RAINEY, GERTRUDE “MA” [GERTRUDE MELISSA NIX PRIDGETT]
(April 26, 1886–December 22, 1939) Blues singer, songwriter
Regarded as the “Mother of the Blues,” Gertrude “Ma” Rainey was born Gertrude Melissa Nix Pridgett on April 26, 1886, in Columbus, Georgia. She was one of the most influential singers of the Harlem Renaissance era, with more than 100 recordings, and she reigned supreme as one of the top-selling female vocalists of the 1920s. As a testament to her significance, there is no record of anyone singing the blues before “Ma” Rainey.
It would seem that from birth Rainey was destined to perform. Her parents, Thomas and Ella Pridgett, were traveling minstrels from Alabama, so it is indeed likely that she was raised for a while on the minstrel circuit. At fourteen, she entered the family business as a member of “A Bunch of Blackberries,” a traveling show. In 1904, she married William “Pa” Rainey, a minstrel performer, and together they pooled their talents and created “Rainey and Rainey: The Assassinators of the Blues,” a song and dance act that ran until 1916, along with touring with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. With the “Foots,” one of the most popular black minstrel companies in the South, Rainey became the first performer to use blues music in vaudeville acts. After a season of touring, the Raineys would spend their winters in New Orleans, where they met such luminaries as Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and Joe “King” Oliver.
Selling out juke joints, singing for washboard bands and jug bands, and honing her vocal craft for roughly twenty-five years, “Ma” Rainey was ready for a broader stage, and she had the imagination, vision, and creativity to write and perform top-selling songs. In 1923, she signed a recording contract with Paramount Records, out of Chicago, and recording history was put down on vinyl. In the six years that followed, she would record more than 100 songs, create several pieces that remain standards in the blues lexicon, and single-handedly invent the blues idiom. Her recordings during this period included “Jelly Bean Blues,” “Daddy, Goodbye Blues,” “Slow Driving Moan,” “Shave ’Em Dry Blues,” “Levee Camp Blues,” “Booze and Blues,” “Toad Frog Blues,” and “Moonshine Blues.” These songs are snapshots of varied aspects of folk life, and the blend of humor and pathos in these compositions is notable.
Heard throughout Mississippi juke joints, as well as Harlem speakeasies, Rainey’s classic blues style was favorably received and helped lay the foundations for those women who followed her. Pieces that capture her classic style are the comedic and autobiographical “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”; “Bo Weevil Blues”; “See, See Rider,” which she recorded with Louis Armstrong; and the landmark “Backwater Blues.” Rainey was also a master collaborator who was respected by jazz musicians. She was a serious musician who was able to take varied aspects of African American vernacular culture and weave them into artistic statements. The same composition could have both a light mood and a heavy sentiment. Louis Armstrong played cornet on her “Jelly Bean Blues,” “See, See Rider,” and “Countin’ the Blues,” and John Smith can be heard on “Titanic Man Blues,” “Stack o’ Lee,” and “Bessemer Bound Blues.” The performer also played with pianists Fletcher Henderson and Lovie Austin, legendary saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, and Texas guitar legend T-Bone Walker. Her usual Georgia band consisted of Al Wynn, Dave Nelson, Ed Pollock, and Thomas A. Dorsey, and this group was an impressive group of musicians who had a range of sound that supported the voice of Rainey.
As a singer and songwriter, Rainey pulled from a wide range of sources—carnival songs and folk ballads—and a number of styles—minstrel, vaudeville, burlesque, country-blues—to produce a sound that was uniquely hers. Similar to such poets of the Harlem Renaissance as James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes, Rainey was a cultural synthesizer, borrowing from varied aspects of her travels and making statements that, in the end, offered hope. After all, blues music is not about feeling blue, but it is cathartic. Life might be a low-down dirty shame, but the thing to do is to make it swing. And “Ma” Rainey always did that. Her shows were a celebration of the life of Southern black folk.
As a musician, Rainey worked in a male-dominated world, yet she held her own. She had been out on the road making a living almost two decades before women even had the right to vote. And in her working relationships with male musicians, there existed a profound respect for Rainey as a musician. Louis Armstrong, especially, strongly admired her work. Even her explicitly sexual performances were never about demeaning herself. They were a source of empowerment.
