Today In Black History - Georgia Douglas Johnson
On this date in 1880 Georgia Douglas Johnson was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Johnson was a great poet who is best known for her role during the Harlem Renaissance. Her poems often suggested a feminine sensibility and a feminist awareness, and took up challenges and aspirations of the African-American community. Her weekly "Saturday Salons", for friends and authors, including Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Anne Spencer, Richard Bruce Nugent, Alain Locke, Jessie Redmon Fauset,Mary P. Burrill, Countee Cullen, Angelina Weld Grimke and Eulalie Spence. At these open forums, these prominent writers of the Harlem Renaissance would introduce new material and get feed back from the other great writers.
I WANT to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair.
I want to die while you love me,
And bear to that still bed,
Your kisses turbulent, unspent
To warm me when I’m dead.
I want to die while you love me
Oh, who would care to live
Till love has nothing more to ask
And nothing more to give!
I want to die while you love me
And never, never see
The glory of this perfect day
Grow dim or cease to be.
- Georgia Douglas Johnson