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He was at the core of everything that happened in Harlem." www.voanews.com Du Bois directed the publicity and research of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1910 to 1934 and was the editor of "Crisis", its monthly magazine.

Du Bois was part of a group of elite, well-educated black professionals, who collectively contributed chapters in a book called "The Negro Problem," published in 1903. They had a common philosophy that blacks would best secure political, social and economic respect through the arts and letters. Chapter 2 was Du Bois' chapter entitled "The Talented Tenth". The title referred to the percentage of black people who left (or could/should leave) a social or literary mark on the world.

A number of women were notable activists, stirring a Harlem creative spirit. Jessie Fauset hosted evening gatherings for black intellectuals in Harlem and arranged for the first publication of poetry by black poet, Langston Hughes. Fauset also led by example. She was literary editor for "Crisis" and wrote novels. Regina Anderson organized events in the Harlem public library, where she was an assistant librarian.

However, it was Alain Locke's, "The New Negro", published in 1925, which drew public attention to an evolving, very active Harlem Renaissance. It was an anthology of rising black writers, (particularly poets), who were centered in New York's Harlem.

These are just a sample of the community "organizers". Harlem was the hub, the heart, the pulse of the broader black writing community. But the real substance of the Harlem writing community was the "members" themselves. You did not have to live in Harlem to be part of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance, with its crowd of educated black professionals, inspired a whole new community of black writers with exciting, fresh ideas and a sense of viable identity.

Claude McKay was a prominent inspiration for black writers. He was a Jamaican born grandson of a West African slave. He migrated to the States in 1912; but he continued roaming the world, and was not even a U.S. citizen till 1940. Harlem seemed to be more his spiritual home rather than his actual home. Ballads, sonnets, stories, novels, memoirs and political commentary poured from his pen. His "Harlem Shadows" (1922), is often credited with launching the Harlem Renaissance while "Home to Harlem" (1928), a challenging novel, is often valued as the first best-selling novel by a black man. In his poem "America"

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