TH E HARLEM R E NA ISSANC E
Understanding The Harlem Renaissance by analyzing “Comments with Dr.
James Haney” on the topic “The Harlem Renaissance” with Drs. S. McKoy
and Gloria. C. Johnson
Facharbeit
Englisch
Max Tillich
Kalker Hauptstraße 180
51103 Köln
Betreuender Fachlehrer:
K. Potschka
Konrad-Adenauer-Gymnasium Bonn
Max-Planck Straße 24/36
53177 Bonn
12. April 2010
The Harlem Renaissance!
1
VER S I CHERUNG DER
S ELB S TSTÄ N D IGEN ERARBEITUNG
Hiermit erkläre ich, dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbstständig und ohne fremde Hilfsmittel
verfasst und keine anderen als die angegebenen Hilfsmittel verwendet habe.
Insbesondere versichere ich, dass ich alle wörtlichen und sinngemäßen Übernahmen aus anderen Werken als solche gekennzeichnet habe.
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P ROLOGUE
The popular culture (also known as pop culture) developed in the early to mid 20th century. At
the end of the 20th century popular culture developed into mass media and African American
culture seems to be absolutely essential. As a Jazz, Soul and Hip-Hop enthusiast I am conscious
about the fact that the Afro-American culture was not a part of the named popular culture
from the beginning.
I chose The Harlem Renaissance as the topic of this school essay (Facharbeit) because this
movement foremost located in the area of Harlem, New York (USA) around 1920 means the
foundation of the music and the art I love and it stands for an attitude of getting up through
artistic expression instead of hate and envy.
The video source “Comments with Dr. James Haney” can be watched on a website i created to
amplify this essay with further information concerning Harlem today. The website also features
a list of online sources I used to give evidence in various points.
Link: http://maxtillich.com/harlemrenaissance
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction!
6
1.1 Historical Overview!
6
1.2 New York Harlem!
6
Gangs of Harlem!
1.3 Comments with Dr. Haney!
2. Body!
2.1 The background!
6
7
8
8
Frustration!
8
The New Negro!
9
Racism!
2.2 The term Harlem Renaissance!
10
10
The importance of Harlem!
10
Explanation of the term renaissance!
11
2.3 Forerunners to the Harlem Renaissance!
11
2.4 Co"aboration!
12
2.5 Lengston Hughes!
12
The most influential poet of the Renaissance!
12
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”!
13
3. Conclusion!
14
3.1 Controversial issues!
14
3.2 Effects on today!
14
“Harlem Renaissance” by Immortal Technique!
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4
Bibliography!
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5
1 . I N T RODUCTION
In the following I’m going to explain The Harlem Renaissance (New Negro Movement) by referring to “Comments with Dr. James Haney” on the topic “The Harlem Renaissance” with
Drs. S. McKoy and Gloria. C. Johnson and various literary sources.
1.1 Historical Overview
The 1920s were characterized by real estate instabilities and finally the great economic crises in
1929. America allied with Great Britain in World War I against Germany and its allied. Also
Afro American soldiers fought for America overseas. European immigrants stayed out during
the war (1914-1918). Racism is ever-present and slavery is not even completely overcome.
1.2 New York Harlem
The area of Harlem is located in the North of Manhattan New York, USA. Between the first
Afro Americans who settled in Harlem as early as 1880 and the period of the Harlem Renaissance about 40 years later, proceeded a continual growth of the African American community
in Harlem. Till 1905 there were hardly any white renters for Harlem’s landlords properties, so
leading personalities in the real estate market argued in support of renting to Afro Americans.
This was the beginning of the population oft the first district dominated by African Americans. Some landlords even made up pacts not to deal with Afro American interested.
