Fire!! Magazine was published in 1926 in Harlem, New York City and edited by Wallace Thurman. The magazine was highly controversial and was one of the first magazines to be completely written and published by African Americans. The magazine is an amalgam of poems, short stories, and visual art by later well-known artists like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Upon its release, even liberal minded African Americans during this era found this magazine to be too extreme for its time, rejecting it as overly tendentious. The topics that were discussed were often considered taboo at the time, such as homosexuality, color prejudice, and prostitution.
This website is dedicated to the analysis, interpretation, and presentation of the authors, their works ,and the cultural relevancy of the magazine. We aimed to contextualize the magazine’s presence during the Harlem Renaissance by including additional relevant sources that elaborate on the magazine’s importance in African American art.
View the magazine below:
Introducing Fire!! Magazine 