Laila Haidarali
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479875108
- eISBN:
- 9781479865499
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479875108.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter explores a selection of writings of thirteen poets who all published in important middle-class literary journals of the Harlem Renaissance. Their works appeared in the Crisis, Messenger, ...
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This chapter explores a selection of writings of thirteen poets who all published in important middle-class literary journals of the Harlem Renaissance. Their works appeared in the Crisis, Messenger, and Opportunity, as well as in major anthologies of the era. Together, they present compelling collective expression of the frustrations, expectations, and desires of modern African American womanhood. Neither a collective movement nor an explicitly designed political expression, this range of women’s verse nonetheless showcases the contested gender politics of the era. Women’s poetry celebrated and critiqued the role of complexion in general, and brownness in particular, in determinations of women’s beauty, social worth, and sexual respectability.Less
This chapter explores a selection of writings of thirteen poets who all published in important middle-class literary journals of the Harlem Renaissance. Their works appeared in the Crisis, Messenger, and Opportunity, as well as in major anthologies of the era. Together, they present compelling collective expression of the frustrations, expectations, and desires of modern African American womanhood. Neither a collective movement nor an explicitly designed political expression, this range of women’s verse nonetheless showcases the contested gender politics of the era. Women’s poetry celebrated and critiqued the role of complexion in general, and brownness in particular, in determinations of women’s beauty, social worth, and sexual respectability.
Catherine Parsons Smith
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520215429
- eISBN:
- 9780520921573
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520215429.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter describes the relationship between Still's work and the Harlem Renaissance. It studies three style periods of Still's concert music, namely “Ultra-Modern”, “racial”, and “universal.” ...
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This chapter describes the relationship between Still's work and the Harlem Renaissance. It studies three style periods of Still's concert music, namely “Ultra-Modern”, “racial”, and “universal.” This chapter uses the connection between the Harlem Renaissance and modernism to explain Still's position in American music.Less
This chapter describes the relationship between Still's work and the Harlem Renaissance. It studies three style periods of Still's concert music, namely “Ultra-Modern”, “racial”, and “universal.” This chapter uses the connection between the Harlem Renaissance and modernism to explain Still's position in American music.
William J. Maxwell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691130200
- eISBN:
- 9781400852062
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691130200.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This part aims to add depth and detail to less-familiar portraits of Hoover as a young militant, and to establish the character of the also young law enforcement agency he joined in the wake of World ...
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This part aims to add depth and detail to less-familiar portraits of Hoover as a young militant, and to establish the character of the also young law enforcement agency he joined in the wake of World War I. Explaining why Hoover and the Bureau began to pursue African American writing, it presents the first of five theses: namely, The birth of the Bureau, coupled with the birth of J. Edgar Hoover, ensured the FBI's attention to African American literature. Section 1 recounts how the pre-Hoover Bureau emerged amid the social divisions of early twentieth-century America, and how it cultivated both literary publicity and public anti-New Negroism to whet an undivided national appetite for federal policing. Section 2 examines how the pre-Bureau Hoover managed his surprising familiarity with Afro-America. Section 3 establishes that with Hoover's hiring by the Bureau during the first Red Scare and the dawn of Harlem's cultural rebirth, the FBI's racial and literary preoccupations only deepened. Under Hoover's watch, the earliest Harlem Renaissance writing became the common passion of Bureau anti-New Negroism and “lit.-cop federalism,” the latter defined as the effort to inject a compelling federal police presence into the U.S. print public sphere.Less
This part aims to add depth and detail to less-familiar portraits of Hoover as a young militant, and to establish the character of the also young law enforcement agency he joined in the wake of World War I. Explaining why Hoover and the Bureau began to pursue African American writing, it presents the first of five theses: namely, The birth of the Bureau, coupled with the birth of J. Edgar Hoover, ensured the FBI's attention to African American literature. Section 1 recounts how the pre-Hoover Bureau emerged amid the social divisions of early twentieth-century America, and how it cultivated both literary publicity and public anti-New Negroism to whet an undivided national appetite for federal policing. Section 2 examines how the pre-Bureau Hoover managed his surprising familiarity with Afro-America. Section 3 establishes that with Hoover's hiring by the Bureau during the first Red Scare and the dawn of Harlem's cultural rebirth, the FBI's racial and literary preoccupations only deepened. Under Hoover's watch, the earliest Harlem Renaissance writing became the common passion of Bureau anti-New Negroism and “lit.-cop federalism,” the latter defined as the effort to inject a compelling federal police presence into the U.S. print public sphere.
