Wallace Thurman

Wallace Thurman (1902–1934) was an American writer, editor, and playwright. He studied at the University of Southern California and moved to Harlem in 1925. In 1926, he became an editor of The Messenger. Soon afterward, he co-founded the literary magazine Fire!! with Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and others; the magazine was associated with the Harlem Renaissance. His play “Harlem: A Melodrama of Negro Life in Harlem” premiered on Broadway in 1929. Thurman died of tuberculosis at the age of 32.