Renaissance Women: Effie Lee Newsome

Effie Lee Newsome (1885–1979) was a Harlem Renaissance poet and activist. She is most famous for her volume of children’s poetry, Gladiola Garden: Poems of Outdoors and Indoors for Second Grade Readers. As the NAACP got started, Newsome also worked extensively with W.E.B DuBois on TCrisis magazine, writing poetry for the magazine and editing the “Little Page” column.  Her writings merged nature with the fight for civil rights, linking natural history and conservation to the problems of segregation. 

For Further Reading:

• Wonders: The Best Children's Poems of Effie Lee Newsome
• Double-take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology
• Effie Lee Newsome, Poems in "The Crisis," 1910-1926

This Black History Month, we’re talking about Renaissance Women. As part of the famed cultural and artistic Harlem Renaissance movement, these women found beauty in an often ugly world.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we get started, just a warning that this episode
contains mentions of lynching.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello. I'm Alia Yates.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I'm a producer at Wonder Media Network, and I'm so
excited to be guest hosting this week's episodes of Womanica.
This Black History Month, we're talking about Renaissance women. As
part of the famed cultural and artistic Harlem Renaissance movement.
These women found beauty in an often ugly world. Today,

(00:30):
we're talking about a poet whose work spoke to the
beauty of nature, whose pen crafted tales of warbling baby
birds at dawn and the subtle glow of fireflies at night.
But what makes her work special is that it catered
to a demographic that not only needed to see the
beauty of the outside world, but the beauty within themselves.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm talking about Black children.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
So gather around the reading circle, y'all, and let me
tell you about Effie Lee Newsome. Effie Lee Newsome was
born on January nineteenth, eighteen eighty five, in Philadelphia, to
marry Elizabeth Ashley and Benjamin Franklin. Her father was an
African Methodist episcopal bishop whose spiritual calling led him to

(01:17):
move his family from congregation to congregation, meaning that Effie
spent a portion of her early life on the road,
but where she grounded herself was in her books and
the outdoors. As a child, Effie was always observing the
natural world around her, often noticing details like the leaves
changing color or the variety of trees in a new

(01:40):
place she visited. These early observations inspired her to write
and draw what she saw. At just five years old,
she began submitting her stories and sketches to children's magazines,
winning several prizes in the process. It's safe to say
that these early winds paved the way for her success.

(02:00):
By eighteen ninety six, her family finally settled in Wilberforce, Ohio,
where later she would attend Wilberforce University.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
But she didn't stop there.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
She also attended Oberlin College, the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts,
and the University of Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Weirdly enough, she didn't receive a degree.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
From any of these schools, but make no mistake, your
girl was well educated. In nineteen seventeen, Effie, like so
many writers before her, began working on the crisis the
NAACP's magazine alongside civil rights activists and Harlem Renaissance icon
w E. B.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Du Bois.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
While it's unclear how they met or how she came
to contribute to the magazine, her work soon began appearing
in its pages. Like her early work, her poems highlighted
what she saw in nature, using ornate language to transport
her readers, no matter where they were, to vivot landscapes.
A perfect example of this is in her nineteen eighteen

(03:01):
poem Oh Autumn Autumn. It goes as follows, Oh Autumn
Autumn O pensive light and wistful sound, cold haunted sky,
green haunted ground, when wane the dead leaves flutter by
deserted realms of butterfly, when robins banned themselves together to

(03:24):
seek the soul of sun steeped weather, and all of
summer's largest goes for lance of olive and the rose.
But where Effie would shine the brightest is in the
columns she wrote for children. Effie's journey into child literature
began when W. E. B. Du Bois wanted to create
a space where black literature for children could thrive. Because

(03:46):
remember this is the nineteen tens, a time when most
depictions of black people were overwhelmingly steeped and harmful stereotypes,
and most of the news leaned towards reporting violence against
African Americans, leaving little space for positive representations centering children.
Effie saw that gap too, so together with Duboys, she

(04:07):
helped launch The Brownies Book, arguably the first magazine to
intentionally establish a foundation for black children's literature. She donated
poems and even some of her sketches to the cause.
By nineteen twenty, Effie had married Reverend Henry Nesby Newsom,
moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and began blending her love of
nature with a new focus helping Black kids celebrate their

(04:31):
beauty and identity through her poetry. Later, she took charge
of running the children's column of the Crisis, lovingly called
the Little Pages. This space became her canvas for prose,
poems and drawings that deeply resonated with young readers.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Effie created warmth.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Encouragement, and connection to the land that, when read, could
help these kids feel like they belong, that being black
was not a curse, but a profe blessing. An example
of that sentiment is found in one of her more
popular pieces, The Bronze Legacy to a Brown Boy, written
in nineteen twenty two, in which she states, 'tis a

(05:14):
noble gift to be brown, all brown, like the strongest
things that make up this earth, like the mountains, grave
and grand, even like the very land, even like the
trunks of trees, even oaks. To be like these, God
builds his strength in bronze. To be brown, like thrush
and lark, like the subtle wrens so dark. Nay, the

(05:37):
King of Beast wears brown. Eagles are the same hue.
I thank God, then I am brown. Brown has mighty
things to do. She continued this mission of adding love
and compassion to this platform until nineteen twenty nine, though
she continued to submit poetry to the publication until nineteen

(05:58):
thirty four. After that, information on her life and projects
becomes sparse. What we do know is that she returned
to Wilberforce after the death of her husband in nineteen
thirty seven, and just three years later she published her
only volume of poetry, Gladiola Garden Poems of Outdoors and

(06:18):
Indoors for second grade readers. Like the title suggests, this
book of poetry was geared towards younger kids, using accessible
language themes and yes pictures.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
To appear to younger audiences.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
The poems cover a range of topics, from the familiar
marvels of nature look to the golden garden, spider, or
young bird's mouth, to familiar sights and experiences like growing
taller in the summer in back, or wondering who wakes
the birds up and strange. This book holds both older
and newer works with the same purpose to instill confidence

(06:54):
in Black children by linking them with things and activities
that are.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Commonplace and that.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
For the remainder of her life, Effie spent her days
as a librarian at the nearby Central State College and
at the College of Education at Wilberfest University. Needless to say,
her journey had come back full circle. She retired in
nineteen sixty three and died in nineteen seventy nine. She
was ninety four years old. Effie Lee Newsom's legacy may

(07:25):
not shine as brightly as some of her contemporaries, with
lots of her work being forgotten, but her contributions remain
unique and necessary. With over one hundred and fifty poems published,
she was the first predominantly African American poet whose works
centered on and celebrated black children. Her work should inspire

(07:45):
us to not only stop and smell the roses, but
to listen to the quietest, sometimes smallest voices and amplify
everything beautiful about it. In short, Effie, let kids.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
All month, we're talking about renaissance women.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram at
Wamanica podcast. Shout out to Jenny and Liz Kaplin for
letting me on the mic. Talk to y'all tomorrow.