Gwendolyn B. Bennett - Later Life and Harlem Influence

Later Life and Harlem Influence

Bennett moved farther away from Harlem when she married Dr. Albert Joseph Jackson in 1927 and moved to Eustis, Florida. Jackson died in 1936 and Bennett moved back to New York. In 1940, Bennett married educator and writer Richard Crosscup, who was of European ancestry. Their interracial marriage was not socially acceptable at Bennett's time. Harlem remained Bennett's passion, however, and during the late 1930s and the 1940s she remained in the arts and also served as a member of the Harlem Artists Guild in 1935. The Harlem Community Arts Center was under her leadership from 1939 to 1944. During this time, Bennett was also active on the board of the Negro Playwright's Guild and involved with the development of the George Washington Carver Community School.

Bennett faded from the public eye during the late-1940s but she remained close to the hub of busy Harlem in New York and her fellow writers. She began working for the Consumers Union during the later years of her life. Her retirement occurred in 1968 and moved with her husband, Crosscup, to Kutztown, Pennsylvania where they opened an antique shop. Her husband died in 1980, due to heart failure, and Bennett died on May 30, 1981 at the Reading Hospital in Reading, Pennsylvania.