59th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬: Nella Larsen was the first AA woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing Died March 30, 1964

My girl.  Reading what I considered to be the definitive biography of Nella Larsen several years ago, was what piqued my ongoing interest in the Harlem Renaissance.  Nella was one of the lesser known authors in this movement, kind of overshadowed by Zora Neale Hurston, and led a rather complicated life. Why I have a special interest in her is that  when I was 10 years old,  I spent the summer in Nashville, Tennessee, with my Aunt who was affiliated with Fisk University.  In Nella's biography it talked about the period she spent in Nashville because she was at one time married to a chemist who was a Fisk faculty member, and he and Nella were part of the social circle of other Fisk figures such as poet Arna Bontemps, sociologist Charles Johnson and musician John Work, all of whom were among the "new negroes" who comprised the Harlem Renaissance.   As soon as I saw those names while reading Nella's bio, I realized that the children of these people were the kids I had played with during my summer in Nashville.  

I visited Fisk the first time I went to Nashville.  The legacy was impressive, the current state not so much. I can only image what that community must have been like during better times.  You lived it Cynique :-)

I got the same feeling when I read the Delany Sisters book Having Our Say.  I have family that lived directly across the street from the school where the Delany Sister's father taught, Shaw University.  My earliest memories were in that community.  However I would be much older before I realized what Shaw was or how close it was to where I visited so many times as a kid.  By the time I was of college age I would have zero interest in going to a Shaw or a Fisk.  But is an indication of a much bigger problem, and perhaps helps explains why Fisk, Shaw and HBCU's in general are struggling to survive...