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

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