NEGRO WRITERS.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17721, 24 March 1923, Page 4

NEGRO WRITERS.

THEIK CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN LITERATURE.

James Weldon Johnson, in his "Book of American Negro Po*iry,' r cites some startling facts not commonly known to the average reader of the achievements in, poetry and literature by people of negro descent. He says that the "greatest poet of Russia is Alexander Pushkin, a man of African descent; that the greatest romancer of France is Alexandre Dumas, a man of African descent; and that, one of the greatest musicians of England is Coleridge-Taylor, a man of African descent. "The fact is fairly well known that ; the father of Dumas was. a negro of the French West Indies, and that the father of Coieridge-iayior was a native-born African; but, the facts concerning Pushkin's African ancestry are not so familiar. "When Peter the Great was Czar or Russia some potentate presented him with a lull-blooded negro or giganticsize. Peter, tue most eccentric ruler oi modern times, dressed this negro up in soidier clothes, christened him Hannibal, and made him a special bodyguard. "But H'annibal had more than size, he had brain and ability. He not only looked picturesque and imposing in soldier clothes, he showed that ho had in him the making of a real soldier. Peter recognised, this, and eventually made, him a general. He afterwards ennobled him, and Hannibal later married one of the ladies of the Russian Court. This same Hannibal was great grandfather of Pushkin, the national poet of Russia, the man who bears the same relation to Russian literature that Shakespeare bears to English literature. "I know the question naturally arises: If out of the few negroes who have lived in France there came a Dumas; and out' of the few negroes who have lived in England there came a Coleridge-Taylor; and if from the man who was at the time probably the only negro in Russia, there sprang that country's national poet, why have not the millions of negroes m tne United States, with all the emotional ?nd artistic endowment claimed for them, produced a Dumas, or a Coler-idge-Taylor, or a Pushkin? ■'The question seems difficult, but there is an answer. The negro in the United States is consuming all of■ nis intellectual energy in this gruelling race struggle. ... "But. even so, the American negro has accomplished something in pure literature. The list of those who have done so would be surprising both by its length and the excellence of the achievements. One of the great books written in America since the Civil War is the work of a coloured man, The Souls of Black Folk,' br W. E. B. du Bois. j . , _, .., '•Such a list begins with Phillis Wheatley. In 1751 a slave ship landed a cargo of slaves in Boston. Among them was a little girl seven or eight vears of ago. She attracted the attention of John Wheatley, a wealthy gentleman of Boston, who purchased her as a servant for. his wife. Mrs Wheatley was a benevolent woman. She noticed the girl's quick mind and determined to give her opportunty for its development. Twelve years later Phillis published a volume of poems. The book was brought out in London, where Phillis- was for several months an object of great curiosity and attention. "Phillis Wheatley has never been given her rightful place in American literature. By some sort of conspiracy she is kept out of most of the books, especially the text-books on literature used in the schools. Of course, she is not a great American poet—and in her dav there were no great American poets —but she is an important American poet. Her importance, if for no other reason, rests on the fact that, save on«, she is the first in order of time of all the women poets of America. And she is among- the first of all American poets to issue a volume. "Anne Bradstreet preceded Phillis Wheatley by a little over 20 years. She published her volume of poems, 'The Tenth Muse,' in 17-50. Anne Bradstreet was a wealthy, cultivated Puritan girl, the daughter of Thomas Dudlev, Governor of the Bay Colony. Phillis, as we know, was a negro slave girl, born in Africa."