Georgia Douglas Johnson was born Georgia Blanche Douglas Camp in Atlanta and lived in Rome, Georgia for most of her childhood. She attended Atlanta University's Normal School and taught in Georgia before studying at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. She married the prominent lawyer and politician Henry Lincoln Johnson and moved with him to Washington, D.C. in 1910. It was around this time that she began writing poems and short stories. Her poetry earned her critical acclaim, and she became one of the first African American poets to receive national recognition.
Johnson was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance and the black theatre movement. She wrote around 28 plays, many of which were never published due to her gender and race. It was poet and activist Gloria Hull who rediscovered many of Johnson's plays and brought them back into the limelight. Her plays include Blue Blood and Plumes, which did receive productions during Johnson's life. She also wrote A Sunday Morning in the South, Blue-Eyed Black Boy, and two historical plays: William and Eden Craft and Frederick Douglass. Many of her plays dealt with the African American experience and were influenced by her anti-lynching activism.
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