James Mercer Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents di-vorced when he was a young child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grand-mother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln that Hughes began writing poetry. After graduating from high school, he spent a year in Mexico followed by a year at Columbia University in New York City. During this time, he held odd jobs such as as-sistant cook, launderer, and busboy. He also travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D. C. Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, (Knopf, 1926) was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college educa-tion at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, (Knopf, 1930) won the Harmon gold medal for literature.Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writ-ing, as in his book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Coun-tee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.The critic Donald B. Gibson noted in the introduction to Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays (Prentice Hall, 1973) that Hughes “differed from most of his predecessors among black poets . . . in that he addressed his poetry to the people, specifically to black people. During the twenties when most American poets were turning inward, writing obscure and esoteric poetry to an ever decreasing audience of readers, Hughes was turning outward, using language and themes, attitudes and ideas familiar to anyone who had the ability simply to read . . . Until the time of his death, he spread his message humorously—though always seriously—to audiences throughout the country, having read his poetry to more people (possibly) than any other Ameri-can poet.”In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind, (Simon & Schuster, 1950); Simple Stakes a Claim, (Rinehart, 1957); Simple Takes a Wife, (Simon & Schuster, 1953); and Simple’s Uncle Sam (Hill and Wang, 1965). He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography, The Big Sea (Knopf, 1940), and cowrote the play Mule Bone (HarperCollins, 1991) with Zora Neale Hurston.Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer on May 22, 1967, in New York City. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed “Langston Hughes Place.”

F. Scott Fitzgeraldand the American DreamF. Scott Fitzgerald's life is a tragic example of both sides of the American Dream - the joys of young love, wealth and success, and the tragedies associated with excess and failure. Named for another famous American, a distant cousin who authored the Star Spangled Banner, Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul Minnesota on September 24, 1896. The son of a failed wicker furniture

salesman (Edward Fitzgerald) and an Irish immigrant with a large inheritance (Mary "Mollie" McQuillan), Fitzgerald grew up in a solidly Catholic and upper middle class environment.1935 Portrait by David Silvette, courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

Fitzgerald started writing at an early age. His high school newspaper published his detective sto-ries, encouraging him to pursue writing more enthusiastically than academics. He dropped out of Princeton University to join the army and continued to pursue his obsession, writing magazine articles and even musical lyrics.At 21 years of age, he submitted his first novel for publication and Charles Scribner's Sons re-jected it, but with words of encouragement. Beginning a pattern of constant revising that would characterize his writing style for the rest of his career, Fitzgerald decided to rewrite "The Ro-mantic Egoist" and resubmit it for publication. Meanwhile, fate, in the form of the U.S. army, stationed him near Montgomery, Alabama in 1918, where he met and fell in love with an 18-year-old Southern belle - Zelda Sayre. Scribners rejected his novel for a second time, and so Fitzgerald turned to advertising as a steady source of income. Unfortunately, his paltry salary was not enough to convince Zelda to marry him, and tired of waiting for him to make his fortune, she broke their engagement in 1919. Happily, Scribners finally accepted the novel after Fitzger-ald rewrote it for the third time as "This Side of Paradise", and published it a year later. Fitzger-ald, suddenly a rich and famous author, married Zelda a week after its publication.In between writing novels, Fitzgerald was quite prolific as a magazine story writer. The Saturday Evening Post in particular served as a showcase for his short works of fiction, most of which re-volved around a new breed of American woman - the young, free-thinking, independent "flap-per" of the Roaring Twenties.

The Fitzgeralds enjoyed fame and fortune, and his novels reflected their lifestyle, describing in semi-autobiographical fiction the privileged lives of wealthy, aspiring socialites. Fitzgerald wrote his second novel - "The Beautiful and the Damned" a year after they were married. Three years later, after the birth of their first and only child, Scottie, Fitzgerald completed his best-known work: "The Great Gatsby."The extravagant living made possible by such success, however, took its toll. Constantly globe-trotting (living at various times in several different cities in Italy, France, Switzerland, and eight of the United States), the Fitzgeralds tried in vain to escape or at least seek respite from Scott's alcoholism and Zelda's mental illness.Zelda suffered several breakdowns in both her physical and mental health, and sought treatment in and out of clinics from 1930 until her death (due to a fire at Highland Hospital in North Car-olina in 1948). Zelda's mental illness, the subject of Fitzgerald's fourth novel, "Tender is the Night," had a debilitating effect on Scott's writing. He described his own "crack-up" in an essay that he wrote in 1936, hopelessly in debt, unable to write, nearly estranged from his wife and daughter, and incapacitated by excessive drinking and poor physical health.Things were looking up for Fitzgerald near the end of his life - he won a contract in 1937 to write for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood and fell in love with Sheilah Graham, a movie colum-nist. He had started writing again - scripts, short-stories, and the first draft of a new novel about Hollywood - when he suffered a heart attack and died in 1940 at the age of 44, a failure in his own mind. Most commonly recognized only as an extravagant drunk, who epitomized the ex-cesses of the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald's work did not earn the credibility and recognition it holds to-day until years after his death.

