Backgrounds of negro fiction -- Reconstruction and disfranchisement -- The plantation tradition and racilism -- The tragic mulatto -- The Wahsington-DuBois controversy -- Negro fiction to World War I -- The negro renascence -- World War I -- The garvey movement -- Interest in African art and history -- Interest in the negro by white writers -- Negro authors and their publishers -- Harlem: Mecca of the new negro -- Fiction of the negro renascence -- Early postwar fiction -- Southern realism -- Color and caste among the bourgeoisie -- Propaganda -- The Van Vechten vogue -- Harlem realism -- West Indian realism -- The mid-western small town -- Satire -- The close of the negro renascence -- Summary -- The depression decade -- The depression -- Proletarianism -- Liberalism -- Treatment of the negro by white writers -- Effect of proletarianism and liberalism upon negro literature -- Negro Fiction of the depression -- Historical fiction -- Fiction of World War I -- Proletarian fiction -- Folk realism -- The negro college -- Family chronicle -- The migrant worker -- Summary -- Conclusion -- Retrospect -- Prospect