In her performances, her voice, her very being “Ma” Rainey achieved one of the main tenets of the Harlem Renaissance: that African American folk culture was worthy of artistic treatment. This idea is illustrated wonderfully by Zora Neale Hurston, whose 1937 classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God grew out of her field notes while working as an anthropologist. The mythic and epic stature of Rainey is captured in the 1932 poem by Sterling A. Brown, in which Rainey is a hero because when she sings, she sings for so many down-home people. With her gravelly voice, Rainey could make an audience laugh or cry. She used field hollers and moans of work songs, and she believed that her work was more than mere entertainment. The minstrel stage served as a launching point for her creativity and optimism. She was unapologetically country. As she explained on a few occasions, blues were the sacred music of the poor Southern blacks who worked the land. With this belief in mind, Rainey paid homage to those who worked the land every time she sang.
Nonetheless, Paramount did not feel the same way. While the record label had aggressively marketed Rainey during her heyday, referring to her as the “Mother of the Blues,” “Songbird of the South,” the “Gold-Neck Woman of the Blues,” and the “Paramount Wildcat,” the recording landscape was undergoing a shift, and the love for “Ma” had gone with it. The executives at Paramount felt that Rainey could no longer compete with emerging male blues singers, and they believed that Bessie Smith, Rainey’s mentee, outclassed her. There was also a growing belief that the raw style of Rainey was no longer in vogue. Whatever the case may be, Bessie Smith, widely regarded as one of the greatest blues singers ever to stand at a microphone, always credited Rainey with being her chief influence.
A blues woman to her core, Rainey did not complain. Instead, she decided to form her own show company, the Arkansas Swift Foot, which proved short-lived as a result of the Great Depression. But the singer still had fans, so she toured until 1935, when both her mother and sister died. Following this familial loss, along with a decline in her voice, she decided to retire as a vocalist, but not from entertainment. Rainey returned to her hometown, where she owned and operated two theaters until a massive heart attack took her life on December 22, 1939. She was fifty-three years old.
In 1983, Rainey was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame, as well as the Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1990, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was admitted into the Georgia Hall of Fame in 1992, followed by the Georgia Women of Achievement the next year. Rainey’s image made it onto a U.S. first-class postage stamp in 1994, and her song “See, See Rider” earned induction into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2004.
But Rainey’s legacy runs deeper than music. Alain Locke, professor of philosophy at Howard University and one of the framers of the Harlem Renaissance, saw the emergence of black art less than four decades after the trauma of slavery as a revision of preconceived notions of blackness. The Harlem Renaissance was the first time on American soil that a conscious effort had been initiated by African Americans to define their culture, and Rainey was a powerful force in this movement. Her nickname carries with it both an expression of power and sexuality. She was earthy, sensual, and aggressive. She embodied feminine strength as she celebrated her body and sang freely.
Rainey’s commercial success during the nascent years of the music recording industry was equally vital. Her success and strength helped make space for other women who contradicted the norms of femininity established in a patriarchal society. In Rainey’s own time, these women would have included Bessie Smith, Trixie Smith, Ethel Waters, and Billie Holiday. And her influence extended to her cultural and artistic daughters, women like Tina Turner and Janice Joplin. The blues idiom developed and mastered by Rainey is now an attitude toward life where a woman has to travel her own road and learn to sing her own song.—Delano Greenidge-Copprue
RANDOLPH, AMANDA [MANDY]
(September 2, 1902–August 24, 1967) Actress, singer, comedian
Amanda Randolph enjoyed a long and fruitful career during and after the Harlem Renaissance. Born on September 2, 1902, in Louisville, Kentucky, she lived in many different places with her family during her childhood. Following the death of her father in 1920, she moved to New York and launched her career as an actress and singer.
Although mainstream society provided few and limited opportunities for African Americans in the entertainment industry, Harlem was chock full of opportunities for blacks during the 1920s and 1930s. During the height of Harlem’s most prolific years, Randolph performed in such popular productions as Shuffle Along (1921) and The Chocolate Dandies (1921).
After the 1930s, the Harlem Renaissance began to fade. Blacks and whites suffered when the Great Depression hit the United States. Randolph, however, adapted to the changing times. She opened an eatery known as the Clam Shop with her husband and recorded music under the names of Mandy Randolph and Amanda Randolph. Her music career lasted from 1920 to 1945.
