The Lawnside Historical Society will celebrate its Seventh Annual Jessie Redmon Fauset Day by expanding its yearly Spirit of the Renaissance poetry-writing competition for fifth through twelfth graders beyond Camden County to include Burlington and Gloucester.
The deadline for submissions is April 3. Read and print the rules of the competition by clicking here. The competition is designed to encourage youth to write original poetry in the vein of the Harlem Renaissance, an intellectually vibrant period for Black America. The theme is "I Know My Soul," taken from a poem by Claude McKay, one of Miss Fauset's contemporaries and friends.
Poets will read their winning poems on April 24 at starting at 2 p.m. in the Lawnside Public School, 426 E. Charleston Ave., where plaques and cash prizes will be awarded. Entries forms have been mailed to schools, youth centers and libraries.
The program will feature a keynote talk by Dr. Clement A. Price, Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University, Newark; music by saxophonist Nasir Dickerson and the Renaissance Messengers and Napalm, spoken word artist. Dr. Cord Whitaker of the University of New Hampshire will be master of ceremonies.
Jessie Redmon Fauset was a Harlem Renaissance novelist, poet and literary editor for the NAACP's Crisis magazine. She was a protege of the legendary editor, activist and intellectual W.E.B. DuBois. Miss Fauset was born in Lawnside in 1882 when her father was pastor of Mount Pisgah A.M.E. Church. The Lawnside Historical Society began honoring Miss Fauset in 2004.
Mr. McKay was born in Jamaica, traveled the world, advocated for equal right, searched his soul and settled in Harlem in the 1920s. He wrote in A Long Way from Home, "All my life I have been a troubadour wanderer, nourishing myself mainly on the poetry of existence. And all I offer here is the distilled poetry of my experience."
The program is funded by a grant from the Camden County Cultural and Heritage Commission through the local regrant program of the New Jersey Council on the Arts, Department of State, a partner agency of the National Council on the Arts. The Lawnside Historical Society is a qualified organization of the New Jersey Cultural Trust.
