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The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded, and W.E.B. du Bois becomes editor of their monthly magazine, Crisis
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James Weldon Johnson's influential novel Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is published.
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Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey arrives in Harlem and founds the United Negro Improvement Association, an organization that urges blacks to unite and form their own nation.
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Acclaimed American playwright Eugene O'Neil's drama The Emperor Jones opens at the Provincetown Playhouse with black actor Charles Gilpin in the lead role.
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The first major book of the Harlem Renaissance appears when Claude McKay's novel Harlem Shadows is published by Harcourt, Brace.
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Well-known white poet Vachel Lindsay reads the poems of Langston Hughes, then working as a restaurant busboy, to the audience at his own poetry reading, announcing that he has discovered a bright new talent.
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Several young Harlem Renaissance writers and artists accept money and other help from wealthy patron Charlotte Mason, whom they call "Godmother."