Randolph also performed on Broadway and appeared in films and on television. Notable appearances included movies like Swing (1938) and The Notorious Elinor Lee (1941), produced by the illustrious African American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. Among her television appearances were the controversial mainstream series Amos ‘n’ Andy (1951–1953) and The Beulah Show (1945–1953). Critics argued that those television programs portrayed African Americans in derogatory and stereotypical ways. Criticism notwithstanding, Randolph was a groundbreaking celebrity in the history of African Americans of the Harlem Renaissance and mainstream American media.
Randolph’s husband, Harry Hansberry, preceded her in death. She was survived by her two children, Joseph and Evelyn.—Gladys L. Knight
RANDOLPH [WALLACE], RICHETTA G.
(1884–1971) Secretary, office manager, researcher
As secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from its inception, Richetta G. Randolph knew well the many important decisions of the organization. In the early years of the twentieth century, she began her work as personal assistant to the leaders and scholars of that era; at first she was private secretary to social activist Mary White Ovington. That position led to her post with the NAACP; she was the first member of the administrative staff and then office manager until the mid-1940s. She became private secretary to James Weldon Johnson and Walter White. Randolph became an “inspiring figure in Brooklyn,” the Harlem Renaissance, and national history.
Randolph was born in Virginia in 1884, and relocated to the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, in 1933. Little is known about her private life, but records show that she married a man named Wallace, who died early on; she became known by her maiden name, which she retained. Randolph assisted James Weldon Johnson in collecting information for his writings, and he praises her in both publications, Black Manhattan (1930) and Along This Way (1933). He writes in Black Manhattan that Randolph gave him valuable assistance as she gathered and sifted through historical data needed for his work. In Along This Way, he calls her the “best confidential secretary I have known or know of.” Randolph was more than a secretary, but a research assistant as well.
Randolph was also Johnson’s confidante and mentor. When Johnson was away from the office and Walter White managed in his stead, Randolph complained and expressed her disenchantment of her temporary boss. She disliked his effort to take over fully, reading the office mail, and manic attention to detail. When Carl Van Vechten’s Nigger Heaven was published in 1926, Randolph wrote to her vacationing boss that Van Vechten wrote about what those who do not know black people think of them and urged Johnson to offer a rebuttal. Johnson refused, saying that what Van Vechten had written was no more than a “copyrighted racial slur.”
After retiring from her post at the NAACP in 1946, Randolph continued to contribute to the literary and artistic culture of black America. Her papers, which cover the years 1906 to 1971, housed at the Brooklyn Historical Society, document her work with Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Manhattan, where she had leadership roles as a congregant and officer.—Jessie Carney Smith
RANSOM, BIRDELLE WYCOFF
(August 14, 1914–?) Poet
Little is known about the Texas-born poet Birdelle Wycoff Ransom. Her only poem to be published, “Night,” can be found in J. Mason Brewer’s Heralding Dawn: An Anthology of Verse. She was one of six women chosen by Brewer to be included in this 1936 anthology of African American poets.
Ransom was born in Beaumont, Texas, on August 14, 1914. In 1918, her family moved to Houston, Texas, where she attended Gregory Elementary School. In 1930, Ransom graduated salutatorian from Washington High School, which then enabled her to graduate as valedictorian from Houston Junior College at eighteen years of age in 1933. Upon graduating from college, she began writing poetry for the Houston Informer column “Lines of Life,” only to discontinue the column within the same year once she was married in Galveston, Texas. Before dropping into obscurity, Ransom completed her master’s thesis, “Charles Dickens as a Social Reformer,” at Texas Southern University in 1956.—Amanda J. Carter
REYNOLDS, EVELYN CRAWFORD [EVE LYNN]
(1900–1991) Teacher, social worker, columnist, poet
As a member of the Beaux Arts Club, Evelyn Crawford Reynolds wrote under the pseudonym of Eve Lynn. The Beaux Arts Club was comprised of black writers and artists in Philadelphia. During the Philadelphia Renaissance, she wrote poetry, reported on black high society, and worked as a community social worker.