Jenny Woodley
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813145167
- eISBN:
- 9780813145471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813145167.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter explores the NAACP's response to black art and literature during the 1910s and 1920s. This was the era of the Harlem Renaissance, an explosion of black artistic creativity. It was also a ...
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This chapter explores the NAACP's response to black art and literature during the 1910s and 1920s. This was the era of the Harlem Renaissance, an explosion of black artistic creativity. It was also a time when the nature and purpose of that creativity were much debated. James Weldon Johnson and W. E. B. Du Bois in particular had much to say about the role of the arts and, in the case of the latter, about the relationship between art and propaganda. The NAACP could be criticized for overstating the importance and value of art and literature to ordinary African Americans, but it was not alone in hoping that a demonstration of black artistic talent could begin to chip away at racial prejudice.Less
This chapter explores the NAACP's response to black art and literature during the 1910s and 1920s. This was the era of the Harlem Renaissance, an explosion of black artistic creativity. It was also a time when the nature and purpose of that creativity were much debated. James Weldon Johnson and W. E. B. Du Bois in particular had much to say about the role of the arts and, in the case of the latter, about the relationship between art and propaganda. The NAACP could be criticized for overstating the importance and value of art and literature to ordinary African Americans, but it was not alone in hoping that a demonstration of black artistic talent could begin to chip away at racial prejudice.
John Lowney
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041334
- eISBN:
- 9780252099939
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041334.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The first chapter concentrates on the fiction of Claude McKay, which explicitly locates jazz expression within intellectual debates about black internationalism. Beginning with consideration of ...
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The first chapter concentrates on the fiction of Claude McKay, which explicitly locates jazz expression within intellectual debates about black internationalism. Beginning with consideration of McKay’s Marxist theorizing of black music, this chapter emphasizes the cultural politics of McKay’s first novel, Home to Harlem, which represents “Jazz Age” Harlem as a site of African diasporic interculturalism. Banjo, which had an enormous influence on the Francophone négritude movement in West Africa and the Caribbean, similarly defines Marseilles as an international site of displaced black migrant workers whose common language is the blues and jazz. As novels that reconsider the cultural politics of the Harlem Renaissance from a radical black internationalist perspective, Home to Harlem and Banjo interrogate the commercialization of black cultural expression as they explore the critical possibilities of jazz for the marginalized perspectives of black workers, including cultural workers.Less
The first chapter concentrates on the fiction of Claude McKay, which explicitly locates jazz expression within intellectual debates about black internationalism. Beginning with consideration of McKay’s Marxist theorizing of black music, this chapter emphasizes the cultural politics of McKay’s first novel, Home to Harlem, which represents “Jazz Age” Harlem as a site of African diasporic interculturalism. Banjo, which had an enormous influence on the Francophone négritude movement in West Africa and the Caribbean, similarly defines Marseilles as an international site of displaced black migrant workers whose common language is the blues and jazz. As novels that reconsider the cultural politics of the Harlem Renaissance from a radical black internationalist perspective, Home to Harlem and Banjo interrogate the commercialization of black cultural expression as they explore the critical possibilities of jazz for the marginalized perspectives of black workers, including cultural workers.
Jeffrey Magee
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195090222
- eISBN:
- 9780199871469
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195090222.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Henderson came to New York City in 1920 on the threshold of the Harlem Renaissance, an era in which the “New Negro”, as defined by writer Alain Locke, would create a new era of African American ...
