Included in this volume are Paul Laurence Dunbar's poems; Charles W. Chesnutt's "The Wife of his youth"; A criticism and assessment by William Dean Howells; W.E.B. du Bois' poems and The quest of the silver fleece; James Weldon Johnson's poems and The autobiography of an ex-colored man; Claude McKay's poems; Jean Toomer's Cane; Jessie Fauset's There is confusion; Walter White's The fire in the flint; The Civic Club Dinner; Alain Locke's Survey graphic -- Harlem: Mecca of the new Negro, and The new Negro; The Opportunity literary contest; Carl Van Vechten's Nigger heaven; Fire!!; Langston Hughes' The Negro artist and the racial mountain; W.E.B. du Bois on Artistic freedom and responsibility; Langston Hughes' poems, 1922-1930; Countee Cullen's poems from Color; James Weldon Johnson's God's trombones; Claude McKay's Home to Harlem and two reviews; Nell Larsen's Passing; Wallace Thurman's The blacker the berry; Langston Hughes' Not without laughter; Alain Locke's This year of grace; Arna Bontemps' God sends Sunday; Sterling Brown's Poems from Southern Road; Langston Hughes' A "social poet"; Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and men; and Criticism from The new challenge.