The Black Chicago Writers' Movement

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

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From the Depression to the early 1950s, Chicago was the hot center of African American creative expression in literature. On the South Side, sometimes called Bronzeville, young writers such as Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, William Attaway, Theodore Ward, Frank Marshall Davis, Frank Yerby, Willard Motley, Era Bell Thompson, and Margaret Danner honed their craft, launched careers, and authored works that would equal the achievements of the Harlem Renaissance. Supported and mentored by such veterans of the Harlem movement as Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes, Chicago writers broke new ground in African American letters and achieved unprecedented critical and commercial success. Working variously in fiction, poetry, drama, journalism, and memoir, and interacting regularly…

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Citation: Courage, Richard A.. "The Black Chicago Writers' Movement". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 January 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19324, accessed 19 March 2024.]

19324 The Black Chicago Writers' Movement 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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