About Our Authors

Dr. J. Vern Cromartie

 Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois

Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois was a man of Black African descent with roots in the United States of America (USA), Haiti, and Ghana. He was born William Edward Burghardt Du Bois on February 23, 1968 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.  Dr. Du Bois was the son of Alfred Du Bois (a Black man) and Mary Silvina Burghardt Du Bois (a Black woman). At the time of his death on August 27, 1963, Dr. Du Bois was living in his beloved Ghana as a naturalized citizen and serving as the director the Encyclopedia Africana Project. As an advocate of Black nationalism and Pan Africanism, Dr. Du Bois moved to Ghana in 1960 to use his leadership and skills in that country.

            Dr. Du Bois received his primary and secondary school education in Great Barrington. Following his graduation from Great Barrington High School in 1880, he headed to Fisk University.  Dr. Du Bois received a B.A. degree from Fisk University and then went to Harvard University.  At Harvard University, Dr. Du Bois received a B.A. degree in history, a M.A. degree in political science, and a Ph.D. in history. Dr. Du Bois also attended the University of Berlin for a short stint.  During his graduate student days at Harvard University, Dr. Du Bois conducted a study on the suppression of the slave trade. Among the topics he covered was the Middle Passage. While attending Harvard University, Du Bois began to present papers at conferences and publish his research.

            Prior to his graduation with his doctoral degree at Harvard University, Dr. Du Bois became a professor of classics at Wilberforce University in 1894. Although he loved Wilberforce and the social relationships established by him there, Du Bois was unsuccessful in his attempt to allow sociology to be added to the curriculum and instruction at Wilberforce University.  Nevertheless, Dr. Du Bois managed to complete his Harvard University dissertation while employed at Wilberforce University. The title of his dissertation was The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870. Dr. Du Bois had the honor of his dissertation being published as volume one in the Harvard Historical Studies series.    

            Dr. Du Bois left Wilberforce in 1896 to take a position as a short-term researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.  He conducted his research on Black people and social conditions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That research led to The Philadelphia Negro, a study classic in sociology. Dr. Du Bois spent one year and a half conducting his research in Philadelphia. For his research, Dr. Du Bois used a mixed-methods approach involving the survey method, participant observation, unobtrusive measures, and secondary data analysis. His research techniques included in-depth interviews, participant observation, secondary data analysis, and content analysis of primary and secondary source documents. The research conducted by Dr. Du Bois was groundbreaking.

            Prior to the completion of his Philadelphia study, Dr. Du Bois received an offer to be a professor at Atlanta University, which he readily accepted. Although his professorship was in history and economics, Dr. Du Bois was permitted to teach sociology and even develop what he called the Sociology Laboratory. Dr. Du Bois also assumed leadership of the Atlanta University Studies of the Negro Problems and the publishing of its annual proceedings. He proceeded to become an important example of the scholar-activist during his first stint at Atlanta University.

            While employed at Atlanta University, Dr. Du Bois got deeply involved as a political activist. Dr. Du Bois was a major participant at the First Pan-African Conference. He was also a founder of the Niagara Movement and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Prior to his arrival at Atlanta University, he was involved with the National Afro-American Council as well as the American Negro Academy. After his departure from Atlanta University, Dr. Du Bois remained a scholar-activist.   

            Dr. Du Bois left Atlanta University in 1910 to become the director of research and publications for the NAACP. While serving in that capacity, Dr. Du Bois founded and served as the editor of The Crisis as the official organ of the NAACP.  He also founded and served as the editor of The Brownies’ Book. Although the NAACP was committed to fight against lynching and to fight for Black equality in the form of structural integration, Dr. Du Bois remained committed to Black nationalism and Pan Africanism. On a national level, Dr. Du Bois believed that Black people had the right to pursue structural integration as well as develop and maintain Black-controlled institutions.  In terms of the international level, Dr. Du Bois believed that it was imperative for Black leaders from the Diaspora and Africa to come together and examine their common concerns and develop a set of resolutions aimed at addressing social problems, including colonialism and imperialism. Towards those ends, Dr. Du Bois launched his first Pan-African Congress in 1919. He proceeded to play a leading role as an organizer in four more Pan-African Congresses held in 1923, 1927, and 1945.  