Reynolds was born in Philadelphia around 1900. She graduated from Girls High and continued her education at Temple University by completing a special physical training course. Reynolds then taught in the Bureau of Recreation for four years.
In December 1927, she married Hobson Richmond Reynolds, thrusting her into well-known social circles and the spotlight. A mortician by trade, Hobson, originally from North Carolina, was a court judge magistrate. He became a prominent member of the Pennsylvania legislature and was featured in Ebony magazine later on as one of the most influential blacks in the United States. He was a grand exalted ruler in the Elks and active in this organization for many years.
According to Vincent Jubilee’s dissertation on literary circles during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, blacks in Philadelphia read two weekly newspapers: the Philadelphia Tribune and Pittsburgh Courier. During that period, Reynolds wrote a column, “Eve Lynn Chats ’bout Society and Folks,” geared toward black professionals and entrepreneurs. It appeared in the Pittsburgh Courier. She documented visits of important figures, commented on current fashion trends, and even reported on the food that was served. After being appointed as neighborhood secretary of the Armstrong Association, a forerunner to the Urban League, Reynolds began writing for the Philadelphia Tribune. Although she covered the social, cultural, and civic events of high black society, Reynolds was far more than an observer. She was a member of the black elite and lived in Philadelphia’s South Side on St. Albans Street.
Reynolds published three books of poetry: No Alabaster Box (1936), To No Special Land: A Book of Poems (1953), and Put a Daisy in Your Hair (1963). Her themes were nature, God, patriotism, and occasionally racial discrimination. Benjamin Brawley, a literary critic, compared Reynolds’s first book to Mae V. Cowdery’s We Lift Our Voices and Other Poems (1936). While Brawley thought that Reynolds’s poetry was beautiful, he considered Cowdery’s to be more intense. Even though Reynolds actually published more than Cowdery, Reynolds’s poetry, although somewhat pleasing, was not all that memorable. She also tended to republish poems from her first book in subsequent volumes. Two of Reynolds’s poems have been used as lyrics for hymns. “There’s No Me, There’s No You” and “We’re Growing” were arranged by Nolan Williams. Both appear in the African American Heritage Hymnal as # 618 and #619.
Reynolds also had a knack for promoting herself. She loved public relations and self-acknowledgement. She used her poetry to achieve social recognition and bring people together. She obtained forewords for her books from such famous people as Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of Bethune-Cookman College, and Marian Anderson, an opera star.—Joy A. McDonald
RIDLEY, FLORIDA RUFFIN [AMELIA YATES RUFFIN]
(January 29, 1861–March 1943) Activist, feminist, writer, educator
A prominent member of such activist and literary societies of the Harlem Renaissance as the Saturday Evening Quill Club, Florida Ruffin Ridley was an established advocate for equality, regardless of race and gender, by the late 1800s. Born Amelia Yates Ruffin on January 29, 1861, to elite African American Bostonians Josephine St. Pierre and George Lewis Ruffin, she was the only daughter and second of five children. Ridley’s mother was a prominent member of racial uplift and women’s club movements, while her father was the first African American man to graduate from Harvard Law School, as well as the first African American municipal court judge.
The dedication to African American and women’s rights advocacy within the Ruffin household was advantageous for Ridley’s education and career development. She graduated from Boston Teacher’s College and began teaching at Boston’s Grant School in 1880. In 1888, she married Ulysses A. Ridley, and they had two children, Constance J. Ridley and Ulysses A. Ridley Jr.
Always interested in promoting and preserving oral and folk traditions of the African American community, Ridley and her husband founded one of the earliest groups of black folklorists, the Society for the Collection of Negro Folklore, in Boston by 1890. In 1893, Ridley, her mother, and Maria Baldwin founded the Woman’s Era Club in Boston. Ridley was corresponding secretary for the organization, while Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was president. Along with her mother, she coedited and copublished the monthly Women’s Era for the club until 1910, and she spent three years in Atlanta, Georgia, organizing a kindergarten. From 1894 to 1898, Ridley was a member of Brookline Equal Suffrage Association.
In 1895, Ridley participated in the first Convention of Colored Women, which resulted in the formation of the National Federation of Afro-American Women (NFAAW). One year later, after a meeting in Washington, D.C., NFAAW merged with the Colored Women’s League to form the National Association of Colored Women. This group included members like Sarah Garnet and Mary Church Terrell. Women’s Era was the official publication for the organization, and their primary objective was to establish an African American sisterhood that would encourage joint efforts in racial uplift.
