Georgia & A'Lelia: A Reminiscence

The following is from my interview in 1985 with Richard Bruce Nugent, one of the luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. In this portion of the interview, Nugent discusses two major female figures of  the Harlem Renaissance: Georgia Douglas Johnson in Washington, D.C. and A'Lelia Walker in New York's Harlem.

Charles Michael Smith: How would you describe Georgia Douglas Johnson and her salon?
Bruce Nugent: I think that [Georgia Douglas Johnson] was the most unique one because it was almost like a throwback to ancient days when salon's were the property of women. Women always had salons. Everybody had passed through Georgia Douglas Johnson's hands at one time or another. It was at Georgia Douglas Johnson that I met Langston Hughes in Washington. Nobody went there to meet writers. You went there to meet people.
CMS: And A'Lelia Walker's salon?
BN:  The difference between A'Lelia and Georgia was as different as chalk and cheese. Georgia entertained in her home writers, artists. She was just a remarkable woman, terrifically remarkable. She was a poet herself. Her book is called Autumn Leaves. She encouraged more black people in her home.
A'Lelia Walker opened her Dark Tower, named after a column Countee Cullen wrote in [the magazine] Opportunity. She opened her Dark Tower so that the Negro artists had a place to congregate and eat, cheaply or inexpensively. It didn't turn out quite that way, first of all.
CMS: No cheap food then at A'Lelia's?
BN: At A'Lelia's? There was nothing [for] ten cents at A'Lelia's. We couldn't eat, drink at A'Lelia's. Who drank coffee anyhow? You drank coffee so you could sit around and talk and meet other people.
[Georgia] did not serve food. If she had, it would not have been for sale. There was, I suppose, some tea and coffee, like in your own home. She had a pleasant home. She was interested in art and artists. She was a poet herself. A'Lelia Walker was a striver and a striver in Washington [society] got short shrift. A'Lelia Walker had a lot to overcome. You see she had her [dark] color, her hair, and her antecedents to overcome socially. Her mother [the cosmetics tycoon Madame C. J. Walker] after all [had been] a washerwoman, my God.
[Georgia Douglas Johnson] was a nice brown, nice pale brown. She was from Atlanta, Georgia. She had the same kind of social setup [there] that Washington and Philadelphia and all the places had at the time. Family, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Her husband was acceptable because he was the first black recorder of deeds in Washington.
There was nothing scandalous about her. The ones whose names are talked about are those who were outrageous, like  [writer]Wally [Thurman] and me. The nonconformists. Georgia was very much a conformist. She was just a poet, a very good poet. She had an open house where people would come to talk. This was before the so-called Negro Renaissance.