The Opportunity Reader: Stories, Poetry, and Essays from the Urban League's Opportunity MagazineModern Library Harlem Renaissance In 1923, the Urban League's Opportunity magazine made its first appearance. Spearheaded by the noted sociologist Charles S. Johnson, it became, along with the N. A. A. C. P.'s Crisis magazine, one of the vehicles that drove the art and literature of the Harlem Renaissance. As a way of attracting writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, Johnson conducted literary contests that were largely funded by