George Herman “Babe” Ruth began his baseball career as an outstanding left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, where he set records and helped the team to three national champi-onships. But it was after he moved to the outfield—and the New York Yankees—that he achieved international renown as a slugger, establishing many Major League Baseball records, including 714 career home runs, 2,213 career runs batted in, and a .690 batting average. In 1936, he was in the first class of inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.Born to busy tavern owners in Baltimore, Maryland, Ruth was largely unsupervised as a boy and frequently got into trouble. He was sent to a Catholic reformatory school where the monks introduced him to the sport of baseball—a game at which he excelled. At the age of 19, the

owner of the Baltimore Orioles, Jack Dunn, watched Ruth play for less than an hour and offered him a contract. Laws at the time necessitated that Dunn sign Ruth’s contract as his legal guardian, leading Ruth’s teammates to call him “Dunn’s new babe”—a nickname that would stick.Ruth was soon sold to the Boston Red Sox, where he earned a reputation as a pitcher who could hit. Though he set records from the mound—including pitching 13 scoreless innings in the 1916 title winning game—Ruth longed to play in every game. He was granted his request to be-come an outfielder and his abilities as a hitter quickly became apparent.In 1919, Ruth broke the MLB single-season home run record. The following season, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee controversially sold him to the Yankees, a franchise Babe would call home for fifteen seasons—and a move that would usher in a decades-long drought for the Red Sox, who would not win another World Series until 2004. During that time, Ruth led the Yankees to seven American League pennants and four World Series championships. His home run tallies set world records, bringing legions of fans into the ballpark and popularizing the sport like never before.

On May 25, 1935, Babe Ruth retired. He made a final appearance at Yankee Stadium in 1948, sick with cancer. Two months later, on August 16, 1948, he died, leaving the majority of his es-tate to the Babe Ruth Foundation for underprivileged children. His career total of 714 homeruns would stand as the world record until 1974. He is still considered by many to be the greatest player in Major League Baseball history.

NAACP History: W.E.B. DuboisWilliam Edward Burghardt Du Bois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, edu-cator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. He became a naturalized citizen of Ghana in 1963 at the age of 95.On Feb. 23, 1868, W. E. B. Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Mass., where he grew up. During his youth he did some newspaper reporting. In 1884 he graduated as valedictorian from high school. He got his bachelor of arts from Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., in 1888, having spent sum-mers teaching in African American schools in Nashville’s rural areas. In 1888 he entered Harvard University as a junior, took a bachelor of arts cum laude in 1890, and was one of six commencement speakers. From 1892 to

1894 he pursued graduate studies in history and economics at the Univer-sity of Berlin on a Slater Fund fellowship. He served for 2 years as professor of Greek and Latin at Wilberforce University in Ohio.

In 1891 Du Bois got his master of arts and in 1895 his doctorate in history from Harvard. His dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, was published as No. 1 in the Harvard Historical Series. This important work has yet to be surpassed. In 1896 he married Nina Gomer, and they had two children.In 1896-1897 Du Bois became assistant instructor in sociology at the Uni-versity of Pennsylvania. There he conducted the pioneering sociological study of an urban community, published as The Philadelphia Negro: A So-cial Study (1899). These first two works assured Du Bois’s place among America’s leading scholars.Du Bois’s life and work were an inseparable mixture of scholarship, protest activity, and polemics. All of his efforts were geared toward gaining equal treatment for black people in a world dominated by whites and toward mar-shaling and presenting evidence to refute the myths of racial inferiority.As Racial Activist