Between 1920 and 1930, 87,417 blacks arrived, bringing the total number of African Americans
to 164,566, with 25% of these being foreign-born. [1]
GANGS
OF
HARLEM
Today Harlem often is associated with crime and gang-affairs and as it is obviously more than
just a stereotype considering one of the highest crime rate of the world, gangs and leading
criminals ruled whole streets and the businesses on them. All in all it worked out because police often feared conflicts with Afro Americans, so gangs established their own understanding
of justice. Later outstanding rich and not less powerful bosses of former street-gangs made important investments into cultural venues in Harlem and consequently took part in the devel-
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opment of Harlem to become the place to go concerning entertainment for many people living
in New York and in America.
1.3 Comments with Dr. Haney
“Comments with Dr. James Haney” is an independent TV-production hosted by Dr. James
Haney informing about African American history. “Comments with Dr. James Haney” was
produced by a production company called Comments. Comments produced the show in Nashville, Tennessee with Dr. James Haney himself as executive producer. The whole production
based on a project for the Tennessee State University. Broadcasted via FOX, UPN and local
TV stations around Nashville, Tennessee, the show reached millions of people interested in
academic breakfast television. Dr. James Haney welcomed both, black and white guests to talk
on one particular topic each show. Comments shut down the production in 1998.
The for this essay relevant episode of “Comments with Dr. James Haney”, “The Harlem Renaissance”, features Dr. James Haney as host, Dr. Gloria C. Johnson as first, and Asst. Prof. Shelia Smith-McKoy as second guest to talk about The Harlem Renaissance within a 25 minutes
long interview. Dr. James Haney directs his guests in a way that lets them tell freely and detailed about each section he pretends in by his questions.
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2. BODY
2.1 The background
The Harlem Renaissance is regarded as the major and first cultural movement of African
Americans which took place in a period between 1917 and 1935 throughout the USA. This is
the timeframe Dr. Gloria C. Johnson sets clarifying that it was not a perfect decade as people
expect [2] because of certain publications till the late 1930s.
F RU S T R AT I O N
The actual movement developed through dissatisfaction and frustration in the Afro American
communities, years after liberation from slavery. Mass migration of “Southern Negroes”, as
they are designated in 1968’s “LIFE” Magazine about the Harlem Renaissance [3], to Northern
cities like New York and most of all the obvious isolation in ghettos, caused restiveness of
“black America” [3]. These former slaves were needed as workers in the booming war industry
between 1916 and 1918 to replace the workers that were expected to immigrate from Europe.
Because of the First World War the European laborer were absent and many Americans fought
overseas as allied power of Great Britain against Germany. So the mainly liberated African
American people felt put-upon again and been reminded of times of picking cotton as slaves
owned by an white American.
Returning Afro American soldiers from the battlefields of Central Europe had expectations of
beeing treated as full American citizens after they proved the existence of a African American
sentiment of patriotism by fighting for their country and in fact helped winning this war. By
this time black Nationalism developed in the communities of Harlem and all over the country.
As written, between 1920 and 1930, 87,417 blacks arrived and Harlem became overpopulated so
that good jobs were rare. A situation like that makes up the perfect breeding ground for organized criminality and social issues. And after all, gangs controlled many streets to take the law
into their own hands but on the other side the liberated Afro American inhabiters of Harlem
conceived a new, although very small, wealth in relation to the times of slavery. Cultural life developed and took place on a regular basis and even some nightclubs and theatres opened. The
Lincoln Theatre as one of its first and most important in Harlem has already been opened be-
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fore 1915 to become the original home of the Anita Bush Players, also known as the Anita Bush
All-Colored Dramatic Stock Company, a musical group directed by Anita Bush. One have to
become aware of that Afro Americans had still no access to any cultural venue around 1918 but
their own so such venues were important and essential to be presuppositions for a growing
need of experienced venues.
THE NEW NEGRO
M1
African American literature and other cultural works already existed while the time of slavery
but the cultural movement which doesn’t only reflect the pain of slavery and present racism
but also deals with the actual African American roots in Africa, started to come up from 1917
to 1920 in a somehow revolutionary way. As Asst. Prof. Shelia Smith-McKoy states, several
black riots took place in the summer of 1919 all over the country [4], known by the name “Red
Summer of Hate”. People became confident caused by the expressed expectations of returning
African American soldiers and civil rights activists like William Edward Burghardt Du Bois.
