Beauty And The Beast

James Weldon Johnson158 - James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) is a poet, writer, essayist, and color rights activist, one of the key figures of the Harlem Renaissance. , who went from coon songs to the compiler of the first major anthology of African American poetry, wrote in 1921: “I will not deny that a black man in a log house is more picturesque than a black man in a Harlem apartment, but a black man in a Harlem apartment is a reality, and he - part of a community growing across the country, a community whose ideals are becoming much more vital than the ideals of traditional artistic troupes, even though its members are much less picturesque. ”159 - James Weldon Johnson, Preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry, in Writings (New York: Library of America, 2004), 713 ..