This volume-one of six DLB volumes discussing African-American writers-represents a peak period in African-American literary activity sometimes called the Harlem Renaissance or New Negro era, and lasting from about 1915 to the early 30s. During this time, African-American artists and writers from cities all around the U.S. flocked to Harlem and began a decade of striving to change popular perceptions of their people. As Trudier Harris describes the writers of this period in the volumes foreword: They sought...to change racist attitudes but to preserve African heritage, to diminish isolation between races but to nurture distinctive racial characteristics.

34 entries include: Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Georgia Douglas Johnson, ClaudeMcKay, George Samuel Schuyler, Jean Toomer and Walter Francis White.