            After his departure from the NAACP in 1934, Dr. Du Bois returned to Atlanta University as a professor of sociology and chairman of the Sociology Department. Dr. Du Bois founded and served as the editor of Phylon as a scholarly journal. He remained at Atlanta University until 1944.  Dr. Du Bois returned to the NAACP but left in 1948 after experiencing a personality clash with Walter White, the executive director of the organization.  Upon his departure from the NAACP, Dr. Du Bois joined the Council on African Affairs and became one of its leaders along with Paul Robeson and W. Alphaeus Hunton, Jr.  Dr. Du Bois also became active with the Peace Information Council. In addition, Dr. Robeson was engaged in action to take the plight of Black people before the United Nations as a plebiscite. 

By 1951, Dr. Du Bois became a target of reactionary forces in the Federal government of the USA because of his political activities.  Although many former friends turned their back on him because of the persecution, Dr. Du Bois continued to wage struggle against the exploitation and oppression faced by Black in the USA and throughout the world.  Dr. Du Bois and his second wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, moved to Ghana in 1961 at the invitation of Kwame Nkrumah to take over the Encyclopedia Africana Project.  By the time he died in 1963, Dr. Du Bois had amassed amazing legacy reflected by his many books, essays, poems, plays, etc.  Such books included The Philadelphia Negro, The Souls of Black Folk, Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, Black Reconstruction, and the Atlanta University Publications.    

In honor of his essay writings, Geechee Press has published a compilation of the original essays Dr. Du Bois used to write The Souls of Black Folk. Geechee Press has also published a compilation of the poetry by Dr. Du Bois that appeared in various periodicals and a book during the second Nadir. Both books have been edited by Dr. J. Vern Cromartie who considers Dr. Du Bois the ultimate Jegna.  Dr. Cromartie has taken the position that Dr. Du Bois was the greatest Black scholar-activist of the 19th and 20th centuries.                

 Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes is a man of Black African descent. He was born James Mercer Langston Hughes  February 1, 1901 in Joplin, Missouri. His parents are James Nathaniel Hughes and Caroline “Carrie” Hughes (whose maiden name is and Caroline “Carrie” Hughes). Langston Hughes grew up in Lawrence, Kansas; Lincoln, Illinois; and Cleveland, Ohio.  In the latter city, Langston Hughes attended Central High School. At that institution, one of his teachers was Helen Maria Chestnutt, a daughter of the renown Black writer Charles Chestnutt.  During his grade school years, Langston Hughes got involved with literary activities. He was elected as the class poet in elementary school and became a writer for his high school’s newspaper. That organ published some of his poetry and short stories.

Following his graduation, Langston Hughes attended Columbia University as an engineering student. However, he had little interest in that field and dropped out after one year. Langston Hughes headed to Mexico where his father lived and stayed there for a year. While in Mexico, Langston Hughes wrote poetry, plays, short stories and essays. He submitted some of them to The Brownies’ Book and the The Crisis, both edited by W.E.B. Du Bois. During April 1921, Langston Hughes published several poems in The Brownies’ Book. Some two months later, Langston Hughes published a poem in The Crisis. That poem was “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” Although “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” was not the first poem he published in a national periodical, it proceeded to become of the most famous poems written by Langston Hughes.  

As the Harlem Renaissance Movement unfolded in the 1920s, Langston Hughes became a major voice in Black arts and letters. He made his mark his poetry, plays, short stories, and books. During that period of his life, Langston Hughes struck up a lifetime friendship with Arna Bontemps. In addition to their love of poetry, both men deeply appreciated Black folklore and jazz music. Prior to his graduation from high school, Langston Hughes had already been influenced by Black folklore and jazz music in his poetry. On the one hand, after he reached adulthood, Langston Hughes teamed at times with Arna Bontemps, Zora Neale Hurston, and others to explore and celebrate various aspects of Black culture in the United States of America (USA) and the Diaspora. On the other hand, after he reached adulthood, Langston Hughes was also interested in the larger human experience and wandered to various parts of the world to observe other cultures. In addition to his trips to Africa, Langston Hughes went to the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

During the 1930s, Langston Hughes became radicalized by the social conditions he saw in the USA. His writings in that period reflected an interest in radical causes, including a call to redistribute to address inequality and social injustice. Likewise, Hughes made a call for lynching to end and those who perpetuated it to be fully punished. By the latter part of the 1940s and after World War II, the USA became increasingly reactionary and controlled by people with fascist inclination. Langston Hughes, like W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson found himself scorned by reactionary people who wanted to make his life as miserable as possible.