In 1905 Du Bois was a founder and general secretary of the Niagara move-ment, an African American protest group of scholars and professionals. Du Bois founded and edited the Moon (1906) and the Horizon (1907-1910) as organs for the Niagara movement. In 1909 Du Bois was among the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and from 1910 to 1934 served it as director of publicity and research, a member of the board of directors, and editor of the Crisis, its monthly mag-azine.In the Crisis, Du Bois directed a constant stream of agitation–often bitter and sarcastic–at white Americans while serving as a source of information and pride to African Americans. The magazine always published young African American writers. Racial protest during the decade following World War I focused on securing anti-lynching legislation. During this period the NAACP was the leading protest organization and Du Bois its leading figure.In 1934 Du Bois resigned from the NAACP board and from the Crisis be-cause of his new advocacy of an African American nationalist strategy: African American controlled institutions, schools, and economic coopera-tives. This approach opposed the NAACP’s commitment to integration. How-ever, he returned to the NAACP as director of special research from 1944 to 1948. During this period he was active in placing the grievances of African Americans before the United Nations, serving as a consultant to the UN founding convention (1945) and writing the famous “An Appeal to the World” (1947).

Du Bois was a member of the Socialist party from 1910 to 1912 and always considered himself a Socialist. In 1948 he was cochairman of the Council on

African Affairs; in 1949 he attended the New York, Paris, and Moscow peace congresses; in 1950 he served as chairman of the Peace Information Center and ran for the U.S. Senate on the American Labor party ticket in New York. In 1950-1951 Du Bois was tried and acquitted as an agent of a foreign power in one of the most ludicrous actions ever taken by the American gov-ernment. Du Bois traveled widely throughout Russia and China in 1958-1959 and in 1961 joined the Communist party of the United States. He also took up residence in Ghana, Africa, in 1961.Pan-AfricanismDu Bois was also active in behalf of pan-Africanism and concerned with the conditions of people of African descent wherever they lived. In 1900 he at-tended the First Pan-African Conference held in London, was elected a vice president, and wrote the “Address to the Nations of the World.” The Nia-gara movement included a “pan-African department.” In 1911 Du Bois at-tended the First Universal Races Congress in London along with black intel-lectuals from Africa and the West Indies.

Du Bois organized a series of pan-African congresses around the world, in 1919, 1921, 1923, and 1927. The delegations comprised intellectuals from Africa, the West Indies, and the United States. Though resolutions con-demning colonialism and calling for alleviation of the oppression of Africans were passed, little concrete action was taken. The Fifth Congress (1945, Manchester, England) elected Du Bois as chairman, but the power was clearly in the hands of younger activists, such as George Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah, who later became significant in the independence move-ments of their respective countries. Du Bois’s final pan-African gesture was to take up citizenship in Ghana in 1961 at the request of President Kwame Nkrumah and to begin work as director of the Encyclopedia Africana.As a ScholarDu Bois’s most lasting contribution is his writing. As poet, playwright, nov-elist, essayist, sociologist, historian, and journalist, he wrote 21 books, edited 15 more, and published over 100 essays and articles. Only a few of his most significant works will be mentioned here.From 1897 to 1910 Du Bois served as professor of economics and history at Atlanta University, where he organized conferences titled the Atlanta Uni-versity Studies of the Negro Problem and edited or co-edited 16 of the an-nual publications, on such topics as The Negro in Business (1899), The Ne-gro Artisan (1902), The Negro Church (1903), Economic Cooperation among Negro Americans (1907), and The Negro American Family (1908). Other significant publications were The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (1903), one of the outstanding collections of essays in American letters, and John Brown (1909), a sympathetic portrayal published in the American Crisis Biographies series.Du Bois also wrote two novels, The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911) and Dark Princess: A Romance (1928); a book of essays and poetry, Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (1920); and two histories of black people, The

Negro (1915) and The Gift of Black Folk: Negroes in the Making of America (1924).

From 1934 to 1944 Du Bois was chairman of the department of sociology at Atlanta University. In 1940 he founded Phylon, a social science quarterly. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (1935), perhaps his most sig-nificant historical work, details the role of African Americans in American society, specifically during the Reconstruction period. The book was criti-cized for its use of Marxist concepts and for its attacks on the racist charac-ter of much of American historiography. However, it remains the best single source on its subject.Black Folk, Then and Now (1939) is an elaboration of the history of black people in Africa and the New World. Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace (1945) is a brief call for the granting of independence to Africans, and The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History (1947; enlarged ed. 1965) is a major work anticipating many later scholarly conclusions regarding the significance and complexity of African history and culture. A trilogy of novels, collectively entitled The Black Flame (1957, 1959, 1961), and a selection of his writings, An ABC of Color (1963), are also worthy.Du Bois received many honorary degrees, was a fellow and life member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He was the outstanding African American intellectual of his period in America.Du Bois died in Ghana on Aug. 27, 1963, on the eve of the civil rights march in Washington, D.C. He was given a state funeral, at which Kwame Nkrumah remarked that he was “a phenomenon.”