To support the war effort, Ridley attended Boston University’s secretarial war course in 1916, and one year later she was appointed executive secretary of the Soldier’s Comfort Unit, a position she held until 1919. She was later offered a paid position in War Camp Community Service of New York. From 1919 until 1925, Ridley was a member of the board of directors for the Robert Gould Shaw Settlement House. She also promoted and directed Boston Public Library’s Exhibition of Negro Achievement and Abolition Memorials in 1923.
In 1925, Ridley was awarded second place in the “Personal Experience” category of Opportunity magazine’s contest for her essay “An Experience.” She published her works in the Saturday Evening Quill (the annual publication of the Saturday Evening Quill Club), Our Boston, and Opportunity, among other publications. “He Must Think It Out,” published in June 1928, is her most well-known short story. Other stories include “Two Gentlemen of Boston” (1926) and “Two Pairs of Gloves” (1930). Some of her most well-known nonfiction stories, aside from “An Experience,” are “Preface: Other Bostonians” (1928) and “Maria Peters: A Peculiar Woman” (1929). Ridley’s writing topics focus on African American history, passing, and racial pride.
Although Ridley was politically independent, she campaigned with the Flying Squadron for the Democratic Party in 1924. She served as editor of the Cooperative Social Agencies publication Social Service News in 1928. As a member of the Saturday Evening Quill Club, she socialized with Waring Cuney, Edythe Mae Gordon, Alvira Hazzard, Helene Johnson, and Dorothy West, among others. The writer and educator was one of the few African American members of the Twentieth-Century Club and the Women’s City Club in Boston, and she also participated in the League of Women for Community Service. Ridley was elected secretary of the Lewis Hayden Memorial Association in 1929, and from 1931 through 1940, she presided over the Society of Descendants of Early New England Negroes.
Later in life, Ridley moved to Toledo, Ohio, to live with her daughter. She passed away there and was honored with memorial services in both Toledo and Boston.—Amanda J. Carter
ROBESON, ESLANDA [CARDOZA GOODE]
(December 12, 1896–December 13, 1965) Activist, writer
Eslanda Robeson
Eslanda Robeson, who became the wife of Paul Robeson in 1921, was an activist and writer who was not only outspoken, but one who protested against violence toward African Americans, the end of colonialism and oppression, and independence for African nations. Her international perspective advocated for the rights of the oppressed.
Robeson was born Eslanda Cardoza Goode in Washington, D.C., on December 12, 1896. The family moved to New York City in 1900, where she completed high school and graduated from Columbia University in 1923, with a major in chemistry. She became the first African American to be employed as an analytical chemist at Columbia Medical Center and later took on the role as manager of her husband’s career. Along with her interests in science and creative interest in theater, she became involved in civil rights issues and political concerns throughout the world. Robeson protested at the United Nations to have violence against African Americans included as part of a conference on genocide; between 1933 and 1935, she expanded her knowledge by enrolling in the London School of Economics and earned a doctorate in anthropology from Hartford Seminary. She visited Africa in 1936, and wrote the book African Journey, published in 1945. She also traveled to Spain to support antifascist groups. After she and her husband were accused of being Communists, they were required to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Following their testimony, they were reprimanded by chairman and senator John McCarthy in 1953. They moved to Moscow, Russia, and remained there for five years, away from persecution.
In 1963, Robeson was suffering from breast cancer. While returning to the United States, she stopped in East Germany and was honored with the German Peace Medal. Once in the United States, she continued her activism by speaking out against the Vietnam War until her death in New York City.—Lean’tin L. Bracks
ROBINSON, IDA BELL
(August 3, 1891–April 10, 1946) Pastor, evangelist, bishop
By 1924, when Ida Bell Robinson was having visions of giving greater opportunities for women in ministry, the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to urban cities in the North had provided fertile ground for religious evangelization. It seemed like the right time for her to enter the scenes of history with her overarching vision of full equality for women. The1848 Seneca Falls Convention had opened the door for conversation about women’s suffrage, and in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave legal legs to full voting rights for women. At a time when a woman preacher was a rarity, she was a charismatic pastor, evangelist, and later bishop whose impact could not be contained in the United States. Robinson’s work spoke to topics of concern to blacks during the Harlem Renaissance—women’s rights and freedom from all kinds of oppression.
