Wallace Thurman
Encyclopedia
Wallace Henry Thurman was an American
novelist during the Harlem Renaissance
. He is best known for his novel The Blacker the Berry
: A Novel of Negro Life, which explores discrimination
among black people based on skin color.
Thurman's early life was marked by loneliness, family instability and illness. He began grade school at age six in Boise, Idaho
, but his poor health eventually led to a two-year absence from school, during which he returned to Salt Lake City. From 1910 to 1914, Thurman lived in Chicago
, but he would have to finish grammar school
in Omaha, Nebraska. During this time, he suffered from persistent heart attacks. While living in Pasadena, California
's lower altitude in the winter of 1918, Thurman came down with influenza
during the worldwide Influenza Pandemic
. Considering his history of illness, he surprisingly recovered and then returned to Salt Lake City, where he finished high school.
Throughout it all, Thurman was a voracious reader. He enjoyed the works of Plato
, Aristotle
, Shakespeare
, Havelock Ellis
, Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire
and many others. He even wrote his first novel at the age of 10. He attended the University of Utah
from 1919 to 1920 as a pre-medical
student. However, in 1922 he transferred to the University of Southern California
in Los Angeles
, but he left without earning a degree. While in Los Angeles
, he met and befriended Arna Bontemps
and became first a reporter for an African-American-owned newspaper and then a columnist. He also started his first magazine, Outlet, which was intended to be a West Coast
equivalent to The Crisis
.
. In less than 10 years, he obtained various employments as a ghostwriter
, a publisher, an editor
, and a writer of novels, plays
, and articles. The following year he became the editor of The Messenger, a socialist journal aimed at blacks. While at The Messenger, Thurman became the first to publish the adult-themed stories of Langston Hughes
. Thurman left the journal in October 1926 to become the editor of a white-owned magazine called World Tomorrow. The following month, he collaborated in publishing the literary magazine Fire!! Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists
, among whose contributors were Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
, Richard Bruce Nugent
, Aaron Douglas
, and Gwendolyn B. Bennett
.
Only one issue of Fire!! was ever published. Fire!! challenged the ideas of W. E. B. Du Bois and many of the African American bourgeoisie
, who, in their search for social equality
and racial integration
, believed that black art should serve as propaganda
for those ends. The New Negro
movement needed to show white Americans that blacks were not inferior.
But Thurman and others of the "Niggerati
" (the deliberately ironic name Thurman used for the young African American
artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance
) wanted to show the real lives of African Americans, both the good and the bad. Thurman believed that black artists should be more objective in their writings and not so self-conscious that they failed to acknowledge and celebrate the arduous conditions of African American lives. As Singh and Scott put it, "Thurman's Harlem Renaissance is, thus, staunch and revolutionary in its commitment to individuality and critical objectivity: the black writer need not pander to the aesthetic preferences of the black middle class, nor should he or she write for an easy and patronizing white approval."
During this time, Thurman's rooming house apartment at 267 West 136th Street in Harlem became the main place where the African-American literary avant-garde
and visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance met and socialized. Thurman and Hurston mockingly called the room "Niggerati Manor", in reference to all of the black literati
who showed up there. The walls of Niggerati Manor were painted red and black, colors to be emulated on the cover of Fire!! Nugent painted mural
s on the walls, some of which contained homoerotic content.
In 1928, Thurman published another magazine called Harlem: a Forum of Negro Life, whose contributors included Alain Locke, George Schuyler
, and Alice Dunbar-Nelson. The publication lasted for only two issues. Afterwards, Thurman became a reader for a major New York publishing company, the first African American ever in such a position.
on August 22, 1928. The marriage lasted only six months. Thompson said that Wallace was a homosexual and thus their union was incompatible.
, which many suspect was exacerbated by his long fight with alcoholism
.
Thurman wrote a play, Harlem, which debuted on Broadway
in 1929 to mixed reviews. The same year his novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life was published. The novel is now recognized as a groundbreaking work of fiction because of its focus on intraracial prejudice and colorism, specifically between light-skinned and dark-skinned black people.