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Henderson came to New York City in 1920 on the threshold of the Harlem Renaissance, an era in which the “New Negro”, as defined by writer Alain Locke, would create a new era of African American history through education and sophisticated new works in the arts and culture. Henderson's education and middle-class background reflect the values of his father, an educator and church official widely known in Georgia. Atlanta University, from which Henderson graduated in 1920, further shaped his values and helped him establish connections. Henderson moved to New York later that year, as cultural change engendered new opportunities for African Americans. Henderson's initial forays into the New York music world included plugging songs for W. C. Handy and Harry Pace, serving as music director for the race record label Black Swan, and recording and touring with blues singer Ethel Waters. The latter two experiences led Henderson closer to jazz, as he made many recordings accompanying the most popular blues singers, and as he became associated with musicians who would serve as his sidemen in future bands.Less
Henderson came to New York City in 1920 on the threshold of the Harlem Renaissance, an era in which the “New Negro”, as defined by writer Alain Locke, would create a new era of African American history through education and sophisticated new works in the arts and culture. Henderson's education and middle-class background reflect the values of his father, an educator and church official widely known in Georgia. Atlanta University, from which Henderson graduated in 1920, further shaped his values and helped him establish connections. Henderson moved to New York later that year, as cultural change engendered new opportunities for African Americans. Henderson's initial forays into the New York music world included plugging songs for W. C. Handy and Harry Pace, serving as music director for the race record label Black Swan, and recording and touring with blues singer Ethel Waters. The latter two experiences led Henderson closer to jazz, as he made many recordings accompanying the most popular blues singers, and as he became associated with musicians who would serve as his sidemen in future bands.
Laila Haidarali
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479875108
- eISBN:
- 9781479865499
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479875108.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter explores three brown-skin types that arose as a dynamic visual and literary repertoire in Harlem Renaissance print culture. The first image of the “brown Madonna” is studied as one ...
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This chapter explores three brown-skin types that arose as a dynamic visual and literary repertoire in Harlem Renaissance print culture. The first image of the “brown Madonna” is studied as one representation at odds with modern gendered identities; the second trope, the “brown-skin mulatta,” is studied as a popular device that conveyed a series of anxious distortions onto the “mixed-race” body. Lastly, the more nuanced and diverse image of modern brown womanhood appears as an uneven eruption of class, race, and national identifiers of African-descended and “other” women of color not born in the United States. All three tropes are interpreted as separate and distinctly powerful manifestations of New Negro womanhood to highlight the differently sexed, classed, and gendered meanings accorded to brown complexions in the modern environment.Less
This chapter explores three brown-skin types that arose as a dynamic visual and literary repertoire in Harlem Renaissance print culture. The first image of the “brown Madonna” is studied as one representation at odds with modern gendered identities; the second trope, the “brown-skin mulatta,” is studied as a popular device that conveyed a series of anxious distortions onto the “mixed-race” body. Lastly, the more nuanced and diverse image of modern brown womanhood appears as an uneven eruption of class, race, and national identifiers of African-descended and “other” women of color not born in the United States. All three tropes are interpreted as separate and distinctly powerful manifestations of New Negro womanhood to highlight the differently sexed, classed, and gendered meanings accorded to brown complexions in the modern environment.
Jeffrey Magee
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195090222
- eISBN:
- 9780199871469
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195090222.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
If Benny Goodman was the “King of Swing”, then Fletcher Henderson might be considered the power behind the throne. Not only did Henderson arrange the music that fueled Goodman's success, he also ...
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If Benny Goodman was the “King of Swing”, then Fletcher Henderson might be considered the power behind the throne. Not only did Henderson arrange the music that fueled Goodman's success, he also helped to launch the careers of several other key figures in jazz history, including Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins, and their work, in turn, shaped Henderson's. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, including sound recordings, stock arrangements, and score manuscripts available only since Goodman's death, this book traces Henderson's life and work from his youth in the deep South, to his early work as a New York bandleader, to his pivotal role in building the Kingdom of Swing. Henderson, standing at the forefront of the New York jazz scene in the 1920s and 1930s, assembled many of the era's best musicians, forging a distinctive jazz style within the stylistic framework of popular song and dance music. Henderson's style grew out of collaboration with many key players. It also grew out of a deft combination of written and improvised music, of commercial and artistic impulses, and of racial cooperation and competition, and thus stands as an exemplar of musical activity in the Harlem Renaissance. As Henderson's career stalled in the midst of the Depression, record producer John Hammond brought together Henderson and Goodman in a fortuitous collaboration that shaped the history of American music.Less
If Benny Goodman was the “King of Swing”, then Fletcher Henderson might be considered the power behind the throne. Not only did Henderson arrange the music that fueled Goodman's success, he also helped to launch the careers of several other key figures in jazz history, including Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins, and their work, in turn, shaped Henderson's. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, including sound recordings, stock arrangements, and score manuscripts available only since Goodman's death, this book traces Henderson's life and work from his youth in the deep South, to his early work as a New York bandleader, to his pivotal role in building the Kingdom of Swing. Henderson, standing at the forefront of the New York jazz scene in the 1920s and 1930s, assembled many of the era's best musicians, forging a distinctive jazz style within the stylistic framework of popular song and dance music. Henderson's style grew out of collaboration with many key players. It also grew out of a deft combination of written and improvised music, of commercial and artistic impulses, and of racial cooperation and competition, and thus stands as an exemplar of musical activity in the Harlem Renaissance. As Henderson's career stalled in the midst of the Depression, record producer John Hammond brought together Henderson and Goodman in a fortuitous collaboration that shaped the history of American music.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226317762
- eISBN:
- 9780226317809
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226317809.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter explores the Renaissance and, as far as Alain L. Locke was concerned, the New Negro Movement. Many others often called it the Harlem Renaissance, although some felt this neglected ...