The New Negro, symbolic part of a new confident and patriotic black minority, was born. Relating to this development, The Harlem Renaissance is also known as the New Negro Move-
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9
ment which emphasizes the importance of the nationwide protests and accordingly it refers to
the new consciousness and the idea of the New Negro as a whole new mind that recollects the
African history. Of course the New Negro was also represented by the African American soldiers who came home from overseas and were looking for a way to become recognized as fullvalue citizens of the country that they’ve been fighting for.
Men displaying a shield with the slogan “THE NEW NEGRO HAS NO FEAR” (see figure
M1 ) captured at the U.N.I.A parade in Harlem in 1924 illustrates the confidence and in addition the noticeable attendance of uncountable Afro Americans at the sideway underlines the
relevance of this movement to the people of Harlem and all Afro Americans in America.
RACISM
All that took place during a time of brutal racism, although many states and especially the
Northern states were slave free but the African American roots were still not respected as an
established culture. This is the point where arts began to forge links between new demographic
groups like the New Negro and the established society of white Americans originally coming
from Europe. The major question several writers dealt with at the time around 1920 was
“where blackness fit in the American agenda” [5].
2.2 The term Harlem Renaissance
To understand the term Harlem Renaissance, one have to consider why it was a renaissance
and what was the actual role of Harlem, New York.
THE
IMPORTANCE OF
HARLEM
Dr. Gloria C. Johnson points out that Harlem indeed was the center of Afro American intellectual life in the 1920s but on the other side one have to be aware of the fact that the Renaissance took place all over the country. Sneering she quotes some writers of this time who
pointed out that only one of the writers actually came from New York which is meant hyperbolic to underline the variety of writers throughout the United States [6]. Special about Harlem was some kind of attitude towards life relating to the very small wealth and an unpredictable real estate situation which made people escape into cultural research and later on into poetry, Afro American history writings, especially early jazz-music which became popular through
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the returned black soldiers from the finished First World War, and other expressing arts like
painting. Harlem became the area to go when it came to culture, entertainment and variety for
many people in the New York area and beyond to finally pertain as the center of Afro
American culture for more than a decade.
Looked at that way, one can compare Harlem to the human heart with veins connected to it
and steady delivering new influences and creations to be consumed by a multi-racial audience
all over America and after all, all over the World in a lasting way.
E X P L A N AT I O N
OF THE TERM RENAISSANCE
Renaissance is another word for the term rebirth. In relation to the titles context, rebirth
stands for rekindling the flame of literature in Harlem. In the introduction of the shows topic,
Dr. Gloria C. Johnson approaches critics that claim the term Renaissance because there never
existed any literature before this time [7]. But as she states, there definitely existed African
American literature before the time of that disputed so called Renaissance and the upcoming
New Negro Movement. In keeping with a actual want of collaborating, writers came together
for the very first time in African American history to share ideas and to finally meet writers
they’ve corresponded to for years. This ability is the second and really important explanation
for using the term Renaissance.
2.3 Forerunners to the Harlem Renaissance
Years before Harlem Renaissance associated publications, the slave narratives as literary form
paved the way for later writers and poets. Slave narratives like the latest publications of Charles
W. Chesnutt, an white author who explored complex issues of racial and social identity have
been published in Great Britain and America. Another property, besides he wasn’t black, is his
grandfather who was a slaveholder. Anyway he self-identified as African American. In 1906
Charles W. Chesnutt published his last novel and actually the last publication of this kind at
the same time. Since then the literary activities related to slavery and African American awareness were no longer just an black issue, writers and poets of all races expressed their thoughts
by publishing historical or critical writings and poets.
