Louise Thompson Patterson

Infobox Person
name = Louise Alone Thompson Patterson
birth_name = Louise Alone Thompson
birth_date = Birth date|1901|9|9
birth_place = Chicago, Illinois
death_date = Death date and age|1999|8|27|1901|9|9
death_place = Amsterdam Nursing Home
New York City
known_for = Harlem Renaissance
spouse = Wallace Thurman
William L. Patterson

Louise Alone Thompson Patterson (September 9, 1901 – August 27, 1999) was an American social activist and college professor.

Biography

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Patterson became a professor at Hampton Institute, a black college in Virginia, by age twenty-two. She left after five years for the burgeoning artistic community arising out of the in New York City. When she first came to the Harlem community she pursued social work, but eventually became a central figure in the movement and married writer Wallace Thurman.

Though Patterson organized a number of protests and opened one of the premiere Harlem salons, she became best known for her close friendship with author Langston Hughes. Both admired the Soviet system of government and organized a group of twenty-two Harlem writers, artists, and intellectuals to create a film about discrimination in America for a Soviet film company. After the project fell through due to lack of funding, Patterson and Hughes returned to the United States to found the Harlem Suitcase Theater, which presented plays written by Hughes and other black writers and featured all-black casts.

For the remainder of her life, Patterson continued to be active in political and social issues. Patterson married Thurman in August 1928 but their marriage broke up six months later when she discovered that he was homosexual. She later married William L. Patterson, a prominent member of the American Communist Party, she joined her husband in protesting the anti-Communist policies of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the sixties, she was also involved in the Civil Rights Movement, though by that time her influence was greatly overshadowed by more notable figures. Patterson died of natural causes in August 27, 1999, shortly before her ninety-eighth birthday, in New York City. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= Louise Patterson, 97, Is Dead. Figure in Harlem Renaissance. |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E3DD173AF931A3575AC0A96F958260 |quote=Louise Alone Thompson Patterson, an advocate of civil rights and leftist causes, a participant in the Harlem Renaissance and a longtime associate of one of its leading figures, the poet Langston Hughes, died on Friday at the Amsterdam Nursing Home in Manhattan. She was 97. |publisher=New York Times |date=September 2, 1999 |accessdate=2008-05-31 ]

References