Biography (:

Jean Toomer (1894- 1967)

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Jean Toomer was born in Washington D.C in the year of 1894 from African American parents. However, unlike others, Jean was born with a light complexion and was easily mistaken for white. Nonetheless, throughout his childhood Jean grew up in a black community and it wasn’t until later on in his life that he separated himself from his roots. While in college, Jean like many others took this time to find himself, and this is when he also was exposed to many important writing figures such as Walt Whitman, Dostoyevski, George Bernard Shaw, and Goethe. This inspired Jean Toomer to write a couple of his own pieces, although, he came to find that he wasn’t fully satisfied with his works. He blamed it on the fact that he couldn’t find harmony within himself, living a double life on a thin line between race must have caught up to him and he found himself unable to “capture his own literary voice.”
After college, Toomer went off to Georgia to work as a teacher as a way to connect with his Southern roots once more. Here was where he wrote one of his most recognized works, his book ‘Cane.’ He wrote about black folk life, describing Georgian people and landscape. This for many, created a new era in black literature, and on the other hand, to Toomer this was his farewell from such works because he then took an interest into spiritual reform. In doing this, Toomer eventually broke all ties with his roots, which by the way, lead to many criticisms, and became a faithful follower of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, the founder of Unitism.
A religion in which a person found unity and oneself through yoga, Unitism seemed to appeal Toomer. In fact, he even began to preach about the religion himself to others in the Harlem community, downtown to the white community, and moved to Chicago continuing to spread Unitism. He went on to marry Margery Latimer who unfortunately left him a widow after she died while giving birth. After two years he once again married, this time to a woman named Majorie Content. Both of these women were white thus showing his inclination towards the white world once again. The way Toomer saw it however was that he was above the boundaries of race an individual beyond simply the color of his skin. Jean Toomer due to health problems died in a nursing home on March 30, 1967 in Pennsylvania.