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This chapter explores the Renaissance and, as far as Alain L. Locke was concerned, the New Negro Movement. Many others often called it the Harlem Renaissance, although some felt this neglected Chicago, Detroit, and other cities that saw cultural ferment in the 1920s. However, even Locke himself referred to it as the Renaissance on occasion. The terminological debate reflected some of the mixed opinions and conflicting commentaries that the movement elicited. Such a broad spectrum of opinion cast doubt on whether it even constituted a movement. Using his wry sense of self-presentation, Locke later called himself the “midwife” of the new attitudes and expressions that hearkened not only to the “new” culture but to a wider, more engaged sense of group identity. His philosophical bent and temperament led him, early and late, to ponder the issues of group identity and cultural legitimation in polemical and analytic terms.Less
This chapter explores the Renaissance and, as far as Alain L. Locke was concerned, the New Negro Movement. Many others often called it the Harlem Renaissance, although some felt this neglected Chicago, Detroit, and other cities that saw cultural ferment in the 1920s. However, even Locke himself referred to it as the Renaissance on occasion. The terminological debate reflected some of the mixed opinions and conflicting commentaries that the movement elicited. Such a broad spectrum of opinion cast doubt on whether it even constituted a movement. Using his wry sense of self-presentation, Locke later called himself the “midwife” of the new attitudes and expressions that hearkened not only to the “new” culture but to a wider, more engaged sense of group identity. His philosophical bent and temperament led him, early and late, to ponder the issues of group identity and cultural legitimation in polemical and analytic terms.
Meredith L. Goldsmith
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813056043
- eISBN:
- 9780813053813
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056043.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Chapter 8 responds to two prevailing arguments about the fiction of Jessie Fauset—the one labeling her work retrograde, the other regarding it as subtly subversive—by viewing the writer’s work as ...
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Chapter 8 responds to two prevailing arguments about the fiction of Jessie Fauset—the one labeling her work retrograde, the other regarding it as subtly subversive—by viewing the writer’s work as part of a history of long nineteenth-century representation. Countering the dominant perception of the Harlem Renaissance as a break from the past—a view that has shunted Fauset’s work to the sidelines—the essay argues that Fauset’s work explores the legacy of late-nineteenth-century US culture in the emergent modernity of the early twentieth century. Excavating the literary, cultural, and scientific tropes of feminine representation that burst from the pages of Fauset’s fiction, the essay identifies a recent literary past that informs Fauset’s constructions of her modern urban heroines.Less
Chapter 8 responds to two prevailing arguments about the fiction of Jessie Fauset—the one labeling her work retrograde, the other regarding it as subtly subversive—by viewing the writer’s work as part of a history of long nineteenth-century representation. Countering the dominant perception of the Harlem Renaissance as a break from the past—a view that has shunted Fauset’s work to the sidelines—the essay argues that Fauset’s work explores the legacy of late-nineteenth-century US culture in the emergent modernity of the early twentieth century. Excavating the literary, cultural, and scientific tropes of feminine representation that burst from the pages of Fauset’s fiction, the essay identifies a recent literary past that informs Fauset’s constructions of her modern urban heroines.
Amy C. Steinbugler
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199743551
- eISBN:
- 9780199979370
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199743551.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter provides a context for analyzing contemporary interracial narratives by offering a brief social history of heterosexual and same-sex interracial intimacy. This history begins with the ...
