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Poems Published in "Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life," 1923-1928

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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. Countee Cullen was closey involved as a literary editor during these years, and regularly published columns reviewing other poets' work. A fair amount of poetry by poets who were white was also published in these years.

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.

Not tagged below but part of the set: 
Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Heritage" (1923)

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. Helene Johnson, "The Road" (1926)
  5. Angelina Weld Grimke, "The Black Finger" (1923)
  6. Helene Johnson, "Fulfillment" (1926)
  7. Angelina Weld Grimke, "Little Grey Dreams" (1924)
  8. Angelina Weld Grimke, "Dusk" (1924)
  9. Countee Cullen, "Brown Boy to Brown Girl (Remembrance on a hill) (For Yolanda)" (1924)
  10. Angelina Weld Grimke, "I Weep" (1924)
  11. Langston Hughes, "The White Ones" (1924)
  12. Angelina Weld Grimke, "Death" (1925)
  13. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "To a Dark Girl" (1927)
  14. Lewis Alexander, "Transformation" (1927)
  15. Countee Cullen, "A Song of Praise (For one who praised his lady's being fair)" (1924)
  16. Helene Johnson, "Trees at Night" (1925)
  17. Arna Bontemps, "The Return" (1927)
  18. Lucy Ariel Williams, "Northboun'" (1926)
  19. Donald Jeffrey Hayes, "Confession" (1927)
  20. Esther Popel, "Kinship" (1925)
  21. Gladys May Casey Hayford, "Rainy Season Love Song" (1927)
  22. Helene Johnson, "Fiat Lux" (1928)
  23. Eloise A. Bibb, "After Reading Bryant's Lines to a Waterfowl" (1924)
  24. Clarissa Scott Delany, "Solace" (1927)
  25. Langston Hughes, "Lincoln Monument" (1927)
  26. Joseph S. Cotter, Sr., "The Way-Side Well" (or: "The Wayside Well") (1925)
  27. Countee Cullen, "Lines to our Elders" (1926)
  28. Arna Bontemps, "Golgotha Is a Mountain" (1926)
  29. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Hatred" (1926)
  30. Anne Spencer, "Rime For the Christmas Baby" (1927)
  31. Countee Cullen, "Confession" (1926)
  32. Helene Johnson, "Ah My Race" (1925)
  33. Robert H. Bonner, Jr, "A New Day" (1928)
  34. Blanche Taylor Dickinson, "Fortitude" (1927)
  35. J. Alpheus Butler, "A Traveller" (1928)
  36. Arna Bontemps, "Homing" (1926)
  37. J. Alpheus Butler, "Dreamers" (1927)
  38. Lewis Alexander, "Africa" (1924)
  39. Helene Johnson, "Futility" (1926)
  40. M.V. Cuthbert (Marion Cuthbert, Marion Vera Cuthbert), "Black Flute" (1928)
  41. Wesley Curtright, "Negro Woman" (1927)
  42. Jonathan H. Brooks, "Still I am Marveling" (1928)
  43. Arna Bontemps, "The Day-Breakers" (1926)
  44. Edward S. Silvera, "On the Death of a Young Friend" (1926)
  45. Countee Cullen, "A Thorn Forever In the Breast" (1927)
  46. Paul Laurence Dunbar, "The Right to Die" (1899)
  47. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Lines Written at the Grave of Alexandre Dumas" (1926)
  48. Earl Bigelow Brown, "A Bridge" (1928)
  49. Sterling A. Brown, "When De Saints Go Ma'ching Home" (1927)
  50. J. Harvey L. Baxter, "Paint Me A God" (1927)
  51. George Leonard Allen, "The Negro Sings of Winds" (1928)
  52. Arna Bontemps, "The Shattering" (March 1926)
  53. Waring Cuney, "Interior Decoration" (1927)
  54. Esther Popel, "Credo" (1925)
  55. Wallace Thurman, "God's Edict" (1926)
  56. Countee Cullen, "Black Majesty" (1928)
  57. Langston Hughes, "For an Indian Screen" (1927)
  58. George Little, "The Black Man's Burden" (1928)
  59. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Voyaging" (1923)
  60. Jonathan H. Brooks, "The Resurrection" (1927)
  61. Countee Cullen, "From Life to Love" (1925)
  62. Joseph S. Cotter, "The Tragedy of Pete" (1926)
  63. Marie Brown Frazier, "In a Jar" (1928)
  64. Langston Hughes, "Passing Love" (1927)
  65. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Street Lamps in Early Spring" (1926)
  66. Blanche Taylor Dickinson, "A Sonnet and a Rondeau" (1927)
  67. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Purgation" (1925)
  68. Frank Horne, "To a Persistent Phantom" (1926)
  69. Allison Davis, "Fighters" (1928)
  70. Langston Hughes, "Day" (1927)
  71. Antonio Jarvis, "Bamboula Dance" (1928)
  72. Helene Johnson, "Metamorphism" (1926)
  73. Harry Levette, "The Aster" (1927)
  74. Langston Hughes, "Troubled Women" (1925)
  75. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Lethe" (1926)
  76. Norma Hendricks, "The Mulatto" (1928)
  77. Langston Hughes, "America" (1925)
  78. J. Taylor Stanley, "The Two Singers" (1928)
  79. Helene Johnson, "Night" (1926)
  80. William H.A. Moore, "Sonnet" (1925)
  81. Mae V. Cowdery (Mae Cowdery), "The Wind Blows" (1927)
  82. James Edward McCall, "The New Negro" (1927)
  83. J. Alpheus Butler, "The City by the Sea" (1928)
  84. Langston Hughes, "Love Song for Lucinda" (1926)
  85. Anita Scott Coleman, "Wash Day" (1927)
  86. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Wind" (1924)
  87. Langston Hughes, "Liars" (1925)
  88. Waring Cuney, "A Triviality" (1927)
  89. Angelina Weld Grimke, "For the Candle Light" (1925)
  90. Sterling A. Brown (Sterling Brown), "Thoughts of Death" (1928)
  91. Langston Hughes, "Teacher" (1926)
  92. George Leonard Allen, "To a Negro Musician" (1927)
  93. Esther Popel, "Theft" (1925)
  94. Anita Scott Coleman, "Definition" (1927)
  95. James Edward McCall (J.E. McCall), "The Conjure Man" (1928)
  96. Arna Bontemps, "God Give to Men" (1925)
  97. Langston Hughes, "Mona" (1927)
  98. Countee Cullen, "I Have a Rendezvous With Life" (1924)
  99. Herschell Bek, "Moonlight" (1925)
  100. Langston Hughes, "I Thought it was Tangiers I Wanter" (1927)
  101. George Leonard Allen, "Portrait" (1927)
  102. Edward S. Silvera, "Fantasy in Black" (1928)
  103. Arna Bontemps, "Here Is the Sea" (1926)

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