Profile of Gwendolyn B. Bennett: Her poetry and beauty

Profile of Gwendolyn B. Bennett: Her poetry and beauty

Gwendolyn Bennett was a well-known Harlem Renaissance figure who was also a journalist, columnist, poet, fiction-writer, illustrator, graphic artist, teacher and educator. She was one of the most versatile figures who participated in the Black American arts movement in the 1920s and the Harlem Artists Guild, an alliance among African-American artists in the 1930s.

Born on July 8, 1902 in Giddings, Texas, Bennett spent her childhood moving around with her parents who were teachers. After they divorced, she moved to Brooklyn with her father where she attended Girl’s High School. She became the first African-American member of the school’s literature club and theater. She graduated in 1924 from Pratt Institute after attending Columbia University’s Teacher College for a short time. After a brief time as a faculty member at Howard University, she traveled to Pairs, where she furthered her education by studying at Sorbonne and Julian Academy. After returning home, she focused her work on the African-American social and cultural evolution of the arts. Recognized as a versatile artist, she was an art activist in New York City’s African American art community for more than twenty years. She married Dr. Albert Joseph Jackson in 1927, but he passed away in 1936. She later remarried, Richard Crosscup, even though their interracial marriage was not socially acceptable during the 1940s.

Her passion of the creative arts fueled her career, but she was often torn between her work as a graphic artist and her desire to become a poet. During the Great Depression, her exuberant and whimsical poetry shifted towards public advocacy for the arts in the community. Bennett’s poetry reflected themes of the Harlem Renaissance which celebrated racial pride, recognition of black dance and music, as well as invoking images of Africa and African American styles.

Despite an abundances of creative talent for both poetry and art, Bennett never devoted her full time to her own work. Instead, she focused on nurturing and teaching the artistic ambitions of others. In fact, she helped countless African-American artist find their full potential.

Bennett stepped out of the public eye in the late 1940s and relocated to Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where she and her second husband, owned an antique shop. She passed away on May 30, 1980.

Poem By Gwendolyn B. Bennett:

To A Dark Girl

I love you for your brownness
And the rounded darkness of your breast.
I love you for the breaking sadness in your voice
And shadows where your wayward eye-lids rest.

Something of old forgotten queens
Lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk
And something of the shackled slave
Sobs in the rhythm of your talk.

Oh, little brown girl, born for sorrow’s mate,
Keep all you have of queenliness,
Forgetting that you once were slave,
And let your full lips laugh at Fate!