(PP. 74-80) Literature IV: "Salutamus" by Sterling A. Brown → "Shall I say..." by Georgia Douglas Johnson (ACADEC '25-'26)

Who had a towering reputation among scholars of the period?

Sterling A. Brown

What was Sterling A. Brown’s lifespan?

1901-89

Who is relatively underread when compared to some of his contemporaries?

Sterling A. Brown

Why is Sterling A. Brown relatively underread when compared to some of his contemporaries?

He actively distanced himself from the era’s most famous collective of Black artists and writers, the Harlem Renaissance

What authors did Sterling A. Brown frequently associate with?

Langston Hughes and Claude McKay

What did Langston Hughes and Claude McKay often do with Sterling A. Brown, as frequently as they associated with them?

They clashed with him

How did Sterling A. Brown ultimately view the Harlem Renaissance?

A movement focused mainly on appeasing white audiences and benefactors, rather than Black audiences

What was Sterling A. Brown anthologized in?

Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets and Southern Road

Who edited Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets?

Countee Cullen

What was Sterling A. Brown’s first collection?

Southern Road

When was Southern Road released?

1932

How was Southern Road received?

It was positively received

What did Sterling A. Brown struggle to find?

A publisher for his second collection of poems, No Hiding Place, and wouldn’t publish another full collection of poems till 1975

What was Sterling A. Brown’s second collection of poems?

No Hiding Place

Who remained as one of the pivotal figures of the New Negro Movement?

Sterling A. Brown

What was the New Negro Movement?

An early-20th century group of artists and activists who formed “the first politically self-conscious attempt on the part of African Americans to define themselves as postslavery, postagrarian people”

What did Sterling A. Brown’s writing include?

Poetry, literary analysis, political theory, and social commentary

What did Sterling A. Brown’s writing help define?

A new approach to Black artistic production and criticism

When was Sterling A. Brown photographed?

October 1944

Where was the October 1944 picture of Sterling A. Brown sourced?

Scurlock Studio, Smithsonian Online Virtual Archive

What was the history of Sterling A. Brown’s father?

He was born into slavery but eventually became a professor at Howard University

What was the U.S.’s preeminent HBCU?

Howard University

What does HBCU stand for?

Historically Black College and University

When was Sterling A. Brown born?

1901

Where was Sterling A. Brown born?

Washington, D.C.

How would Sterling A. Brown follow in his father’s footsteps?

He accepted a teaching position at Howard after receiving degrees from Williams College and Harvard University

How many years did Sterling A. Brown teach at Howard University?

40 years

What did Sterling A. Brown teach at Howard University?

Literature, writing, and the history of Black culture in the United States

What did Sterling A. Brown write, in addition to poetry?

Essays and literary criticism, including the widely influential “Negro Character as Seen by White Authors”

When was “Negro Character as Seen by White Authors” created?

1933

What is “Negro Character as Seen by White Authors” a rejection of?

Racist and stereotypical portrayals of Black Americans by many popular white writers, portrayals that were often used “as justification for racial proscription”

What is “Negro Character as Seen by White Authors” also, beyond being a thorough taxonomy of stereotypes?

An expression of Brown’s lifelong interest in the complexity of Black identity, especially the ways that it resists easy categorization

What does Sterling A. Brown repeatedly emphasize across his writing?

Identity could never simply be one thing, nor could literature, for all its power, ever fully express the truth of an individual or entire population

How did Brown emphasize that identity could never fully fully express the truth of an individual or entire population?

“But if one wishes to learn of the Negro, it would be best to study the Negro himself; a study that might result in the discovery that the Negro is more difficult to find than the countless human beings called Negroes…the story of modern Negro life will never be found in one volume, or in a thousand”

What did Sterling A. Brown’s poetry often focus on?

Local dialects, particularly the language and customs of rural African Americans

What did Sterling A. Brown’s poetry frequently focus on finding?

Ways to connect the struggles of Black Americans in the early 20th century to other struggles across the world for justice and liberation

What does “Salutamus” say about Sterling A. Brown?

