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Poems Published in "Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life," 1923-1926

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Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life was active in its first instance between 1923-1941. It was published by the National Urban League, under the editorship initially of Charles S. Johnson. 

Opportunity was most influential in African American literary circles for its literary contests, which ran between 1924-1927, and helped to strengthen the reputations of important writers like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Sterling Brown, Arna Bontemps, and Countee Cullen. The contests were also accompanied by award dinners, which were often quite glamorous, and featured many writers, publishers, and patrons. 

In 1928, Charles Johnson was appointed as President of Fisk University, a Historically Black university. At that time, the editorship shifted, as did the priorities of the journal. After 1928, the magazine was more narrowly focused on sociology and race, and the literary emphasis diminished. 

Here, we have been in the process of digitizing the poems published in the 1920s in Opportunity based on facsimile copies available at Archive.org; those are collected below. We are also developing an Index of poems published in Opportunity during these years; that Index can be found here.
 

Contents of this tag:

  1. Langston Hughes, "Our Land: Poem for a Decorative Panel " (1923)
  2. Langston Hughes, "The Weary Blues" (1925)
  3. Langston Hughes, "To Midnight Nan at Leroy's" (1926)
  4. Langston Hughes, "The White Ones" (1924)
  5. Countee Cullen, "Brown Boy to Brown Girl (Remembrance on a hill) (For Yolanda)" (1924)
  6. Countee Cullen, "A Song of Praise (For one who praised his lady's being fair)" (1924)
  7. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "To Usward" (1924)
  8. Angelina W. Grimke, "Little Grey Dreams" (1924)
  9. Angelina W. Grimke, "I Weep" (1924)
  10. Angelina W. Grimke, "Dusk" (1924)
  11. Countee Cullen, "Confession" (1926)
  12. Angelina W. Grimke, "The Black Finger" (1923)
  13. Paul Laurence Dunbar, "The Right to Die" (1899)
  14. Arna Bontemps, "The Shattering" (March 1926)
  15. Frank Horne, "To a Persistent Phantom" (1926)
  16. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Wind" (1924)
  17. Esther Popel, "Kinship"
  18. Helene Johnson, "Ah My Race" (1925)
  19. Lucy Ariel Williams, "Northboun'" (1926)
  20. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Lethe" (1926)
  21. Langston Hughes, "America" (1925)
  22. Esther Popel, "Credo" (1925)
  23. Helene Johnson, "The Road" (1926)
  24. James Edward McCall, "The New Negro" (1927)
  25. Langston Hughes, "Love Song for Lucinda" (1926)
  26. Countee Cullen, "From Life to Love" (1925)
  27. Helene Johnson, "Magalu" (1926)
  28. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Voyaging" (1923)
  29. Angelina Weld Grimke, "For the Candle Light" (1925)
  30. Countee Cullen, "I Have a Rendezvous With Life" (1924)
  31. Langston Hughes, "Teacher" (1926)
  32. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Purgation" (1925)
  33. Helene Johnson, "Futility" (1926)
  34. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Street Lamps in Early Spring" (1926)
  35. Richard Bruce (Bruce Nugent), "Shadow" (1925)
  36. Langston Hughes, "Troubled Women" (1925)
  37. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Hatred" (1926)
  38. Arna Bontemps, "The Return" (1927)
  39. Arna Bontemps, "God Give to Men" (1925)
  40. William H.A. Moore, "Sonnet" (1925)
  41. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Heritage" (1923)
  42. Helene Johnson, "Fulfillment" (1926)
  43. Arna Bontemps, "Golgotha Is a Mountain" (1926)
  44. Angelina W. Grimke, "Death"
  45. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Lines Written at the Grave of Alexandre Dumas" (1926)
  46. Helene Johnson, "Metamorphism" (1926)
  47. Arna Bontemps, "Here Is the Sea" (1926)
  48. Langston Hughes, "Liars" (1925)
  49. Wallace Thurman, "God's Edict" (1926)
  50. Helene Johnson, "Night" (1926)
  51. Eloise Bibb Thompson, "After Reading Bryant's Lines to a Waterfowl" (1924)
  52. Arna Bontemps, "Homing" (1926)
  53. Esther Popel, "Theft" (1925)
  54. Joseph S. Cotter, "The Tragedy of Pete" (1926)
  55. Helene Johnson, "Trees at Night" (1925)
  56. Lewis Alexander, "Africa" (1924)
  57. Arna Bontemps, "The Day-Breakers" (1926)
  58. Herschell Bek, "Moonlight" (1925)

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