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2.4 Collaboration
Before the time of the Harlem Renaissance and naturally while slavery no collaboration were
possible except the local and corresponding exchange of ideas and thoughts.
Even more impossible seems the idea of being supported by white mass media like magazines
and papers before changing initiatives by people like Regina M. Andrews. In 1924 an assistant
of the New York Public Library named Regina M. Andrews who was originally from Chicago
organized a dinner for young African American writers. She also managed a meeting of these
black writers who can be associated to the New Negro, with a number of white editors and
publishers. Indeed, some of them were truly impressed so that one of them published an entire
issue about “The New Negro”.
On the one hand, this meeting and its impact heralded the start of a long awaited development
which was the pubic acceptance of the New Negro movement as a serious business. In fact followed articles in magazines and papers pushed the prominence of Harlem as a place to go for
night-clubs and in general for cultural street life. At the other hand the first Afro American and
white cultural collaboration happened and served after all that as an example for other initiatives of this kind to work together.
2.5 Lengston Hughes
Lengston Hughes was one of the greatest poets during the Harlem Renaissance. He was born
in Missouri 1902. It says, he once took a train to Mexico after he finished school to visit his father (Lengston was raised by his grandmother). While he was on the train, he wrote the famous
and one of the first poems assigned to the Harlem Renaissance, published 1921.
THE
MOST INFLUENTIAL POET OF THE
RENAISSANCE
Today Lengston Hughes is deemed to be one of the most influential poet of The Harlem Renaissance. His publications gave African Americans hope and pride. His focus on the relations
to nature and soul made people strong when critics within the community and conservative
journalists attacked the movement as something evil, often blended by prejudice or dogma.
One of the first publications counted directly to the Harlem Renaissance is the great poem
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Lengston Hughes in 1921. This poem was published in
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NAACP’s (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1910)
magazine called Crisis which was an Afro American magazine edited by W.E.B. Du Bois.
“THE NEGRO SPEAKS
OF
RIVERS”
(
“I've known rivers:
!
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow
!
of human blood in human veins.
!
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
!
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
!
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
!
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
!
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went
!
down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn
!
all golden in the sunset.
!
I've known rivers:
!
Ancient, dusky rivers.
!
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
!
!
-”The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, Lengston Hughes (1921)
[8]
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” written by Lengston Hughes and published in 1921, is about the
black soul and historical pride. Each sentence starts with the word “I” which could be representative for a race. Talking about “rivers” and “human” let the poem seem wise like Biblical
passages. A river stands for blood in human veins. Imagery, these veins resemble the source to
ones ancestors. “My soul has grown deep like the rivers” (line 13) concludes that the African
American race have a sense of racial pride and a connection to life-giving, enduring forces in
nature.
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3 . CONCLUSION
3.1 Controversial issues
The most controversial issue academics and contemporary witnesses had, is among others the
question if the Renaissance was more an artistic or rather a pure racial and propagandistic
movement. In fact this is a serious question because if it really was a propagandistic movement
in the first way, books had to be rewritten, there are actually critical books though. In fact
there is a difference between the literal and cultural products of the Renaissance on one side
and the advancements concerning this new racial confidence while looking for place in the
white American society after slavery on the other side. The name “New Negro Movement”
covers the second aspect more than the creative aspect. Obviously the creative aspect seems to
be the most important combined with the fact that Harlem became a cultural centre in the
area of New York. The New Negro as a racial movement often is shown as an aspect worth less
than the cultural aspect. This and the African American emancipation that took place not until
many years later underlines the assumption that the American society only made use of the
new opportunities concerning new cultural horizons to adopt them like music and arts. The
call for equality was unsuccessful at that point.
For whatever reason critics even raised doubts concerning sexual topics. In 1993 Henry Louis
Gates Jr., an respected American literary critic, writer and educator stated that The Harlem
Renaissance “[...] was surely as gay as it was black, not that it was exclusively either of these.”.
