Jessie Redmon Fauset

Jessie Redmon Fauset was an important writer and editor during the Harlem Renaissance. She is famous for being the literary editor of The Crisis (The NAACP's official magazine) along with W.E.B. Du Bois during its greatest time of literary achievement. It was Jessie Redmon Fauset who helped Langston Hughes' career by publishing his work in The Crisis. She also published her own works in the magazine and wrote four novels, all which were about upper-middle class black families much like her own. Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral is about a young girl who was able to pass as white because of her light skin. She realizes that being white alone will not bring her happiness, as she is still limited because she is a woman. This coming-of-age book was an important product of The Harlem Renaissance that criticized racism and sexism and used characteristics of the fantasy and romance genres, making it fit well into the ideals of the age.