Born Ida Bell on August 3, 1891, in Hazlehurst, Georgia, Robinson spent her childhood in Pensacola, Florida and, after marrying Oliver Robinson in 1910, moved to Philadelphia to find better employment opportunities. From an early age, Robinson felt guided by the Holy Ghost, and it was in Pennsylvania that her affiliation with the United Holy Church of America began a holiness ministry that flourished into one of the largest Pentecostal movements started by a woman; however, moving from street evangelization in Philadelphia to the development of an accredited school and a flourishing denomination would not be an easy journey to make.
In 1919, even before women had the right to vote, Robinson was ordained as a pastor by a bishop of the United Holy Church of America, and she was later installed as pastor of Mount Olive, then an affiliated mission of the church. Officials had recognized her gifts for ministry and commitment to God. Nonetheless, others in the congregation were uncomfortable with the decision. Ultimately, to continue her ministry, Robinson decided to heed the call she heard from God and made plans to start her own church. In 1924, after seeking legal counsel, she established Mount Sinai Holy Church of America. Her newly founded church had a Board of Elders on which more than half the seats were filled by women. Soon, because of her fiery deliverance of the Word of God and urgent sense of responding to revelations from God, Robinson set about preaching, teaching, and growing churches along the entire East Coast. Her mission work later expanded to churches in Cuba and British Guiana (now Guyana), South America.
In 1946, after having given more than twenty years of service to God, the fruit of her work was evident: Women had become presiding bishops of her denomination, then comprising eighty-four churches and more than 160 ordained ministers, 125 of which were women. This was certainly a testament to the power of a sacred vision she believed was given to her by God and which she lived out daily by the aid of the Holy Ghost in trust, prayer, and fasting until her death.—Vivian Martin
ROBINSON [ROBERSON], LIZZIE WOODS
(April 5, 1860–December 12, 1945) Religious organizer/activist, church cofounder, school matron
Although born a slave on April 5, 1860, in Phillips County, Arkansas, Lizzie Woods Robinson, or Mother Robinson, as she later became known, clearly demonstrated how one Spirit-filled woman could inspire others to achieve. Her widowed mother’s wisdom in sending her to a missionary school gave Robinson an educational advantage that led her on a path of remarkable service to God, although that path would not be easily forged. No one event, but rather many events, help to explain her impact—reading the Bible early in life, meeting missionaries and evangelists, and later being introduced to Bishop Charles H. Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ. For black women, the Harlem Renaissance proved to be a fertile time for black female religious leaders, whose works helped them build self-respect and promote racial pride in their own works.
Robinson, previously with Baptist affiliations at the time of meeting Mason, nonetheless decided to join in Mason’s work. But during that time, the church was a newly formed denomination not readily received by the faith community. Yet, feeling led by the Holy Spirit, Robinson accepted the bishop’s proposal to create a national office that would allow her to provide leadership for women in the early development of the church. The possibility of improving lives through the traditions of self-help and self-determination resonated with her; however, although the bishop recognized her exceptional organizational skills, unique ability to inspire others, and outstanding reputation for knowing and pronouncing the Word of God, female leadership was traditionally relegated to roles other than pastor or preacher. While Robinson’s role was seemingly limited to only educational responsibilities, it was in this capacity that her greatest work was done.
