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Books by and about Claude McKay
Home to Harlem
/ Banjo
/
Banana
Bottom /
Gingertown
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A Long Way from Home
/
Harlem: Negro Metropolis
/
Selected Poems
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Overview
The American Negro in the past
decade [1935-1945] has become more and more eager for educational
advantages. He has seen the possibilities opening out to him in
the development of his talents and the cultivation of the
qualities of his mind. Each year within the last decade
thousands of names have been added to the ever-growing list of
Negro men and women with degrees. The results of this
educational effort are to be seen in the advances made by
Negroes in the fields of literature and art. Outstanding names
are included in the latest histories of American literature,
and books by Negroes are accepted by the most important
publishing firms and reviewed in the best book reviewing
periodicals. Negro magazines in the fields of literature,
education, and medicine are of the highest type in make-up and
content.
more
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Although his writing is done on the side and he has
had no formal training for literary work, Theophilus Lewis is one of
the best known and most popular of Catholic Negro writers. Besides
writing for Catholic magazines, he has written extensively for the
Negro press, notably Pittsburgh Courier, People's Voice,
Inter-State Tattler (now suspended), and the Messenger.
For five years he was columnist for the New York Amsterdam
Star-News, and is at present columnist for the Ohio Express.
Negro
Catholic Writers Leedie and Lewis
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Charles Rousseve completed his high school education in 1920,
graduating from Xavier High School, New Orleans, and entered
Marquette University which he attended for one year. He received
his A.B. from Straight College, New Orleans, in 1926, accepting a
position as Instructor in French and Education at McDonogh High
and Normal School, New Orleans. During the summer session of 1928,
he was an instructor at Straight College.
Negro
Catholic Writers 4 -- Matthews and Rousseve
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Table
Dr. Turner was active in Catholic
organizations and in societies for the advancement of the Negro.
He founded in 1925 the Federated Colored Catholics (FCC), an
organization, national in scope, composed of catholic Negroes
who placed their services at the disposal of the Church for
whatever good they were able to effect in the solution of the
problems facing the group in Church and country.
FCC's intent was to fight racism and
segregation in the Catholic Church and promote racial harmony.
Turner was president until 1934. Contrary to his desire, the FCC
was forcibly made part of the Catholic Interracial council in
1933. The group lost its focus and power after the mid-1930s,
although the organization retained its identity until 1958.
Turner, remained a loyal member of the catholic Church. in 1976,
the Secretariat of Washington, D.C.'s Black Catholics named its
highest award for Turner. the Thomas Wyatt Turner Award has
become an annual honor. Turner was also Supreme Color Bearer of
the knights of St. John.
Thomas
Wyatt Turner
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Maurice Louis Rousseve was born September 22, 1906, in New
Orleans, the son of Barthelemy and Valentine Mansion Rousseve,
and is a younger brother of Charles Rousseve.
He began his elementary education at the Institution
Catholique in 1912, but in 1915 transferred to Holy Family Boys'
School from which he graduated in 1918. After two years at
Xavier Preparatory School he entered St. Augustine's Seminary,
Bay St. Louis, Miss., where he was ordained a priest in the
Society of the Divine Word on May 23, 1934. This was the first
time the Sacrament of Holy Orders was conferred at St.
Augustine's Seminary, and Father Rousseve was one of the four
Negro priests to be ordained.
Matthews and Rousseve
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Ora Mae Lewis was born March 29, 1918 in New Orleans. Her
father, Nathan Leopold Lewis, was a native of Jamaica, and her
mother Ceceilia Della Atkinson, a New Orleans Creole. Her
paternal grandfather was an educator in the East Indies.
Regarding her ancestry on her mother’s side she states, "My
maternal grandmother claims descent from a daughter of Henry I
of Haiti, and a son of Chief Black Hawk of America, also of a
Moor king in Northern Africa."
The only data on the subject is
contained in a letter from a Moor in Africa, asserting his
relationship. And in an old schoolbook of my grandmother’s is
a list of Indian names and birth dates, among which my
grandmother’s name is listed." Her elementary school education was received at Corpus
Christi School, Valena C. Jones School, and McCarthy Public
School in new Orleans. She attended Albert Wicker PublicHigh
School, and St. Mary's Academy in New Orleans, graduating from
the latter in 1936.
Ora Mae Lewis
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updated
7 April 2008
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