ALICE PAUL

Although both Carrie Chapman Catt, NAWSA president, and Alice Paul shared the goal of uni-versal suffrage, their political strategies could not have been more different or incompatible. Where NAWSA concentrated a majority of its effort upon state campaigns, Paul wanted to focus all energy and funding upon a national amendment.  While NAWSA endorsed President Wilson and looked to members of the Democratic Party as allies, Alice Paul wanted to hold Wilson and his party responsible for women’s continued disenfranchisement (a tactic of British Suf-fragettes). In 1914, after initially forming a semi-autonomous group called the Congressional Union, Paul and her followers severed all ties to NAWSA and, in 1916, formed the National Woman’s Party (NWP). The NWP organized “Silent Sentinels” to stand outside the White House holding banners inscribed with incendiary phrases directed toward President Wilson.  The presi-dent initially treated the picketers with bemused condescension, tipping his hat to them as he passed by; however, his attitude changed when the United States entered World War I in 1917. Few believed that suffragists would dare picket a wartime president, let alone use the war in their written censures, calling him “Kaiser Wilson.”  Many saw the suffragists’ wartime protests as unpatriotic, and the sentinels, including Alice Paul, were attacked by angry mobs. The pick-eters began to be arrested on the trumped up charge of “obstructing traffic,” and were jailed when they refused to pay the imposed fine. Despite the danger of bodily harm and imprison-ment, the suffragists continued their demonstrations for freedom unabated.The arrested suffragists were sent to Occoquan Workhouse, a prison in Virginia. Paul and her compatriots followed the English suffragette model and demanded to be treated as political pris-oners and staged hunger strikes. Their demands were met with brutality as suffragists, including frail, older women, were beaten, pushed and thrown into cold,  unsanitary, and rat-infested cells.  Arrests continued and conditions at the prison deteriorated.  For staging hunger strikes, Paul and several other suffragists were forcibly fed in a tortuous method.  Prison officials re-moved Paul to a sanitarium in hopes of getting her declared insane.  When news of the prison conditions and hunger strikes became known, the press, some politicians, and the public began demanding the women’s release; sympathy for the prisoners brought many to support the cause of women’s suffrage.  Upon her release from prison, Paul hoped to ride this surge of goodwill into victory.While many suffragists left public life and activism after the 19th Amendment was enacted, Alice Paul believed the true battle for equality had yet to be won. In 1923, on the seventy-fifth anniver-sary of the Seneca Falls Convention, Paul announced that she would be working for a new con-stitutional amendment, one she authored and called the “Lucretia Mott Amendment.” This amendment called for absolute equality stating, “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.” The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was introduced in every session of Congress from 1923 until it passed in 1972. During the 1940s, both the Republicans and Democrats added the ERA to their party plat-forms. In 1943, the ERA was rewritten and dubbed the “Alice Paul Amendment.” The new amendment read, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

The Eugenic Value of Birth Control PropagandaMargaret Sanger, "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda," Oct 1921.Published Article. Source: , Oct. 1921, p. 5 , Margaret Sanger Microfilm S70:913 .For a draft version of this article, see Library of Congress Microfilm 129:164. For related documents, see "," Sept. 1921 and Chapter VIII of "The Pivot of Civilization," 1922. An editorial introduction mentions the timeli-ness of this article in light of the recently held Second International Con-gress on Eugenics. Sanger submitted this paper to the Congress, but was rejected.

