Conversely, other prominent African-American reviews, such as that of James Weldon Johnson, which appeared in "Opportunity", the official journal of the National Urban League, lauded the text. Wallace Thurman condemned both the text and the reaction to it. According to him, the novel wavers between sophistication and sentimentality but sentimentality regrettably wins out—however, the "sting" of the book "to certain Negroes" is also not praiseworthy. Van Vechten's friend and poet, Langston Hughes would go on to write poems to replace the songs used in the original manuscript and in the first printings of the text. Opinions of the novel also diverged along racial lines. Many white critics of the time had little to compare "Nigger Heaven" to, and viewed the novel as an enlightening, forward-minded text. The controversy cast a long shadow over the reputation of its author. Ralph Ellison condemned both the book and the author in the 1950s. Historian of the Harlem Renaissance, David Levering Lewis, found the book at best quaint, but calls it a "colossal fraud", with Van Vechten's motives being a “a mixture of commercialism and patronizing sympathy.” Indeed, the book was successfully marketed to whites to exploit their fascination with the other side of town. Later biographers, Emily Bernard (who nonetheless calls the title an "open wound"), and especially Edward White are more admiring of what Van Vechten attempted to do in crossing boundaries.