The hostile Texas laws of the early 1900's prevented blacks from receiving birth certificates. But those laws did not stop Mayme and Joshua Bennett from remembering the birthdate of their daughter, Gwendolyn Bennett: July 8,1902. Bennett was the only child of the couple, who separated a few years after her birth. When custody was awarded to Mayme, in a fury Joshua kidnapped his daughter. He swept her away to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and after passing the bar examination, relocated to Brooklyn, New York.

Bennett's adjustment to the elitist Brooklyn Girls School took some time. The academic work was hard, but she quickly became accustomed. She became the first African American to be admitted into the school's Dramatic Society and Literary Society. In addition to these pioneering accomplishments, she wrote the graduation song and speech. After her 1921 graduation she enrolled in Columbia University and then, because of racism, transferred to Pratt Institute. She began submitting poetry to major journals such as the National Urban League's Opportunity, where her poem, "Heritage" was published. Such Afrocentric poems and her illustrations are what made her an asset to the Harlem Writers' Guild. The "Renaissance Woman of the Harlem Renaissance," Bennett helped the world "...to speak the music in [her] soul..." ("Heritage")
Bennett's reputation as an artist and poet allowed her to take a faculty position at Howard University. While teaching at Howard, she received, from her Delta Sigma Theta Sorority sisters, a thousand-dollar scholarship to study in Paris. Bennett returned to New York in 1926 and started the "Ebony Flute," a column that kept people abreast of the Black arts scene. Publications like the "Ebony Flute" as well as Bennett's illustrations heightened the African American consciousness.

Essay by Tiffany Harris of Howard University