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This chapter provides a context for analyzing contemporary interracial narratives by offering a brief social history of heterosexual and same-sex interracial intimacy. This history begins with the early antimiscegenation laws in Virginia and Maryland. It describes the double standard embodied in these laws that effectively outlawed “fornication” and marriage between Black men and White women, even as White men engaged in widespread rape of enslaved Black women. Sex between White men and Black women increased the former’s power, status, and property, while sex between Black men and White women often resulted in brutal beatings or lynchings. Interracial intimacy remained exceedingly rare after the Civil War, especially in the Jim Crow South. The chapter continues by examining early records of same-sex interraciality at the end of the nineteenth century. It discusses interracial sex and sociability during the Harlem Renaissance, a period when “slumming” came into vogue and White patrons crossed segregated cityscapes to visit Harlem nightclubs and speakeasies. The chapter then describes the bar and rent-party scene among gays and lesbians in the early-to-mid-twentieth century and concludes with a brief discussion of the legal case Loving v. Virginia in 1967.Less
This chapter provides a context for analyzing contemporary interracial narratives by offering a brief social history of heterosexual and same-sex interracial intimacy. This history begins with the early antimiscegenation laws in Virginia and Maryland. It describes the double standard embodied in these laws that effectively outlawed “fornication” and marriage between Black men and White women, even as White men engaged in widespread rape of enslaved Black women. Sex between White men and Black women increased the former’s power, status, and property, while sex between Black men and White women often resulted in brutal beatings or lynchings. Interracial intimacy remained exceedingly rare after the Civil War, especially in the Jim Crow South. The chapter continues by examining early records of same-sex interraciality at the end of the nineteenth century. It discusses interracial sex and sociability during the Harlem Renaissance, a period when “slumming” came into vogue and White patrons crossed segregated cityscapes to visit Harlem nightclubs and speakeasies. The chapter then describes the bar and rent-party scene among gays and lesbians in the early-to-mid-twentieth century and concludes with a brief discussion of the legal case Loving v. Virginia in 1967.
Frank Andre Guridy
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807833612
- eISBN:
- 9781469604060
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807895979_guridy.7
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter continues the theme of cross-cultural interaction by underscoring the role of promoters and audiences in the forging of the connections between the Harlem Renaissance and the ...
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This chapter continues the theme of cross-cultural interaction by underscoring the role of promoters and audiences in the forging of the connections between the Harlem Renaissance and the afrocubanismo movement. It notes that writers, musicians, and artists took up previously denigrated cultural forms, in both Cuba and the United States, such as the blues, spirituals, rumba, and the son, to create a new diasporic cultural aesthetic. The chapter interprets the immense traffic between these cultural movements as evidence of diasporization, rather than as mere background information for two distinct national movements. It notes that even when the writers and artists themselves denied or downplayed these cultural exchanges, the audiences and promoters of their work actively linked the two movements together. The chapter observes that the interactions between promoters, audiences, and artists inaugurated new understandings of Afro-diasporic cultures that celebrated, rather than rejected, the expressive cultures of the black working classes in both countries.Less
This chapter continues the theme of cross-cultural interaction by underscoring the role of promoters and audiences in the forging of the connections between the Harlem Renaissance and the afrocubanismo movement. It notes that writers, musicians, and artists took up previously denigrated cultural forms, in both Cuba and the United States, such as the blues, spirituals, rumba, and the son, to create a new diasporic cultural aesthetic. The chapter interprets the immense traffic between these cultural movements as evidence of diasporization, rather than as mere background information for two distinct national movements. It notes that even when the writers and artists themselves denied or downplayed these cultural exchanges, the audiences and promoters of their work actively linked the two movements together. The chapter observes that the interactions between promoters, audiences, and artists inaugurated new understandings of Afro-diasporic cultures that celebrated, rather than rejected, the expressive cultures of the black working classes in both countries.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226550350
- eISBN:
- 9780226550374
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226550374.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines how and why the numbers racket (or policy) became one of the most definitive features of black Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. It explains that the heyday of the Harlem ...
