Black History Month

Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life

Charles S. Johnson

Magazine, 1923-1927

The house organ of the Urban League of Chicago which Charles S. Johnson launched upon joining the organization, Opportunity was intended as a vehicle for new black writers and as a competitor with the activist journal Crisis. The new publication focused on sociological studies of working and housing conditions in black areas. African art, Gullah culture, Caribbean communities, and other folk subjects were treated in depth. Opportunity also became a magnet for Harlem Renaissance writers with its prizes and sponsored activities. Encouraging rejection letters were a standard policy. In 1927 Johnson collected various essays and illustrations published over the years in the anthology Ebony and Topaz.