Alden Bland

Alden Bland (1911-1992) was a writer and part of the Chicago Black Renaissance. Bland was born in New Orleans, but he moved to Chicago at a young age when his father tried to dodge the draft.

His father, Edward Bland Sr., was a postal worker and self-taught literary critic who, after separating from his wife for the fifth time, he joined the military and was killed in Germany in 1945.

Bland and his brother Edward were members of the South Side Writers Group with Richard Wright and numerous other influential writers. Bland's nephew Edward Bland Jr. was a controversial filmmaker and jazz musician.

1947's Behold a Cry was his only published novel and is considered semi-autobiographical.

Note: Much of this information comes from the scholar Joyce Hope Scott.

Sources:

Tracy, Steven C., and Joyce Hope Scott. “Alden Bland.” Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance, University Of Illinois Press, 2012, pp. 69–75.

“Lonely Crusaders, Part 1.” American Night The Literary Left in the Era of the Cold War, by Alan M. Wald, The University of North Carolina Press, 2014, p. 172.

Wald, Alan M. “Edward Bland, ‘Cry of Jazz’ Filmmaker and Composer, Dies at 86.” New York Times, 26 Mar. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/arts/music/edward-bland-filmmaker-and-composer-dies-at-86.html.