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This chapter examines how and why the numbers racket (or policy) became one of the most definitive features of black Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. It explains that the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance was also the golden age of the black gangster and that black gangster enterprise held powerful significance among African Americans as an emulative modern cultural practice. The chapter also considers folklorist insights about the so-called ill-logic of the black badman in relation to the struggle against racial subordination to the space and time of the city.Less
This chapter examines how and why the numbers racket (or policy) became one of the most definitive features of black Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. It explains that the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance was also the golden age of the black gangster and that black gangster enterprise held powerful significance among African Americans as an emulative modern cultural practice. The chapter also considers folklorist insights about the so-called ill-logic of the black badman in relation to the struggle against racial subordination to the space and time of the city.
James Donald
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199354016
- eISBN:
- 9780199354047
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199354016.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter provides the context in which to understand Paul Robeson’s reception in Europe as both “American” and “black,” showing how the interaction between the two terms defined his intellectual, ...
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This chapter provides the context in which to understand Paul Robeson’s reception in Europe as both “American” and “black,” showing how the interaction between the two terms defined his intellectual, artistic, and professional formation in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. It traces Robeson’s self-invention as a performer, a singer, an actor, and an exemplary “race man,” and it uses Oscar Micheaux’s treatment of Robeson in the 1925 film Body and Soul to show how his participation in controversial shows like Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones (1925) and Jerome Kern’s musical Show Boat (1927) led to a degree of ambivalence among Harlem audiences. Also discussed are the intellectual and political determinants of the Harlem Renaissance; key figures such as Alain Locke, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Carl Van Vechten; the movement’s interracial dynamics and internationalism; Robeson’s preference for concert recitals of spirituals and folk songs and his skepticism about jazz.Less
This chapter provides the context in which to understand Paul Robeson’s reception in Europe as both “American” and “black,” showing how the interaction between the two terms defined his intellectual, artistic, and professional formation in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. It traces Robeson’s self-invention as a performer, a singer, an actor, and an exemplary “race man,” and it uses Oscar Micheaux’s treatment of Robeson in the 1925 film Body and Soul to show how his participation in controversial shows like Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones (1925) and Jerome Kern’s musical Show Boat (1927) led to a degree of ambivalence among Harlem audiences. Also discussed are the intellectual and political determinants of the Harlem Renaissance; key figures such as Alain Locke, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Carl Van Vechten; the movement’s interracial dynamics and internationalism; Robeson’s preference for concert recitals of spirituals and folk songs and his skepticism about jazz.
Zita Nunes
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195385342
- eISBN:
- 9780190252779
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195385342.003.0028
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter focuses on American novels written during the Harlem Renaissance, a period of unprecedented artistic production spanning the early 1920s and the mid-1930s. Also known as the Negro ...
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This chapter focuses on American novels written during the Harlem Renaissance, a period of unprecedented artistic production spanning the early 1920s and the mid-1930s. Also known as the Negro Renaissance, the Harlem Renaissance coincided with the New Negro Movement in which art and culture became the primary medium for black writers, artists, and intellectuals to counter racism and to advocate social and political change. The chapter explores how Harlem Renaissance novels offered representations of black people using new technologies such as photography, film, and recordings. It also considers the Harlem Renaissance novel's depictions of sex and sexuality, along with the genres with which Harlem Renaissance writers experimented, including science fiction and detective fiction. Finally, the chapter looks at a number of Harlem Renaissance novels, including Carl Van Vechten's Nigger Heaven (1926), Rudolph Fisher's The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem (1932), Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), W.E.B. Du Bois's Dark Princess (1928), Wallace Thurman's Infants of the Spring (1932), and Countee Cullen's One Way to Heaven (1932).Less
This chapter focuses on American novels written during the Harlem Renaissance, a period of unprecedented artistic production spanning the early 1920s and the mid-1930s. Also known as the Negro Renaissance, the Harlem Renaissance coincided with the New Negro Movement in which art and culture became the primary medium for black writers, artists, and intellectuals to counter racism and to advocate social and political change. The chapter explores how Harlem Renaissance novels offered representations of black people using new technologies such as photography, film, and recordings. It also considers the Harlem Renaissance novel's depictions of sex and sexuality, along with the genres with which Harlem Renaissance writers experimented, including science fiction and detective fiction. Finally, the chapter looks at a number of Harlem Renaissance novels, including Carl Van Vechten's Nigger Heaven (1926), Rudolph Fisher's The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem (1932), Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), W.E.B. Du Bois's Dark Princess (1928), Wallace Thurman's Infants of the Spring (1932), and Countee Cullen's One Way to Heaven (1932).
