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Jessie Faucet Redmon
Jessie Redmon Fauset was an American editor, novelist, poet and essayist. Fauset was most known for being the editor of the NAACP magazine the Crisis. She also was the editor and co-author for the African American magazine called Brownies Book. She studied closely the teachings and beliefs of W.E.B Dubois and considered him to be her mentor. Faucet was known as one of the most intelligent women novelist of the Harlem Renaissance, earning her the name “the midwife”. In her lifetime she wrote four Black novels and several other poems and short stories.

Biography
Faucet was born on April 27, 1882 in Camden County New Jersey. She was the daughter of African Methodist Episcopal Redmon Fauset and Annie Seamon Fauset. Jessie’s mother passed away when she was child, causing her father to remarry and have a bigger family. As a result of the big family Jessie grew up in poverty. She attended high school in Philadelphia and continued her education at Cornell University. She graduated from Cornell University in 1905 with a degree in classical languages. It was speculated that she was the first black women in the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Fauset later received her Master’s degree in French from the University of Pennsylvania.

Career
Post-graduation Jessie became a teacher in the Washington DC Maryland area. While teaching she spent her summers in Paris studying Sorbonne. In 1919 Fauset quit teaching and became the literary editor for the Crisis alongside W.E.B. Du Bois until 1926. The two also were the co-authors of Browies Book. Fauset became very intrigued with the writings of famous authors like Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Claude Mckay and introduced them in her magazine. Jessie became a member of the NCAAP in represented the in the Pan African Congress in 1921. After her congress speech Delta Sigma Theta Sorority made her an honorary member. Her first novel There is Confusion was published and 1924; she later published three more after that.

Personal Life
Fauset married insurance broker Herbert Harris in 1929 at the age of 47. Harris later passed away in 1958. She then moved back to Philadelphia with her stepbrother. Jessie Fauset Redmon died on April 20, 1961 from heart disease.

Literary Works
All of Faucets novels were the stories of African Americans. Her first novel There is Confusion is the love the story of an African American wealthy female who falls in love with a medical student and dreams of being a dancer but is held back because of her race. Her second novel Plum Bum published in 1923 is about an African American Female who desires to be an artist; and decides to do so by passing as white and rejecting her family and friends. The story ends with her embracing her race and finding true love with a black. In 1931 she published the third novel Chinaberry Tree. Chinaberry Tree was inspired by Greek tragedy. It’s the story of an African American women who passes as white and convinces her oldest to children to do the same. The youngest child was too dark to pass which eventually leads him to commit suicide. Her last novel Comedy was published in 1933.

Poems
•	“Rondeau.” Crisis. April 1912: 252. •	“La Vie C’est La Vie.” Crisis. July 1922: 124. •	“‘Courage!’ He Said.” Crisis. November 1929: 378

Short Stories
•	“Emmy.” Crisis. December 1912: 79-87; January 1913: 134-142. •	“My House and a Glimpse of My Life Therein.” Crisis. July 1914: 143-145. •	“Double Trouble.” Crisis. August 1923: 155-159; September 1923: 205-209.

Essays
•	“Impressions of the Second Pan-African Congress.” Crisis. November 1921: 12-18. •	“What Europe Thought of the Pan-African Congress.” Crisis. December 1921: 60-69.

Excerpt
The complex of color……every colored man feels it sooner or later. It gets in the way of his dreams, of his education, of his marriage, of the rearing of his children. The time comes when he thinks, “I might just as well fall back; there’s no pushing on. A colored man just can’t make any headway in this awful in this awful country.” Of course it’s a fallacy. And a fellow sticks it out he finally gets passed it, but not before it has worked considerable confusion in his life. To have the ordinary job of living is bad enough, but to add to it all the thousand and one difficulties which follow simply in the train of being colored---well, all I’ve got to say, Silvia, is we’re some wonderful people to live through it all and keep our sanity. There is Confusion

Critiques of Work
Most of Faucets writings were initially received very well by African Americans. They felt like she presented African Americans in a positive way. But some critics felt that her characters weren’t “black enough”. They believed it was too much racial mixing. Other critics felt that Fauset’s novels shed a light on the issue of education in the African American community. The novel’s mainly focused on the success rather than the perceived ignorance of the African American race.

General Commentary Essays
Abby Arthur Johnson “Literary Midwife: Jessie Redmon Fauset and the Harlem Renaissance.” (1978) Joseph J. Feeny “Jessie Fauset of The crisis: Novelist, Feminist, Centenarian.” (1983) Vashti Crutcher Lewis “Mulatto Hegemony in the Novels of Jessie Redmon Fauset” (1992)