He was highly educated and deeply versed in English literary traditions

What would Sterling A. Brown combine his interests in canonical literature with?

His appreciation for folk wisdom as a way of disrupting reductive hierarchies about “high” and “low” culture, as well as supposedly “inherent” racial qualities

What does Sterling A. Brown, unlike some of his contemporaries, did not fully believe?

That the key to recognition for Black Americans lay in some mythical past or some special “spirit” of the race, nor did he believe that Black culture needed to “evolve” or “develop” in order to meet some predetermined benchmark

What did Sterling A. Brown believe about social progress?

That it lay, in part, in a recognition of the complex nature of identity, as something that was always simply inherited or received

What did Mark A. Sanders say about Sterling A. Brown’s poetics?

They “hold up both past and future as ultimately malleable resources”

What simple ideas did Sterling A. Brown not believe in?

Easy answers nor utopias

What simple idea did Sterling A. Brown believe in?

The power of writing to challenge orthodoxies and prompt radical social and personal shifts

When was “Salutamus” released?

1927

Who created “Salutamus”?

Sterling A. Brown

What is the epigraph of “Salutamus”?

“O Gentlemen the time of Life is short—Henry IV”

In “Salutamus,” what did the people know about days?

The bitterness of days like these we know

In “Salutamus,” what an the people not understand?

“What was our crime that such a searing brand /

Not of our choosing, keeps us hated so”

In “Salutamus,” what only grows?

Despair and disappointment — “Whatever seeds are planted from our hand, /

What though some roads wing through a gladsome land?”

In “Salutamus,” what kind of path must we go?

A gloomy path

In “Salutamus,” what will we know relief will come for?

“Those seared breasts”

In “Salutamus,” what will the lads as brave again do?

Plant and find a fairer crop than ours

In “Salutamus,” what are our beacons to blaze out the way?

“Our hearts, our minds, our powers”

What is the last line of “Salutamus”?

We must plunge onward; onward. gentlemen….”

What are intertextual references?

Moments where the writing explicitly references other works of art

What are Brown’s essays often filled with references from?

Novels, poems, and writings from across genres and time periods

What do Brown’s poems frequently make similar use of?

References to famous as well as more obscure pieces of literature

What does the title “Salutamus” refer to?

A famous Latin phrase, “morituri te salutamus”

What does “morituri te salutamus” mean?

“We who are about to die salute you”

Where was the phrase “morituri te salutamus” supposedly used?

Gladiators used to address the Roman Emperor as they entered the arena for combat

In “Salutamus,” what is an example of paratext, specifically an epigraph?

A quotation from Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part 1

What is paratext?

Any part of a written work that is technically “outside” the main text of the work, including the piece’s title, editorial and publication information, and epigraphs, or introductory quotations that are designed to preemptively orient the reader toward important themes or ideas”

When was Henry IV, Part 1 released?

1597

Who speaks the epigraph in “Salutamus”?

Hotspur, who is speaking to his soldiers before they attempt to overthrow the corrupt King Henry IV at the Battle of Shrewbury

What does Hotspur’s full speech in Henry IV, Part 1 refer to?

The importance of recognizing the fleeting nature of life, as well as the importance of acting firmly in the pursuit of justice, even if it means death

What is the rest of Hotspur’s speech in Henry IV, Part 1?

“And if we live, we live to tread on kings;

If die, brave death, when princes die with us!

Now for our consciences, the arms are fair,

When the intent of bearing them is just”

In “Salutamus,” what does the poem’s title and its epigraph help readers understand?

The piece’s thematic core

In “Salutamus,” what does the poem’s paratextual information orient readers to?

Brown’s interest in using his poem to explore the moral value of being able to both look death in the eye and not blink and to choose an honorable death in pursuit of a just cause

In “Salutamus,” what is the just cause Brown is in pursuit of?

Racial justice; more precisely, the pursuit of racial justice despite the awareness that the fruits of the struggle will likely not be experienced by those currently struggling

What was Sterling A. Brown throughout his life?

