Harold Jackman, The Wedding

The Wedding, April 9, 1928

DrJinHarlem

As the 98th anniversary of the April 9, 1928 nuptials of Yolande DuBois and Countée Cullen is upon us, I want to reflect on how I see the event and those involved. I have spent a lot of time thinking and writing about Yolande and Countée while writing my biography of Harold Jackman. It is all too clear that all three figures have been misunderstood and simplified to the point that they are almost unrecognizable. My article in The Harlem Renaissance Revisited examines how Black newspapers covered every detail of the relationship, wedding, marriage, and divorce.  

First, a brief summary. Yolande Dubois, a Baltimore schoolteacher, the only surviving child of  scholar and activist William Edward Burghardt DuBois and his wife Nina, married Countée Cullen, the popular poet of the Harlem Renaissance and the adopted son of Reverend and Mrs. Frederick Asbury Cullen. Reverend Cullen was the minister of the prestigious Salem Methodist Episcopal Church in Harlem. The wedding took place at Salem on at 6pm on the Monday after Easter, April 9, 1928. It was the most important social event of the Harlem Renaissance because its grandeur and the prominence of the wedding party  signified the success of the race. Yolande had 16 bridesmaids and there were 1200 invited guests. 

Drama at the wedding!
Yolande DuBois and her bridesmaids

Groom (behind minister), groomsmen, ushers, and parents of the bride and groom

 Despite the high expectations, the bride and groom were ill-suited and, by the spring of 1930, they were divorced. Countée left for Paris in early July 1928 to begin his Guggenheim fellowship and Yolande arrived in Paris in August. It should be noted that they did not live in the same city except for their time in Paris. Yolande was devoted to teaching in Baltimore and Countee was an editor at the journal Opportunity.

 Yolande has always stayed with me. She seemed to have a spirit of fun and adventure about her when those around her wanted her to be less loud, less demanding . . .just less. Her personality was clear in this 1936 Photo. It was taken after her 2 marriages and 2 divorces.  She had her daughter and she was finally living as she wanted. Yolande enjoyed teaching at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Baltimore and her death in 1961 deeply saddened her students.

Both Yolande and Countée did their best to please their fathers, but the truth usually wins out.  As we remember their wedding, let us remember the lesson that they both learned so publicly. To thine own self be true.

Harlem Renaissance

Crossing the Pond

DrJinHarlem

I found an interesting quotation from conservative journalist George Schuyler. Known for his satirical novel Black No More (1931) and his autobiography entitled Black and Conservative, (1966), Schuyler seemed to delight in being irascible. He struck me as being patriotic which is why this editorial stood out.

“Roland Hayes, internationally famous tenor, has announced that he is to become a citizen of the French republic, thereby showing that he has as much good, common sense as he has musical ability. . .Given a little wealth, I confess that I would shake the dust of the Land of Liberty off my hoofs immediately, and only return to my native land at rare intervals and then out of morbid curiosity.”

George Schuyler “Views and Reviews,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 30, 1930, 10.

Biography, Harlem Renaissance, Harold Jackman

Met Museum and the Harlem Renaissance

DrJinHarlem

Superfine: Tailoring Black Style and the Harlem Renaissance

Bonjour,

Winold Reiss’ 1924 portrait of Harold Jackman entitled A College Lad was featured in the Metropolitan Musuem’s 2025 exhibit  Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. As Jackman’s biographer, I am unsure if I would classify him as a dandy. The mulatto dandy has been around since slavery. Yet Harold Jackman was not a descendant of slaves. He wasn’t even born in the United States. Too often Jackman has been objectified and deemed shallow because of his physical appearance. I am very happy to see that he was included in the Respectability section of the exhibit. Mr. Jackman was well known for his sense of style. While he didn’t have a lot of money, he managed to look well dressed. Thus it is not surprising that, in addition to being one of the first Black male models, Jackman’s image appears in many works of the Harlem Renaissance.

A College Lad is a portrait of a well educated and well dressed young man. The visible Phi Beta Kappa key signals his academic achievement and his three piece suit emits elegance. The question that has guided my research remains. Why was a biracial man born in England chosen to represent the New Negro? The answer will be found in my biography The Best Man: Harold Jackman and the Harlem Renaissance.

Harold Jackman

Who attended the wedding?

DrJinHarlem

The better question is who didn’t attend the wedding. Countee and Dr. DuBois worked on the guest list for months. 1,200 were invited to the ceremony with a smaller number attended the reception. A problem arose when the entire congregation of Salem Methodist Episcopal Church assumed that they were invited.

The Wedding

April 9, 1929 DuBois Cullen Wedding

DrJinHarlem

Salem Methodist Episcopal Church, with Reverend Frederick Cullen as Pastor, was the site of the Easter Monday, April 9, 1928 wedding between Yolande DuBois, daughter of WEB and Nina DuBois, and Countee Cullen, adopted of Carolyn and Reverend Cullen. The nuptials were held at night. In his first biography The Big Sea, Langston Hughes described the wedding as follows: “The Countee Cullen wedding [italics mine] was another spectacle that had Harlem talking for a long time. . .It was the social -literary event of the season and very society.”

Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps served as ushers ( see top row). Harold Jackman, to the right of Countee Cullen, was the best man. The pics are lovely but, for those in the know, the countdown to a divorce was on from the moment the couple said I do. For more detailed accounts, follow this blog. I will include material that I excluded from my publications. Some of this material will be in my biography of Harold Jackman. Also see the following resources.

RESOURCES

“Class, the Black Press, and the DuBois Cullen Wedding of 1928.” The Harlem Renaissance Revisited. Ed. Jeffrey Ogbar. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. 79-104.

“Harold Jackman.” Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Vol. 1. Eds. Cary Wintz and Paul Finkelman. New York: Routledge, 2004.

“The Cullen-DuBois Wedding.” Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Vol. 1. Eds. Cary Wintz and Paul Finkelman. New York: Routledge, 2004.

The Wedding

Trying

DrJinHarlem

Bonjour. I will try to post my research on the Harlem Renaissance, particularly the contributions of Harold Jackman and Geraldyn Dismond, regularly. I have written a biography of Mr. Jackman and I am having lots of fun researching and writing about Geraldyn. Unfortunately I have two autoimmune diseases and other health issues that prevent me from being able to work every day. Thank you so much for checking the site. There will be a lot of material surrounding the April 9,1928 wedding between Yolande DuBois and Countee Cullen so stay tuned. Merci!

The Wedding

Harold at the Beaux Arts Ball 1959

DrJinHarlem

The 1959 Beaux Arts Ball was held on Friday, February 27th in the ballroom of the Concourse Plaza Hotel. The theme of the ball was Fantasy and Dreams. The annual Beaux Arts Ball was a major social event organized by the New York Guild of the National Urban League. Harold Jackman , frequently crowned King of the ball, escorted Guild’s president Mollie Moon. See Tanisha C. Ford’s biography Our Secret Society for more information about Mollie Moon. Also see Ebony’s May 1954 article on the Beaux Arts Ball.