Writer, poet, and artist Gwendolyn Bennett's birthday is July 8th. But since I believe a person's birthday celebration should not be limited to just one day in the month, I'm starting the celebration early with this piece about Bennett's Paris-connected moment in time.
Gwendolyn Bennett was one of the literary lights of the Harlem
Renaissance. The Columbia U. and Pratt Institute graduate became a professor of art at Howard University in 1924. In 1925 she received a $1,000 fellowship
from the Sigma Alpha Theta sorority to study in Paris, and she arrived in the French capital in June of the same year.
During her year in the City of Light, she met writer Gertrude
Stein, singer and activist Paul Robeson, poet and novelist René Maran, and other writers and
performers. She carved a place
for herself in the African American Community there.
As she did not have a lot of money, Bennett spent many of her days
painting and writing poetry, and
recording her observations in a journal.
About the City, she wrote in her journal:
“There
never was a more beautiful city than Paris… there couldn’t be. On every hand are works of art and beautiful
vistas. . . one has the impression of looking through at fairy-worlds as one
sees gorgeous buildings, arches and towers rising from among mounds of trees
from afar.”
While living in Paris, Bennett saw Josephine Baker perform,
and met musicians, singers, and dancers.
She dated Louis Jones, a violinist, and she enjoyed dancing at
Bricktop’s nightclub, and experienced nights on the town in Montmartre.
After the year ended, Gwendolyn Bennett returned to New York. Although she never lived in Paris again, she paid homage to that great city in short
stories that she wrote, such as “Wedding Day” and “Tokens.” Her time in Paris had surely broadened her literary horizons, just as it had done for other important African American writers of the 1920s,
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