Born: 1894 in Washington, D.C.
Jean Toomer spent barely eight weeks of his life in Georgia, in the fall of 1921
This short visit - in the homeland of a father he never knew - inspired him to write about, "Middle Georgia"
He wrote a novel of early twentieth-century African-American life in rural Georgia
His parents:
His mother was the daughter of a Louisiana politician
His father was a freedman farmer from Georgia Georgia who abandoned the family when Jean was very young
When his mother died in 1909, he had to live with his grandparents
When living with his African-American grandparents, Toomer found that he overflowed with stories and poetry inspired by the landscape, the African-American voices, and the interracial encounters in a Georgian town heavily influenced by the Jim Crow laws
Jean Toomer wrote Cane as a result
Toomer wrote Cane in 1923
It expressed sensitivity toward African-American life
Twice married, with one daughter, Jean Toomer died in a Pennsylvania nursing home of arteriosclerosis
Died: 1967 in Pennsylvania