But it was Robinson’s indomitable drive, even in spite of financial suffering, that enabled her to overcome opposition and ultimately earn the respect of both men and women as a pioneering servant of God. Today, the denomination recognizes her as the Women’s Department First General Supervisor, 1911–1945, whose early efforts focused on promoting moral purity and holiness and led to the strengthening of prayer and Bible bands, sewing circles, and foreign mission bands as she traversed rural and urban areas from Arkansas to Nebraska to Memphis and beyond during the Great Migration. In 1916, Robinson cofounded the first Church of God in Christ in Omaha, Nebraska, where the Lizzie Robinson House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In her own way, Robinson reaffirmed for African Americans a sense of self-respect, racial pride, and cultural identity through the selfless ways in which she sought to overcome the effects of slavery, poverty, and injustice by serving others. Her ministry was bolstered by the hope that lay pregnant in her postslavery world, the hope of a better day through the fostering of community and education. Whatever title one wishes to bestow upon her, her early ministry training and teaching at Baptist Academy in Dermott, Arkansas, and the skills honed by her own experiences made her an endearing leader that history cannot ignore.—Vivian Martin
ROSE, ERNESTINE
(1880–19?) Harlem Renaissance supporter, library administrator
The black cultural strivings that became known as the Harlem Renaissance were significantly strengthened by the work of Ernestine Rose, a librarian who headed the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library, which played a significant role in the movement. Rose drew on the sources of the community, integrated the library staff, and supported connections between writers and readers at literary gatherings held in the library. Artists, playwrights, and performers showcased their talents at the facility. The book collection that began during Rose’s administration became the nucleus of library’s most enduring legacy for research on African American people.
Rose was a white woman from a rural background in Bridgehampton, New York, the daughter of a farmer and a school principal. She experienced racial diversity while growing up, which would serve her well later in life and document her fierce commitment to social equality. She received a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and a degree in library science from New York State Library School in Albany.
In 1920, Rose became librarian of the New York Public Library’s 135th Street Branch, located in Harlem; its staff was entirely white. Some sources say that she was a founder of what became known as the Schomburg Center. Rose fought racism and hired Catherine Latimer in 1920 as well, making the 135th Street Branch the only branch in the library system that hired blacks as librarians. Rose added additional black librarians, including Roberta Bosely, shortly after Latimer’s appointment, and then Sadie Peterson Delany of later bibliotherapy fame at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama. In 1921, the 135th Street Branch hosted Harlem’s first exhibition of African Americans; it became an annual event. This attraction, along with Rose’s quick move to integrate the staff once she was hired, helped make the library a “focal point [of] the burgeoning Harlem Renaissance.”
Rose led her staff to concentrate on building the collection of African American materials. In 1923, she reported to the American Library Association that patrons had increased their request for books by and about blacks, and also demanded professionally trained black librarians. In 1926, Rose secured the support of the National Urban League and then successfully sought financial support from the Carnegie Corporation to pay Puerto Rican Arthur A. Schomburg $10,000 for his collection of black materials and then donate the books to the library. Schomburg donated approximately 5,000 items, which he said would document the experiences he had growing up that blacks did, in fact, have a history and that they were not inferior to other races. Schomburg went on to become curator of the collection, known as the Arthur Schomburg Collection of Negro Culture at the New York Public Library.
Around 1933, the library also began to host a Works Progress Administration writer’s project. In 1940, the American Negro Theatre was founded and, through the efforts of Latimer and with Rose’s approval, gave performances in the basement of the 135th Street Branch. When Rose retired in 1942, assistant librarian Dorothy Homer, who was African American, replaced her. Rose’s stellar achievements at the 135th Street Branch, now known as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, helped enhance her professional image. Her friend Langston Hughes once called her a “warm and wonderful librarian . . . [who] made newcomers feel welcome.”—Jessie Carney Smith
ROWLAND, IDA
(1904–?) Poet
Although Ida Rowland is known to have published only one book of poetry, her accomplishment as one of the few black women who earned a Ph.D. during this era and her commitment to publishing books for African American youth is of particular note.
Born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma, Rowland worked her way through school, having to complete high school while doing domestic work. She further pursued her education and earned from the University of Nebraska in Omaha a B.A. in 1936, followed by an M.A. in sociology in 1938. Rowland’s academic performance earned her membership in the National Honorary Scholastic Sociological Fraternity. In 1948, she earned her Ph.D. from Laval University in Quebec, Canada.
Rowland’s highly regarded collection of poetry, Lisping Leaves, published in 1939, features an autumn theme that includes landscapes reminiscent of the regions where she grew up and was educated. Because of her literary skill, in 1940, she was inducted into the Eugene Field Society, a national association of artists and journalists who have shown literary skill and craftsmanship and an interest in things literary and cultural. Rowland spent time teaching sociology and psychology at Langston University, in Langston, Oklahoma, and she also taught in Arkansas. After she retired, she started a company that published books for young African Americans. The year of her death is unknown.—Lean’tin L. Bracks