James David Corrothers (July 2, 1869 – February 12, 1917) was an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

poet, journalist, and minister whom editor

Timothy Thomas Fortune Timothy Thomas Fortune (October 3, 1856June 2, 1928) was an orator, civil rights leader, journalist, writer, editor and publisher. He was the highly influential editor of the nation's leading black newspaper ''The New York Age'' and was the leadin ...

called "the coming poet of the race." When Corrothers died,

W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in ...

eulogized him as "a serious loss to the race and to literature."

Life and career

Corrothers was born in Cass County,

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

,and grew up in a small town of anti-slavery activists who settled before the war. He attended

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, but left to work as a newspaper reporter. He met

Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...

at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition. Corrothers gained early fame with his volume of poetry in "

Negro dialect African-American English (or AAE; also known as Black American English, or Black English in American linguistics) is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refers t ...

" but later expressed his regret about the volume. He believed that poetry in "standard English" was more appropriate for the twentieth century. Corrothers shared a long friendship with his contemporary Paul Laurence DunbarAlexander, Eleanor. ''Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow: The Tragic Courtship and Marriage of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore: a History of Love and Violence Among the African American Elite''. NYU Press, 2001. p. 15 and, after Dunbar's death, memorialized him with the poem "Paul Laurence Dunbar," published in ''

Century Magazine ''The Century Magazine'' was an illustrated monthly magazine first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City, which had been bought in that year by Roswell Smith and renamed by him after the Century Associati ...

'' (1912). In his autobiography, ''In Spite of the Handicap'', Corrothers claimed credit for bringing Dunbar's work to the attention of

William Dean Howells William Dean Howells (; March 1, 1837 – May 11, 1920) was an American realist novelist, literary critic, and playwright, nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters". He was particularly known for his tenure as editor of ''The Atlantic Monthly'', ...

. Corrothers worked as a minister after 1898, serving

African Methodist Episcopal The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal ...

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...

, and

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

congregations. He died of a stroke in West Chester,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, two years after his ministry brought him to a parish there. In 1922, James Weldon Johnson published seven poems by Corrothers in the anthology '' The Book of American Negro Poetry'' (1922).

Works

* ''The Snapping of the Bow'', 1901 * ''The Black Cat Club'', 1902 * ''At the Closed Gate of Justice'', 1913 * ''In Spite of the Handicap'', 1916

References

External links

*Errin Jackson
Corrothers, James David (1869-1917)

blackpast.org BlackPast.org is a web-based reference center that is dedicated primarily to the understanding of African-American history and Afro-Caribbean history and the history of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry. In 2011 the American Library Associati ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Corrothers, James D. 1869 births 1917 deaths 20th-century African-American people African-American poets African-American writers American writers People from Cass County, Michigan African Methodist Episcopal Church clergy African-American Baptist ministers People from West Chester, Pennsylvania