T. Austin Graham
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199862115
- eISBN:
- 9780199332748
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199862115.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter explores the notion of a sung poetics in relation to race, turning to Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, and other poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Here, twentieth-century African-American ...
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This chapter explores the notion of a sung poetics in relation to race, turning to Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, and other poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Here, twentieth-century African-American verse forms are studied alongside the slave spirituals, folk songs, and blues that they so frequently saluted and emulated. Toomer and Hughes, however, are shown to be using black music not just in the service of racial affirmation (as is commonly assumed) but also as a means of complicating the very idea of racial categorization. At the time of their publication, both men's works relied on musical forms that could be recognized and sung by readers of various ethnic backgrounds, spirituals in the case of Toomer and blues in the case of Hughes. The musicality and performability of both men's texts, moreover, serve to promote interracial empathy and elide racial difference: for readers and writers of this literary tradition, to sing a race's music through the medium of poetry is to be made to identify with that race.Less
This chapter explores the notion of a sung poetics in relation to race, turning to Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, and other poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Here, twentieth-century African-American verse forms are studied alongside the slave spirituals, folk songs, and blues that they so frequently saluted and emulated. Toomer and Hughes, however, are shown to be using black music not just in the service of racial affirmation (as is commonly assumed) but also as a means of complicating the very idea of racial categorization. At the time of their publication, both men's works relied on musical forms that could be recognized and sung by readers of various ethnic backgrounds, spirituals in the case of Toomer and blues in the case of Hughes. The musicality and performability of both men's texts, moreover, serve to promote interracial empathy and elide racial difference: for readers and writers of this literary tradition, to sing a race's music through the medium of poetry is to be made to identify with that race.
Ethelene Whitmire
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038501
- eISBN:
- 9780252096419
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038501.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter looks at how Regina became part of the Harlem Renaissance upon her arrival in New York City. Events collided to put Regina at the forefront of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement ...
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This chapter looks at how Regina became part of the Harlem Renaissance upon her arrival in New York City. Events collided to put Regina at the forefront of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement marked by increased literary, musical, and artistic creativity by African American artists who wanted to challenge the prevailing stereotypical representation of their image. Writers and artists came from all over the United States to participate. In Los Angeles, writer Wallace Thurman encouraged fellow post-office worker Arna Bontemps to go to Harlem. Opportunity editor Charles S. Johnson encouraged Zora Neale Hurston to move to New York City. All of these great thinkers, writers, and artists would pass through the 135th Street Branch, where Regina was assigned.Less
This chapter looks at how Regina became part of the Harlem Renaissance upon her arrival in New York City. Events collided to put Regina at the forefront of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement marked by increased literary, musical, and artistic creativity by African American artists who wanted to challenge the prevailing stereotypical representation of their image. Writers and artists came from all over the United States to participate. In Los Angeles, writer Wallace Thurman encouraged fellow post-office worker Arna Bontemps to go to Harlem. Opportunity editor Charles S. Johnson encouraged Zora Neale Hurston to move to New York City. All of these great thinkers, writers, and artists would pass through the 135th Street Branch, where Regina was assigned.
Davarian L. Baldwin
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816677382
- eISBN:
- 9781452947877
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816677382.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book investigates the Harlem Renaissance in the United States from a new vantage point in an attempt to challenge and expand our understanding of the New Negro experience. Alongside a wider ...
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This book investigates the Harlem Renaissance in the United States from a new vantage point in an attempt to challenge and expand our understanding of the New Negro experience. Alongside a wider array of cultural expressions, this book argues that the New Negro experience was just one nodal point within a dynamic and uneven circuit of black internationalism. In offering a more comprehensive vision of the New Negro experience, it elucidates what we identify as a global modernity by focusing on the relationship between industry and empire, migration and social movements, and cultural renaissance and mass consumption in the early twentieth century. It decenters Harlem, both as a physical space and as the model for an appropriate “renaissance,” and instead highlights both its geographical and expressive reach beyond New York, beyond national boundaries, across broader fields of activity, and through unconventional modes of cultural expression.Less
This book investigates the Harlem Renaissance in the United States from a new vantage point in an attempt to challenge and expand our understanding of the New Negro experience. Alongside a wider array of cultural expressions, this book argues that the New Negro experience was just one nodal point within a dynamic and uneven circuit of black internationalism. In offering a more comprehensive vision of the New Negro experience, it elucidates what we identify as a global modernity by focusing on the relationship between industry and empire, migration and social movements, and cultural renaissance and mass consumption in the early twentieth century. It decenters Harlem, both as a physical space and as the model for an appropriate “renaissance,” and instead highlights both its geographical and expressive reach beyond New York, beyond national boundaries, across broader fields of activity, and through unconventional modes of cultural expression.
