Jean Toomer (1894-1967) was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Nathan Toomer and Nina Elizabeth Pinchback, both of whom were of white and black heritage. After graduating from the highly regarded all-black M Street School he traveled extensively and attended six institutions of higher education studying agriculture, fitness, biology, sociology, and history. Although he never completed a degree, his wide readings among prominent contemporary poets and writers, and the lectures he attended during his college years, shaped the direction of his writing. From his earliest writings, Toomer insisted on being identified only as American. With ancestry among seven ethnic and national groups, he gained experience in both white and non-white societies, and resisted being classified as a Negro writer. He grudgingly allowed the publisher of Cane to use that term, but wrote to his publisher, Horace Liveright, "My racial composition and my position in the world are realities that I alone may determine." Although he wrote prolifically after the publication of Cane, he ceased public literary endeavors from 1950 until his death in 1967.