Three years later Thurman published Infants of the Spring, a satire
of the themes and the individuals of the Harlem Renaissance. He co-authored The Interne, a final novel with A.L. Furman, published in 1932.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novelist during the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
. He is best known for his novel The Blacker the Berry
The Blacker the Berry
The Blacker the Berry is a 1929 novel by Harlem Renaissance author Wallace Thurman. The novel tells the story of Emma Lou Morgan, a dark-skinned African-American woman, beginning in Boise, Idaho and ending in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance...
: A Novel of Negro Life, which explores discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
among black people based on skin color.
Early life
Thurman was born in Salt Lake City to Beulah and Oscar Thurman. Between his mother's many marriages, Wallace and his mother lived with Emma Jackson, his maternal grandmother. His grandmother's home doubled as a saloon where alcohol was served without a license. When Thurman was less than a month old, his father abandoned his wife and son. It was not until Wallace was 30 years old that he met his father.Thurman's early life was marked by loneliness, family instability and illness. He began grade school at age six in Boise, Idaho
Boise, Idaho
Boise is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho, as well as the county seat of Ada County. Located on the Boise River, it anchors the Boise City-Nampa metropolitan area and is the largest city between Salt Lake City, Utah and Portland, Oregon.As of the 2010 Census Bureau,...
, but his poor health eventually led to a two-year absence from school, during which he returned to Salt Lake City. From 1910 to 1914, Thurman lived in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, but he would have to finish grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
in Omaha, Nebraska. During this time, he suffered from persistent heart attacks. While living in Pasadena, California
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
's lower altitude in the winter of 1918, Thurman came down with influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
during the worldwide Influenza Pandemic
Influenza pandemic
An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that spreads on a worldwide scale and infects a large proportion of the human population. In contrast to the regular seasonal epidemics of influenza, these pandemics occur irregularly, with the 1918 Spanish flu the most serious pandemic in...
. Considering his history of illness, he surprisingly recovered and then returned to Salt Lake City, where he finished high school.
Throughout it all, Thurman was a voracious reader. He enjoyed the works of Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, Havelock Ellis
Havelock Ellis
Henry Havelock Ellis, known as Havelock Ellis , was a British physician and psychologist, writer, and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He was co-author of the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and...
, Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
and many others. He even wrote his first novel at the age of 10. He attended the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
from 1919 to 1920 as a pre-medical
Pre-medical
Pre-medical is a term used to describe a track an undergraduate student in the United States pursues prior to becoming a medical student...
student. However, in 1922 he transferred to the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, but he left without earning a degree. While in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, he met and befriended Arna Bontemps
Arna Bontemps
Arnaud "Arna" Wendell Bontemps was an American poet and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance.- Life and career :...
and became first a reporter for an African-American-owned newspaper and then a columnist. He also started his first magazine, Outlet, which was intended to be a West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
equivalent to The Crisis
The Crisis
The Crisis is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , and was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois , Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Miller, W.S. Braithwaite, M. D. Maclean.The original title of the journal was...
.
Career
In 1925 Thurman moved to HarlemHarlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
. In less than 10 years, he obtained various employments as a ghostwriter
Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written...
, a publisher, an editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
, and a writer of novels, plays
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
, and articles. The following year he became the editor of The Messenger, a socialist journal aimed at blacks. While at The Messenger, Thurman became the first to publish the adult-themed stories of Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
. Thurman left the journal in October 1926 to become the editor of a white-owned magazine called World Tomorrow. The following month, he collaborated in publishing the literary magazine Fire!! Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists
Fire!!
Fire!! was an African American literary magazine published in 1926 during the Harlem Renaissance. The publication was started by Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston, Aaron Douglas, John P...
, among whose contributors were Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance...
, Richard Bruce Nugent
Richard Bruce Nugent
Richard Bruce Nugent , aka Richard Bruce and Bruce Nugent, was a writer and painter in the Harlem Renaissance.-Biography:...