James Smethurst
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834633
- eISBN:
- 9781469603100
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807878088_smethurst
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The period between 1880 and 1918, at the end of which Jim Crow was firmly established and the Great Migration of African Americans was well under way, was not the nadir for black culture, the author ...
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The period between 1880 and 1918, at the end of which Jim Crow was firmly established and the Great Migration of African Americans was well under way, was not the nadir for black culture, the author of this book reveals, but instead a time of profound response from African American intellectuals. The book explores how the Jim Crow system triggered significant artistic and intellectual responses from African American writers, deeply marking the beginnings of literary modernism and, ultimately, notions of American modernity. In identifying the Jim Crow period with the coming of modernity, the author upsets the customary assessment of the Harlem Renaissance as the first nationally significant black arts movement, showing how artists reacted to Jim Crow with migration narratives, poetry about the black experience, black performance of popular culture forms, and more. He introduces a whole cast of characters, including understudied figures such as William Stanley Braithwaite and Fenton Johnson, and more familiar authors such as Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, and James Weldon Johnson. By considering the legacy of writers and artists active between the end of Reconstruction and the rise of the Harlem Renaissance, the author illuminates their influence on the black and white U.S. modernists who followed.Less
The period between 1880 and 1918, at the end of which Jim Crow was firmly established and the Great Migration of African Americans was well under way, was not the nadir for black culture, the author of this book reveals, but instead a time of profound response from African American intellectuals. The book explores how the Jim Crow system triggered significant artistic and intellectual responses from African American writers, deeply marking the beginnings of literary modernism and, ultimately, notions of American modernity. In identifying the Jim Crow period with the coming of modernity, the author upsets the customary assessment of the Harlem Renaissance as the first nationally significant black arts movement, showing how artists reacted to Jim Crow with migration narratives, poetry about the black experience, black performance of popular culture forms, and more. He introduces a whole cast of characters, including understudied figures such as William Stanley Braithwaite and Fenton Johnson, and more familiar authors such as Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, and James Weldon Johnson. By considering the legacy of writers and artists active between the end of Reconstruction and the rise of the Harlem Renaissance, the author illuminates their influence on the black and white U.S. modernists who followed.
Thabiti Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816677382
- eISBN:
- 9781452947877
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816677382.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter offers a reading of Claude McKay’s 1928 novel Home to Harlem, focusing on the predominately masculine lens through which he explores the variety and scope of black urban diasporic ...
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This chapter offers a reading of Claude McKay’s 1928 novel Home to Harlem, focusing on the predominately masculine lens through which he explores the variety and scope of black urban diasporic life—its global and multiregional perspectives. It considers Home to Harlem as a literary depiction of the reality of an expansive African diaspora in the early twentieth century. In depicting black life and notions of community in 1920s black America, McKay examines the wonder, excitement, and limits of Harlem through recognition of alternative locations where black community thrived. His complicated and primarily masculinist presentation of modern industrial life utilizes proletarian characters that highlight the divergent diasporic routes of the New Negro reality and the Harlem Renaissance.Less
This chapter offers a reading of Claude McKay’s 1928 novel Home to Harlem, focusing on the predominately masculine lens through which he explores the variety and scope of black urban diasporic life—its global and multiregional perspectives. It considers Home to Harlem as a literary depiction of the reality of an expansive African diaspora in the early twentieth century. In depicting black life and notions of community in 1920s black America, McKay examines the wonder, excitement, and limits of Harlem through recognition of alternative locations where black community thrived. His complicated and primarily masculinist presentation of modern industrial life utilizes proletarian characters that highlight the divergent diasporic routes of the New Negro reality and the Harlem Renaissance.