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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.

Untagged: Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "To Usward" (1924) 
 

Contents of this tag:

  1. Langston Hughes, "The Weary Blues" (1925)
  2. Langston Hughes, "Our Land: Poem for a Decorative Panel " (1923)
  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. Lewis Alexander, "Transformation" (1927)
  7. Countee Cullen, "A Song of Praise (For one who praised his lady's being fair)" (1924)
  8. Helene Johnson, "Fulfillment" (1926)
  9. Angelina W. Grimke, "Little Grey Dreams" (1924)
  10. Helene Johnson, "Magalu" (1926)
  11. Angelina W. Grimke, "I Weep" (1924)
  12. Helene Johnson, "The Road" (1926)
  13. Angelina W. Grimke, "Dusk" (1924)
  14. Langston Hughes, "Lincoln Monument" (1927)
  15. Frank Horne, "To a Persistent Phantom" (1926)
  16. Angelina W. Grimke, "The Black Finger" (1923)
  17. Paul Laurence Dunbar, "The Right to Die" (1899)
  18. Anita Scott Coleman, "Wash Day" (1927)
  19. Arna Bontemps, "The Shattering" (March 1926)
  20. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Lethe" (1926)
  21. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Wind" (1924)
  22. Esther Popel, "Kinship"
  23. George Leonard Allen, "To a Negro Musician" (1927)
  24. Lucy Ariel Williams, "Northboun'" (1926)
  25. Helene Johnson, "Ah My Race" (1925)
  26. James Edward McCall, "The New Negro" (1927)
  27. George Leonard Allen, "Portrait" (1927)
  28. Langston Hughes, "America" (1925)
  29. Esther Popel, "Credo" (1925)
  30. Langston Hughes, "Mona" (1927)
  31. Angelina Weld Grimke, "For the Candle Light" (1925)
  32. Blanche Taylor Dickinson, "Fortitude" (1927)
  33. Langston Hughes, "Love Song for Lucinda" (1926)
  34. Countee Cullen, "From Life to Love" (1925)
  35. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Voyaging" (1923)
  36. Richard Bruce (Bruce Nugent), "Shadow" (1925)
  37. Countee Cullen, "I Have a Rendezvous With Life" (1924)
  38. Wesley Curtright, "Negro Woman" (1927)
  39. Langston Hughes, "Teacher" (1926)
  40. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Purgation" (1925)
  41. J. Alpheus Butler, "Dreamers" (1927)
  42. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Street Lamps in Early Spring" (1926)
  43. Helene Johnson, "Futility" (1926)
  44. Arna Bontemps, "The Return" (1927)
  45. J. Harvey L. Baxter, "Paint Me A God" (1927)
  46. Langston Hughes, "Troubled Women" (1925)
  47. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Heritage" (1923)
  48. Donald Jeffrey Hayes, "Confession" (1927)
  49. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Hatred" (1926)
  50. Langston Hughes, "For an Indian Screen" (1927)
  51. Arna Bontemps, "God Give to Men" (1925)
  52. William H.A. Moore, "Sonnet" (1925)
  53. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Lines Written at the Grave of Alexandre Dumas" (1926)
  54. Langston Hughes, "Passing Love" (1927)
  55. Arna Bontemps, "Golgotha Is a Mountain" (1926)
  56. Angelina W. Grimke, "Death"
  57. Wallace Thurman, "God's Edict" (1926)
  58. Helene Johnson, "Metamorphism" (1926)
  59. Arna Bontemps, "Here Is the Sea" (1926)
  60. Langston Hughes, "Liars" (1925)
  61. Joseph S. Cotter, "The Tragedy of Pete" (1926)
  62. Helene Johnson, "Night" (1926)
  63. Eloise Bibb Thompson, "After Reading Bryant's Lines to a Waterfowl" (1924)
  64. Langston Hughes, "Day" (1927)
  65. Arna Bontemps, "Homing" (1926)
  66. Esther Popel, "Theft" (1925)
  67. Countee Cullen, "Confession" (1926)
  68. Helene Johnson, "Trees at Night" (1925)
  69. Lewis Alexander, "Africa" (1924)
  70. Arna Bontemps, "The Day-Breakers" (1926)
  71. Herschell Bek, "Moonlight" (1925)

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