And in fact, many of the leading writers of the Renaissance, Lengston Hughes included, were
homo- or bisexual. This became an extensive discussed issue in press and within the black
community.
3.2 Effects on today
Afro Americans still belong to the major American minorities like Latinos and Arabians or at
least they are shown as a minority, fully emancipated though but there are definitely cultural
achievements.
Afro American culture transformed to a suitable format for the masses and Jazz and Soul-based
Hip-Hop is everywhere as mentioned in Comments with Dr. Haney. Even white artists are re-
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spected within the black community and the other way around. Concerning Hip-Hop there are
very much parallels to the New Negro as a movement resulting of ghettoisation and finding of
cultural roots.
“HARLEM RENAISSANCE”
BY
IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE
An Hip-Hop artist called Immortal Technique from Harlem published a track about the Harlem Renaissance on his latest album which sold close to 300,000 units. Immortal Technique is
not signed to a major label like Universal or Capital. He is independent like most of the HipHop artists creating music one can relate to revolutionary times like the Harlem Renaissance
without embarrassing oneself. This track is an example for many more of its kind.
!
“We had revolution, music and artisans
!
But the movement was still fucked up like Parkinson's
!
Cause while we were givin birth to the culture we love
!
Prejudice, kept our own people out of the club
!
Only colored celebrities in the party (fake nigga!)
!
And left us a legacy of false superiority
!
W. E. B. Du Bois versus Marcus Garvey
!
And we ended up, sellin out to everybody
!
The Dutch {?} and the John Gotti's
!
Banksters, modern day gangsters, immobile army
!
They wanna move us all out the N.Y.C.
!
Like they did to the Jews with the Alhambra decree
!
So support your own businesses and do the knowledge
!
Cause the real Harlem Renaissance is economic
!
[...]
!
(chorus:) Harlem Renaissance, a revolution betrayed
!
Modern day slaves thinkin that the ghetto is saved
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15
!
Til they start deportin people off the property
!
Ethnically cleansin the hood, economically
!
They wanna kill the real Harlem Renaissance
!
Tryin to put the Virgin Mary through a early menopause
!
The savior is a metaphor for how we set it off
!
Guerrilla war against the re-zoning predators
!
[...]
!
(voice sample:) When they were saying it is the renaissance, of Harlem
!
they didn't mean, that we had stake in that
!
They meant to say that they could make money out of us
!
/ They are coming in with all kind of prejudices
!
In Brooklyn they're doing the same thing
!
In, um, Queens they're doing the same thing; the Bronx
!
There's hardly any place which is affordable
!
I mean these people are putting up condominiums
!
which start from a million dollars
!
How many people in this community make that kind of money?
!
How many people have that kind of money?
!
/ People of Harlem, they are the natural allies of the oppressed people
!
of the world, whether the struggle is in Panama, in Africa, Cuba
!
[...]"
!
!
-”Harlem Renaissance”, Immortal Technique (2008)
[9]
In this track Immortal Technique claims the so called “sell out”, a phrase often used by Rap
artists which equals the meaning of treason. The economic factor of the Harlem Renaissance
and the cultural conditions today make him angry and warn for, exaggerated, the deportation.
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B I B L IOGRAPHY
[n] Author, “Title” Page (time)
[1] Sabiyha Prince, “Class, race, and Harlem's professional
workers” Page 22
[2] Comments (ca. 03:40)
[3] Unknown editor, “LIFE” Magazine Page 97 ff (Dec.
1968)
[4] Comments (ca. 08:20)
[5] Paula S. Rothenberg ,“Race, class, and gender in the
United States: an integrated study” Page 152
[6] Comments (ca. 04:30)
[7] Comments (ca. 04:45)
[8] Lengston Hughes (published by Dudley Randall), “The
black Poets” Page 78
[9] Immortal Technique ((c)2008 Viper Records), “Harlem
Renaissance” (from the album “3rd World”)
M1) Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32912172@N00/2420780908
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