"Georgia Douglas Johnson"(September 10,1880-May 14,1966)

Was an American poet and a member of the Harlem Renaissance.She was born to Laura Douglass and George Camp (her mother's last name is listed in other sources as Jackson).Her mother was of African and Native American descent,and her father was of African-American and English heritage.Much of Georgia childhood was spent in Rome,Georgia.She received her education in both Rome and Atlanta,where she excelled in reading,reciations and physical education.She also taught herself to play the violin,which developed into a lifelong love of music.She graduated from Atlanta Georgia University's Normal School in 1896.She taught school in Marietta Georgia for a time,then returned to Atlanta to work as an assistant principal.Georgia then traveled to Cleveland Ohio,to study piano,harmony,and voice.From 1902 to 1903,she attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.On September 28,1903,Georgia married Henry Lincoln Johnson,an Atlanta lawyer Republican party member.They had two sons,Henry Lincoln,Jr.and Peter Douglas Johnson.Her husband accepted an appointment as the Recorder of Deeds from United States President William Howard Taft,and the family moved to Washington,D.C. IN 1910.It was during this period that she began to write poems and stories.Georgia credits  a poem written by William Stanley Braithwaite about a rose tended by a child,as her inspiration for poems.She began to submit her poems to newspapers and small magazines.Georgia published her first poem in 1916 when she was thirty-six.Georgia published four volumes of poetry,beginning in 1918 with The heat of a Woman.She also wrote songs,taught music,and performed as an organist at her Congregational church.There she lived for the last fifty years of her life.Her husband died in 1925.Georgia struggled at first with some temporary jobs.As a gesture of appreciation for her husband's loyalty and service to the Republican party,President Calvin Coolidge appointed Georgia as the Commissioner of Conciliation in the Department of Labor.Soon after her husband death,Georgia began to host what became forty years of weekly "Saturday Salons,"for friends and authors,including Langston Hughes,Jean Toomer,Anne Spencer,Richard Bruce Nugent,Alain Locke,Jessie Redmond Fauset, Angelina Weld Grimke,and Eulalie Spence-major contributors to the New Negro Movement,which is better known today as the Harlem Renaissance.She was especially close to writer Angelina Grimke. Georgia called her home the "Half way House"for friends traveling,and a place where they "could freely discuss politics and personal opinions.