A vocal activist

What injustices did Brown write about?

The injustices caused by white supremacy, and he helped to organize the New Negro Movement’s political programming during the 1920s as well as programming at Howard and other universities in later decades

What was Sterling A. Brown, along with a vocal activist?

A realist

In “Salutamus,” how does the poem reflect Brown’s realism?

He recognizes that the task of overcoming the violence and exclusion caused by an artificially imposed “searing brand” will likely take years, even generations; this doesn’t make the cause unworthy or hopeless

In “Salutamus,” what does the poem require the current generation to do?

View their actions as providing an example for future generations: “And yet we know relief will come some day/For those seared breasts; and lads as brave again/Will plant and find a fairer crop than ours”

In “Salutamus,” what is likely only to be felt by “lads as brave again” who will “plant and find a fairer crop than ours”?

The labor of striving toward justice necessitates not only hard work, but also the willingness to recognize that the culmination of political activism

In “Salutamus,” how is Brown like Hotspur to his soldiers?

He urges his readers to recognize that a morally worthy life is not necessarily one that achieves something immediately; it can be just as morally worthy to provide a meaningful foundation for others

In “Salutamus,” what lines is the word “must” in?

The 8th, 12th, and final lines of the poem

In “Salutamus,” why do the 8th, 12th, and last lines use “must”?

To emphasize that this path, while “gloomy,” is not one that can be abandoned

In “Salutamus,” what does the poem ask readers to recognize?

That anyone committed to creating a better world, whether through social activism, artistic creation, or simply struggling against injustice, must work toward a better world despite—or even because of—the fact that they will never see that world come to fruition

In “Salutamus,” what can bravery and strength in the present moment serve as?

“Beacons to blaze out the way” for future generations

What was Georgia Douglas Johnson’s lifespan?

1880-1966

What was Georgia Douglas Johnson’s professions?

Widely published poet, playwright, journalist, essayist, musician, and admired hostess

Who gathered some of the most important names in Black literature of the early 20th century into her home?

Georgia Douglas Johnson

Who did Georgia Douglas Johnson gather into her home?

Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Countee Cullen

What was Georgia Douglas Johnson, in addition to her many artistic pursuits?

A trained musician and educator who worked as an assistant principal in Atlanta and eventually served in the Department of Labor as a commissioner of concilation

What was Georgia Douglas Johnson rarely content doing?

Working in one style or subject

What did W.E.B. Du Bois note about Georgia Douglas Johnson in a letter recommending her for a fellowship?

She was not a “systematic worker,” but she was “liable at any time or anywhere to turn out some little thing of unusual value and beauty”

Who is not nearly as widely read as some of her contemporaries, and her plays receive more scholarly attention than her poetry?

Georgia Douglas Johnson

What does Georgia Douglas Johnson’s poetry offer a window into?

Black women’s experiences in the 1920s, a perspective not always emphasized in the more widely anthologized works by the most famous writers of the Harlem Renaissance

What was Georgia Douglas Johnson’s first collection?

The Heart of a Woman, and Other Poems

When did The Heart of a Woman, and Other Poems release?

1918

What did Georgia Douglas Johnson’s short, frequently melancholic early poems explore feelings of/

Despair, loss, and occassional joy

What did women’s limited social roles often mean for Georgia Douglas Johnson?

That they experienced more of the former than the latter

What were women frequently denied in the 1920s?

Active roles in politics and social life

What did women do because they were denied active roles in politics and social life?

Turn their creative energies inward, both into themselves and into their homes

Who created the poem Elevation?

Georgia Douglas Johnson

How does the poem Elevation depict women turning their creative energies inward?

On their “highways in the soul” they could experience the thrills of “Heights like pyramids that rise/Far beyond earth-veiled eyes”

Who was on the cover of the March 1919 edition of The Crisis?

Georgia Douglas Johnson

When was Georgia Douglas Johnson on the cover of The Crisis?

March 1919

What was the official publication of the NAACP?

The Crisis