At a time when women wrote "elegant" poetry, Johnson boldly addressed women's rights and racial violence in America.
ABOUT THE FILM//
Discover the groundbreaking life of Georgia Douglas Johnson, a pioneering poet, playwright, composer, and activist who used her platform to fight for women's rights and social justice. This film chronicles her pivotal role in Black cultural, political, and theatrical history during the New Negro and Black Drama movements through her multi-genre works and her S Street Salon—a weekly gathering that provided a nurturing haven for the emerging voices of the Harlem Renaissance to workshop their literary art. As the only woman of the Harlem Renaissance era to publish a poetry collection, write 28 plays, and become one of the most widely published Black female writers of her time, this biographical documentary deepens her enduring impact and legacy.
Length: 60 minutes
A trailblazer in every sense of the word...
GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON: A FEARLESS POET//
Georgia D. Johnson (1877–1966) spoke out against race inequity, serving as a key advocate in the anti-lynching movement and a pioneering member of the lynching drama tradition publishing in The Voice of the Negro, The Crisis, and Alain Locke’s anthology, Plays of Negro Life: A Source-Book of Native American Drama.
Saturday Night at Johnson's S Street Salon//
Commencing in the 1920s, Georgia Douglas Johnson invited writers to her DC home on Saturday evenings to encourage the development of a cohesive and supportive community of Black writers. With a particular emphasis on the writing of Black women, the S Street Salon evolved into a viable space for African American women writers to workshop their poems, plays, short stories, and novels. Many of the New Negro era literary works produced by African American women participants of the S Street Salon tackled politically significant and contentious issues such as racial and sexual violence, and women’s reproductive rights. Prominent Black literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance: Zora Neale Hurston, May Miller, Mary Burrill, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Alice Dunbar Nelson, Langton Hughes, Marita Bonner, Alice Alaine Locke, W.E.B. DuBois, Jean Toomer, and others, frequented Johnson's salon and contributed to the vibrant intellectual discourse of the time. The S Street Salon was arguably one of the most significant intellectual, political, and cultural communities of the Harlem Renaissance.
The site of Johnson's S Street Salon at 1461 S Street, NW in Washington, DC.