citation: Courage, Richard A.. "The Black Chicago Writers' Movement". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 January 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19324, accessed 23 November 2024.]

The Black Chicago Writers' Movement

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