ABSTRACT
The majority of the Negro Renaissance writers responded positively to Nigger Heaven, both publicly and in their correspondence to Van Vechten. James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, Walter White, George Schuyler, and Charles S. Johnson, wrote at length defending and praising Van Vechten's presentation of Harlem life. In determining the actual influence of Nigger Heaven upon Negro authors of the Renaissance, it is necessary to ascertain what other potentially influential ideas are contained in the novel, and then to examine the works of the more important writers for evidence of the book's influence. The major emphasis of the novel is upon the struggles of Emma Lou to accept herself and to find acceptance in a society which is prejudiced against blackness of skin. The main theme of the novel had been stated by Wallace Thurman in the Independent article of 1927, in which he wrote that the Renaissance was a failure from a purely literary viewpoint.
