Called "America's greatest Black cartoonist" by Langston Hughes, Oliver Wendell Harrington was one of the first Black cartoonists to gain wide recognition, both in the United States and abroad. He was an outspoken critic of racism in the United States, which was a key theme of his work. Harrington attended the Yale School of Fine Arts and the American Academy of Design. He worked for a number of black-owned newspapers, including the Pittsburgh Courier, the Chicago Defender, and the Amsterdam News, and was a participant in the Harlem Renaissance. While at the Amsterdam News, he developed what would be his most famous cartoon series, "Dark Laughter." The series chronicled the life of Bootsie, a middle-aged Harlemite, as he reacted to the world around him. "Dark Laughter" was the first African-American comic strip to gain nationwide recognition. Because of his views, Harrington came under fire from the House Un-American Activities Committee. He moved to Paris in 1951 with other Black expatriates. In 1961, he requested political asylum in East Berlin, where he remained to the end of his life.