By Margaret SangerSeemingly every new approach to the great problem of the human race must manifest its vitality by running the gauntlet of prejudice, ridicule and misinterpretation. Eugenists may remember that not many years ago this program for race regeneration was subjected to the cruel ridicule of stupid-ity and ignorance. Today Eugenics is suggested by the most diverse minds as the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems. The most intransigent and daring teachers and scien-tists have lent their support to this great biological interpretation of the hu-man race. The war has emphasized its necessity.The doctrine of Birth Control is now passing through the stage of ridicule, prejudice and misunderstanding. A few years ago this new weapon of civi-lization and freedom was condemned as immoral, destructive, obscene. Gradually the criticisms are lessening-–understanding is taking the place of misunderstanding. The eugenic and civilizational value of Birth Control is becoming apparent to the enlightened and the intelligent.In the limited space of the present paper, I have time only to touch upon some of the fundamental convictions that form the basis of our Birth Control propaganda, and which, as I think you must agree, indicate that the cam-paign for Birth Control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical in ideal, with the final aims of Eugenics.First: we are convinced that racial regeneration like individual regenera-tion, must come "from within." That is, it must be autonomous, self-direc-tive, and not imposed from without. In other words, every potential parent, and especially every potential mother, must be brought to an acute realiza-tion of the primary and central importance of bringing children into this world.Secondly: Not until the parents of the world are thus given control over their reproductive faculties will it ever be possible not alone to improve the quality of the generations of the future, but even to maintain civilization even at its present level. Only by self-control of this type, only by intelligent mastery of the procreative powers can the great mass of humanity be awak-ened to the great responsibility of parenthood.

Thirdly: we have come to the conclusion, based on widespread investigation and experience, that this education for parenthood and of parenthood must be based upon the needs and demands of the people themselves. An idealis-tic code of sexual ethics, imposed from above, a set of rules devised by high-minded theorists who fail to take into account the living conditions and de-sires of the submerged masses, can never be of the slightest value in effect-ing any changes in the mores of the people. Such systems have in the past revealed their woeful inability to prevent the sexual and racial chaos into which the world has today drifted.The almost universal demand for practical education in Birth Control is one of the most hopeful signs that the masses themselves today possess the di-vine spark of regeneration. It remains for the courageous and the enlight-ened to answer this demand, to kindle the spark, to direct a thorough edu-cation in Eugenics based upon this intense interest.Birth Control propaganda is thus the entering wedge for the Eugenic educa-tor. In answering the needs of these thousands upon thousands of sub-merged mothers, it is possible to use this interest as the foundation for edu-cation in prophylaxis, sexual hygiene, and infant welfare. The potential mother is to be shown that maternity need not be slavery but the most effec-tive avenue toward self-development and self-realization. Upon this basis only may we improve the quality of the race.As an advocate of Birth Control, I wish to take advantage of the present op-portunity to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the "un-fit" and the "fit", admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fer-tility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation to the mentally and physically fit though less fertile parents of the educated and well-to-do classes. On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.Birth Control is not advanced as a panacea by which past and present evils of dysgenic breeding can be magically eliminated. Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupidly cruel sentimentalism.But to prevent the repetition, to effect the salvation of the generations of the future–nay of the generations of today–our greatest need is first of all the ability to face the situation without flinching, and to cooperate in the formation of a code of sexual ethics based upon a thorough biological and psychological understanding of human nature; and then to answer the ques-tions and the needs of the people with all the intelligence and honesty at our command. If we can summon the bravery to do this, we shall best be serving the true interests of Eugenics, because our work will then have a practical and pragmatic value.

Emily PostEmily Post was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 3, 1872, and educated by governesses and at private schools in Baltimore and New York. She spent her summers at Bar Harbor, Maine, and Tuxedo Park, New York, which her father Bruce Price, a prominent architect, had been com-missioned to design and develop.

The season of her debut Emily Price met Edwin Post, her husband-to-be, at a ball in one of Fifth Avenue’s elegant mansions. Following a fashionable wedding and a honeymoon tour of the Con-tinent, Mrs. Post’s first home was in New York’s Washington Square. When her two sons were old enough to attend boarding school, she turned her attention to writing. Her romantic stories of European and American society were serialized in several popular magazines, and many were successfully published in book form. She became a “traveling correspondent,” crossing the United States by car and touring Europe on the eve of World War I. Her stories were published in Vanity Fair, Collier’s and McCall’s.

Upon publication in 1922 her book, “Etiquette: In Society, In Business, In Politics and At Home,” topped the nonfiction bestseller list, and the phrase “according to Emily Post” soon en-tered our language as the final word on the subject of social conduct. Mrs. Post, who as a girl had been told that well-bred women cannot work, was suddenly a celebrity and an outstanding Amer-ican career woman, a position she maintained throughout her lifetime. Her numerous books, a syndicated newspaper column, and a regular network radio program made Emily Post a figure of national stature and importance.Emily Post’s successor, Elizabeth Post, completed her first revision of the basic etiquette book in 1965 and until 1995 updated four major editions, in addition to other books on the subject of eti-quette.