On Being Colored Me

Fifteen writers of essays, personal narratives, and poems offer vivid, personal reflections on race, gender, identity, and self-definition during the Harlem Renaissance. Some of these pieces are reprinted here for the first time. Together, they present a rich and revealing portrait of African American women's thought, feeling, and literary artistry in one of the most important cultural movements in American history. Ranging from intimate personal reflection to analytical prose and lyrical verse, the works in this volume bring together women whose voices were central to the era, though too often overlooked. Read together, these essays, personal narratives, and poems offer both a compelling introduction to Harlem Renaissance women writers and a deeper understanding of the experiences that shaped their work. Narratives: How It Feels to Be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston, On Being Young-A Woman-And Colored by Marita O. Bonner / Some Notes on Color by Jessie Redmon Fauset / Black by Nellie R. Bright / The Pink Hat by Caroline Bond Day / I- by Brenda Ray Moryck / Why? by Lena Williams / The Task of Negro Womanhood by Elise Johnson McDougald Poems: To a Dark Girl by Gwendolyn Bennett / Sybil Warns Her Sister by Anne Spencer / Goal by Mae V. Cowdery / Revelation by Blanche Taylor Dickinson / The Heart of a Woman by Georgia Douglas Johnson / The Black Finger by Angelina Weld Grimké / My Race by Helene Johnson