My Contribution: I published poetry in Harrisburg newspapers, performed and served as an Honor Roll student while in the Harrisburg School System, and contributed to the Harlem Renaissance as a poet.

My Legacy: I was an important artist and poet of the Harlem Renaissance who was educated for a time in the Harrisburg School District. I read “To Usward,” a tribute to novelist Jesse Fauset, at the now famous Civic Club in New York, which launched the Harlem Renaissance. I started a support group for other artists and writers that included Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston. My poetry is still studied today. I kept a scrapbook from my days in Harrisburg, which is still on file at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.

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In My Words:

“Oh, little brown girl, born for sorrow’s mate, / Keep all you have of queenliness, /
Forgetting that you once were slave, / And let your full lips laugh at Fate!” 

— Excerpt from “To a Dark Girl” by Gwendolyn Bennett

Full Name: Gwendolyn Bennetta Bennett

Birth Date: July 8, 1902

Death Date: May 30, 1981

Place of Birth: Giddings, Texas

Sex: Female

Race: Black  

Places of Residence: 44 Balm Street, Harrisburg (father’s residence); 2 W. 120 St. New York; Manhattan; Nevada Indian Reservation; Washington, D.C.

Connection to the Old Eighth Ward: I lived in Harrisburg during middle school and high school with my father. 

Family Members: Father: J.R. Bennett. Mother: Mayme Bennett. Grandmother: Madelyn Shaner. Step-mother: Marechal Neil Bennett. Husband: M1: Albert Jackson. Husband: M2: Richard Crosscup.

Education: Lincoln School, 9th grade (Harrisburg, 1916); Central High School (Harrisburg, 1917); Brooklyn Girls High School (1918-1921); Columbia University and Pratt Institute (1924); Sorbonne in Paris (1925-1926). 

Occupations: Poet. Artist. Writer. Editor. Director of Harlem Community Art Center. Professor at Howard University. 

Church Membership: Performed at Wesley Union A.M.E. Zion Church.

Activism: I was a key agent in the Harlem Renaissance. 

Connections: My father was the attorney Joshua Robbin Bennett. I knew Esther Popel, another Harlem Renaissance Poet, from my time on Balm Street.