, Aaron Douglas
Aaron Douglas
Aaron Douglas was an African American painter and a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance.-Early life:...
, and Gwendolyn B. Bennett
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
Gwendolyn B. Bennett was an African American writer who contributed to Opportunity, which chronicled cultural advancements in Harlem. Though often overlooked, she herself made considerable accomplishments in poetry and prose...
.
Only one issue of Fire!! was ever published. Fire!! challenged the ideas of W. E. B. Du Bois and many of the African American bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
, who, in their search for social equality
Social equality
Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the...
and racial integration
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
, believed that black art should serve as propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
for those ends. The New Negro
New Negro
New Negro is a term popularized during the Harlem Renaissance implying a more outspoken advocacy of dignity and a refusal to submit quietly to the practices and laws of Jim Crow racial segregation...
movement needed to show white Americans that blacks were not inferior.
But Thurman and others of the "Niggerati
Niggerati
The Niggerati was the name used, with deliberate irony, by Wallace Thurman for the group of young African American artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. "Niggerati" is a portmanteau of "nigger" and "literati". The rooming house where he lived, and where that group often met, was...
" (the deliberately ironic name Thurman used for the young African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
) wanted to show the real lives of African Americans, both the good and the bad. Thurman believed that black artists should be more objective in their writings and not so self-conscious that they failed to acknowledge and celebrate the arduous conditions of African American lives. As Singh and Scott put it, "Thurman's Harlem Renaissance is, thus, staunch and revolutionary in its commitment to individuality and critical objectivity: the black writer need not pander to the aesthetic preferences of the black middle class, nor should he or she write for an easy and patronizing white approval."
During this time, Thurman's rooming house apartment at 267 West 136th Street in Harlem became the main place where the African-American literary avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
and visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance met and socialized. Thurman and Hurston mockingly called the room "Niggerati Manor", in reference to all of the black literati
Literati
Literati may refer to:*Intellectuals or those who read and comment on literature*The scholar-bureaucrats or literati of imperial China**Literati painting, also known as the Southern School of painting, developed by Chinese literati...
who showed up there. The walls of Niggerati Manor were painted red and black, colors to be emulated on the cover of Fire!! Nugent painted mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
s on the walls, some of which contained homoerotic content.
In 1928, Thurman published another magazine called Harlem: a Forum of Negro Life, whose contributors included Alain Locke, George Schuyler
George Schuyler
George Samuel Schuyler , was an African American author, journalist and social commentator known for his conservative views.-Early life:George Samuel Schuyler was born in Providence, Rhode Island to George Francis and Eliza Jane Schuyler...
, and Alice Dunbar-Nelson. The publication lasted for only two issues. Afterwards, Thurman became a reader for a major New York publishing company, the first African American ever in such a position.
Personal life
Thurman married Louise Thompson PattersonLouise Thompson Patterson
Louise Alone Thompson Patterson was an American social activist and college professor.-Biography:...
on August 22, 1928. The marriage lasted only six months. Thompson said that Wallace was a homosexual and thus their union was incompatible.
Death
Thurman died at the age of 32 from tuberculosisTuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, which many suspect was exacerbated by his long fight with alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
.
Thurman's writings
According to Langston Hughes, who noted Thurman's dark complexion in this statement, Thurman was "...a strangely brilliant black boy, who had read everything and whose critical mind could find something wrong with everything he read." Though it was to become the basis for some of his strongest writings, from the beginning Thurman's dark skin color was an issue, prompting negative comments and reactions from various black and white Americans.Thurman wrote a play, Harlem, which debuted on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in 1929 to mixed reviews. The same year his novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life was published. The novel is now recognized as a groundbreaking work of fiction because of its focus on intraracial prejudice and colorism, specifically between light-skinned and dark-skinned black people.
Three years later Thurman published Infants of the Spring, a satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
of the themes and the individuals of the Harlem Renaissance. He co-authored The Interne, a final novel with A.L. Furman, published in 1932.