Helene Johnson
Helene Johnson was an influential African American poet associated with the Harlem Renaissance, born to Ella Johnson, a domestic worker, and William Johnson, whom she never met. Raised in Boston, she spent her early years living with her uncle, Isaac West, a former slave and successful businessman known as Boston’s Black Banana King. Johnson's education included public schools in Boston and studies at Boston University and Columbia University, where she nurtured her passion for writing and poetry.
Her literary career began with her work being published in notable periodicals like Opportunity and Fire!!, highlighting themes of racial pride and protest. Johnson gained recognition at a banquet hosted by Opportunity, where she was awarded for her poem "Fulfillment," marking her emergence as a Harlem Renaissance writer alongside her peer, Dorothy West. Throughout her career, she published around thirty poems in prestigious anthologies and magazines, contributing significantly to the literary landscape of her time.
In her personal life, Johnson married William Warner Hubbell, with whom she had a daughter, Abigail. After her marriage ended in divorce, she continued to write until health issues hindered her ability to do so. Although her writing career did not extend beyond the Harlem Renaissance, Johnson is remembered as one of its youngest poets, with a lasting impact on African American literature.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Helene Johnson
Poet
- Born: July 7, 1907
- Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
- Died: July 6, 1995
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
Helene Johnson was the only child born to William Johnson, a man she never knew, and Ella (nee Benson) Johnson, a domestic worker. During her childhood, Johnson and her mother lived in the home of Johnson’s uncle, Isaac West, a former slave from Virginia who owned a wholesale fruit company and was known as Boston’s Black Banana King. Also residing at the West residence were West’s wife, Rachel, their daughter Dorothy, and Rachel West’s older sister and niece. Johnson’s grandfather, Benjamin Benson, was a former slave who moved to Massachusetts after his three daughters relocated there, and he later purchased a house in Oak Bluff on Martha’s Vineyard; Johnson and her two cousins spent their summers at Oak Bluff with their grandfather.
Johnson attended public schools in Boston, including the Lafayette School, Martin School, and Girls’ Latin High School, and received piano lessons from Bessie Trotter, the sister of Monroe Trotter, who was the founder and editor of the African American newspaper The Boston Guardian. After graduating from high school, Johnson attended Boston University and Columbia University. In 1925, Opportunity, the Urban League’s magazine, published two of Johnson’s poems in May and July, respectively, “Trees at Night,” and “My Race.” One year later, Johnson and author Dorothy West were invited to a banquet in New York sponsored by Opportunity. At the dinner, Johnson was awarded First Honorable Mention for her poem “Fulfillment,” and West’s “The Typewriter” shared the second-place short story award with Zora Neale Hurston’s “Muttsy.” The banquet officially marked Johnson and West’s debut as Harlem Renaissance writers.
The two young women moved to New York, where from 1925 to 1937, Johnson published approximately thirty poems that have been described as innovative and sensual, demonstrating racial pride and protest. Her poetry was published in such landmark Harlem Renaissance publications as The New Negro (1925), edited by Alain Locke, and Fire!! A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists (1926), edited by Wallace Thurman. Among the first collections of poetry to publish Johnson’s verse were Caroling Dusk (1927), edited by Countee Cullen; Ebony and Topaz (1927), edited by Charles S. Johnson; and The Book of American Negro Poetry (1931), edited by James Weldon Johnson. In addition to Opportunity and Fire!!, her poetry appeared in periodicals such as Challenge: A Literary Quarterly, Harlem Magazine, Messenger, New Challenge, Saturday Evening Quill, and Vanity Fair.
In the 1930’s, Johnson married William Warner Hubbell, a motorman. The couple’s only child, Abigail Hubbell McGrath, was born in 1940. Johnson’s marriage ended in divorce. She worked for a number of years at Consumers Union in Mount Vernon, New York, where Johnson’s fellow Harlem Renaissance contemporary Gwendolyn Bennett was also employed. In the early 1980’s, Johnson returned to Massachusetts and lived in the Cape Cod town of Onset, before she returned to New York City in the fall of 1986. Johnson continued to create poetry until osteoporosis prevented her from writing. Although Johnson’s writing career did not outlive the Harlem Renaissance, she is remembered as one of the era’s youngest writers, and contemporary literary critics acknowledge that Johnson contributed to every major African American periodical during the Harlem Renaissance.