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Alabama Voices from the Harlem Renaissance

Andrews, William L., ed. African American Literature: Voices in a Tradition. Austin, Tex.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1992.

This is an anthology designed for use in secondary schools. It contains a section on the Harlem Renaissance including background information and selections from the writers of the period. Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Zora Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Margaret Walker, and Albert Murray are included. The book is beautifully illustrated with wonderful paintings and photographs, many of them in color. Colorful artwork is interspersed throughout the text, and suggested learning activities and assignments follow each selection. Literary maps and timelines are a useful feature.

Burns, Loretta S. "Voices and Visions from a Land Most Strange: Tuskegee's Literary Heritage." Alabama English Spring 1990: 25-34.

Burns discusses the influence of Tuskegee, Macon County, and Tuskegee University on the literary works of several writers. She mentions George Wylie Henderson and Langston Hughes, and includes extensive discussion of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray.

Gates, Henry L. and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997; and Patricia L. Hill, ed. Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.

These two anthologies are excellent resources. They are perhaps as thorough and as comprehensive in their coverage of African American literature as an anthology can be. They are outstanding for the depth with which they present background discussions of literary periods and of the life, works, and contributions of the authors. Call and Response includes additional biographical and critical resources at the end of these discussions. Each text contains a section on the Harlem Renaissance and rather detailed biographies on McKay, Hughes, Hurston, Ellison, Walker, and Murray with references to their Alabama connections. Both mention W. C. Handy in sections on the blues and include the lyrics to some of his songs.