As a woman poet during the Harlem Renaissance period, it was very difficult to get noticed among your contemporaries.  However, Georgia Douglas Johnson made a name for herself by taking some chances that other women of her time didn’t take: she published her own writing.  During the Harlem Renaissance, Johnson used the traditional style of writing from the 19th century.  Although this poet and playwright wrote beautiful works, she still was pushed into the shadows of her equals.

     Georgia Douglas Camp was born on September 10, 1880 in Atlanta, Georgia to George and Laura Camp.  At an early age, she was inspired to write by poet William Stanley Braithwaite.  In 1893, she began her studies at Atlanta University where she received an honorary doctor of letters degree in Literature in 1965.  While attending Atlanta University, her earlier work appeared in Phylon and The Journal of Negro History.  After she graduated from Atlanta University in 1896, she attended Howard University and Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio.

     On September 28, 1903, Camp married a lawyer, politician named Henry Lincoln Johnson.  Together they had two sons: Henry Lincoln Jr. and Peter Douglas.  Their social lifestyle improved when Henry became Recorder of Deeds by the President Taft.  During this time, Johnson was involved in civic and social activities, especially those concerning black women. 

     In 1925, Johnson’s husband, Henry, had a third stroke which led to his death.  After his death, she also worked as tenure in the Department of Labor for Calvin Coolidge in order to take care of her sons.  She worked many hours while taking care of her sons and continuing to write.

     During her life, Johnson wrote three volumes of poetry.  The first volume, Heart of a Woman, explored love, romantic feelings, and women and nature.  Bronze, her second volume, contained poems that discussed the racial consciousness of her contemporaries.  Lastly, An Autumn Love Cycle, returned to the theme of love like her first volume.

     For the duration of her life, Georgia Douglas Johnson wrote incessantly despite her enmities in life.  Her work has been able to carry over into new generations such as Share My World: A Book of Poems (1962).  Four years after Share My World was published, she died in her home on May 14, 1966.   Her poem “I Want to Die While You Love Me” was read at her funeral.

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/douglas-johnson/johnson.htm