Elementary and high school students will recite Harlem Renaissance poetry at the Lawnside Historical Society's fourth annual Jessie Redmon Fauset Day. The program will start at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 28 in the Lawnside Public School, 426 E. Charleston Ave. Admission is $5.

Miss Fauset was literary editor of the NAACP's Crisis magazine for seven years during the 1920s, the height of the Harlem Renaissance. She was a novelist, poet and short story writer like her contemporaries Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Zora Neale Hurston. She was born in Lawnside while her father was pastor of Mt. Pisgah A.M.E. Church in 1882.

Dr. Mychel Namphy, assistant professor of English at York College, City University of New York, will discuss Miss Fauset's groundbreaking work in promoting The Brownie's Book, a short-lived literary magazine for Black children in the 1920s. Dr. Namphy has taught the Harlem Renaissance, African American and Native American literature, English, and Black women writers at Rutgers and Princeton universities and Bronx Community College. He is a graduate of Columbia University who earned his doctorate at Princeton University. He was the featured speaker at the first Fauset Day program in 2004.

The Society will be selling Miss Fauset's novels Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree. Langston Hughes' The Dream Keeper, an anthology of poems for children illustrated by Brian Pinkney, will be given to each young participant.

The Sonny Keaton Jazz Q-Tet, led by Lawnside resident Sonny Keaton on organ, will perform music of the Harlem Renaissance period. Other members of the band are Donald Washington on tenor saxophone, George Perakis on guitar and Wayne Morgan on drums and percussion.

Miss Fauset was born in Snow Hill (the old name for Lawnside) on April 26, 1882, where her father, the Rev. Redmon Fauset was pastor of Mt. Pisgah. She received her education in Philadelphia, a graduate of Girls High School. She is a 1905 graduate of Cornell University and earned a master's degree in French from the University of Pennsylvania. Langston Hughes called Miss Fauset the mid-wife of the Harlem Renaissance for nurturing him and others by providing an outlet for their voices and published work. She eventually married, returned to high school teaching and died in 1961 in New Jersey.

The Lawnside Historical Society operates the Peter Mott House Underground Railroad Museum at 26 Kings Court. The museum is open every Saturday from noon to 3 p.m., admission is $2. Group tours can be arranged by appointment. The Society, a tax-exempt, membership organization, meets on the second Thursday of each month at the Lawnside Public School.

For tickets call, 856-546-8850 or 547-8489.

The Lawnside Historical Society, Inc. is a qualified organization of the New Jersey Cultural Trust.