In the 1950s, Langston Hughes was forced to testify before the House of Un-American Activities (HUAC). The pressure placed on his publishers by reactionary forces led him to omit W.E.B. Du Bois from his book Famous American Negroes.in 1954. That pressure also led him to omit Paul Robeson from his book Famous Negro Music Makers. That situation wreaked havoc on the social relationship between Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois. The latter felt compelled to criticize the former capitulating to the reactionaries. 

After the reactionaries like Joseph McCarthy faded from the scene, Langston Hughes managed to re-emerge as a progressive voice speaking truth to power. One of his last books his death in 1967 was a book of poetry titled The Panther and the Lash.  Langston Hughes seems to have used the Panther as a metaphor for the progressive forces. In contrast, he seems to have used the lash as a metaphor for the reactionaries. Thus, in the end, Langston Hughes returned to the progressive ways of his youth as Black people in the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement drew inspiration and strength from his words. For example, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted a poem by Langston Hughes titled “Mother to Child” just 12 days before he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Similarly, people in the Black Power Movement were quoting “Dream Variation.”    Dr. J. Vern Cromartie has taken the position that Langston Hughes was the greatest Black poet of the 20th century and a fountainhead of the Jazzoetry Poetry Movement.  

 Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Under construction.

 Richard Robert Wright, Sr.

Under construction.

 Darrell Gauff

Darrell Gauff is a man of Black African descent. He was born Darrell Wayne Gauff on February 23, 1949 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His parents are Leon Alex Gauff, Jr. and Lottie Lee Gauff (whose maiden name is Lottie Lee Stone-Hill). Darrell Gauff was educated in the segregated public system and attended both McKinley High School and Capitol High School. However, he did not graduate from either after he was expelled for his nonconformist attitude and political activities on campus.

Following his migration to the Northern California Bay Area during the fall of 1967, Darrell Gauff lived in San Francisco before moving to Oakland and back to San Francisco. Shortly after his arrival in California, Darrell Gauff earned a GED and afterwards attended the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied photography. One of the photography jobs he was hired to do in the early 1970s was to document a play by Marvin X, one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement. Another job he took was to photograph the first African Liberation Day activities in San Francisco during 1972. In that period of his life, Darrell Gauff also became involved with the Marxist-Leninist Organization of the USA. He handled correspondence with other organizations and taught classes in political theory.

Darrell Gauff worked in accounting for much of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. He later became a house painter. In addition to his political activities, Darrell Gauff got involved with the Bay Area poetry scene during the late 1970s. In 1980, Darrell Gauff became a member of the Rafiki Poetry Collective along with M’Wile Yaw Askari, J. Vern Cromartie, CVGSheba Makeda (aka Sheba Haven and CVGSheba Makeda), and Akilah Nayo (aka Akilah Oliver and Donna Oliver). The Rafiki Poetry Collective did joint poetry readings on the radio and at cultural venues. It became inactive during the mid-1980s.

In 1984, Darrell Gauff joined the editorial staff of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. He remained a member of the editorial staff until 1987. Around the same time, Darrell Gauff became involved with a performance poetry group named Red Front. Other members included Diana Saenz and David Frankel. The poetry of Darrell Gauff has been published in Poetry Illustrated and the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal.  His poetry has also been published in the following anthologies: Ascension 1 (edited by Deborah “Devorah” Major and designed by Mona Lisa Saloy); Ascension 2 (edited by Deborah “Devorah” Major); Left-Curve (edited Csaba Polony); Compages (edited by Jack Hirschman); Would You Wear My Eyes? (edited by Jack Hirschman); and This Far Together: Haight Ashbury Literary Journal Anthology 1980-1995 (edited by Joanne Hotchkiss, Alice Rogoff, and Will Walker). Whereas Deborah “Devorah” Major and Jack Hirschman have both served as the poet laureate of San Francisco, Mona Lisa Saloy has served as the poet laureate of the State of Louisiana. At one point, Darrell Gauff and Mona Lisa Saloy served as co-editors of the Praisesinger, the official of journal of the San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society. Thus, as a poet, Darrell Gauff has stood in tall cotton, as the saying goes.