hhhhhWallace Thurman was a leader and supporter of
young writers during the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Salt Lake City in 1902, he studied at the University of Utah
and the University of Southern Califiornia, though he did not receive a degree. Thurman moved to Harlem in 1925.
He was briefly the editor of The Messenger in 1926, during which time he used and promoted the work of Langston
Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. A writer himself, Thurman's first novel was The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of
Negro Life, in which he dealt with the issues of color prejudice within the black community. In 1929 his play
Harlem, written with William Rapp, came out to mixed reviews.
hhhhhhThurman's apartment, in a rooming house at 237 W. 136th Street, became a place for the inner circle of the literary figures of the time to meet and socialize. Thurman and Zora Neale Hurston mockingly referred to it as "Niggerati Manor," because of the group's status as literati.
hhhhhhIn association with Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Bennett, Aaron Douglas, Richard Bruce, and John Davis, in 1926 Thurman edited the first edition of Fire!!, a radical black literary magazine by and devoted to the writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance. The editors wanted a quality product, but Thurman was the the chief financer of the project and the magazine went bankrupt in a single issue. The public reaction to Fire!! was also mixed. It deeply offended many middle class blacks because of its representation of blacks in a sometimes less than favorable light. The literary critic of the Baltimore AfroAmerican simply noted that he had "tossed the first issue of Fire!! into the fire." Ironically, the all of the unsold issues of Fire!! were afterwards destroyed when the house they were being stored in burned down.
hhhhhhIn 1932 Thurman wrote Infants in the Spring,
a satire about what he considered to be the overrated figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Despite his popularity
among the intellectual community, Thurman held himself in low esteem and was ultimately destroyed by alcoholism.
He was hospitalized and died of tuberculosis in New York, December 22, 1934.