Harlem Rhapsody

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and racism.

Jessie Redmon Fauset arrives in New York City with her stepmother Bella, whom she calls Maman. W. E. B. Du Bois, a renowned Black writer and intellectual whom Jessie calls Will, got Jesse a brownstone apartment and created a job for her as literary editor of the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis. Jessie and Will have known each other since Jessie was a student at Cornell University 16 years ago. More recently, they began an affair while Jessie was living in Washington, DC. When Will shows them around, Maman is displeased with him, suspecting the affair. The Fauset women learn that Will and his wife live nearby.

Jessie arrives at the offices of the NAACP. She has been published many times in the magazine since 1912 and thinks that her late father would be proud of her achievement. She meets Pocahontas Foster, Will’s stenographer, and Augustus Granville Dill, the magazine’s business manager. Will has roses sent to her anonymously. Jessie meets more NAACP founders and staff, including Moorfield Storey, Joel Springarn, James Weldon Johnson, and