Black Rhapsody

Writer Zora Neal Hurston -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural explosion of the flapper era in which black Americans made tremendous strides in music and popular culture. The era extended roughly from 1920-1940, although some would start it as late as 1924, when Journal of Negro Life was published in the mainstream press. Prior to the Harlem Renaissance, black culture was pretty much off the radar of white society. Seen too frequently as the earthy "tripe" of freed slaves and domestics, their writings and music were dismissed by established publishing and entertainment venues.

Then something peculiar happened as the Great Migration brought more black people to northern cities and a black middle class took hold. In 1910, a group of black investors purchased several blocks of Harlem in New York City. Harlem had previously been an affluent white area but was an early example of “white flight”. The investors established bars, theaters, churches, publishers and other venues that catered to black clientele including many “New Negro” sophisticates. These new Harlem ventures showed that not only could black people be literate, they could also be phenomenally creative and cogent.

What followed in Harlem’s next two decades was an incredible flowering of black culture. The list of notables is a mile long but includes writers Langston Hughes and Zora Neal Hurston, poet Ruth Dixon, intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois, and musicians like Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Several now-famous clubs sprang into existence: the Cotton Club, Apollo Theater and Savoy Ball Room. The Apollo has been opened continuously since 1914 and now hosts the TV program Showtime at the Apollo, which showcases new black talent. A musical byproduct of this era was Harlem Stride, which blended brassy jazz music with strings and piano. Where jazz had previously been seen as a purely ethnic genre, it suddenly was embraced by white society. In fact, white literati were so enamored of the “New Negro” culture that major themes were borrowed for the “lily white” productions of Noel Coward, Cole Porter and the Gershwins.

No major movement is without its critics and the Harlem Renaissance met with fierce criticism from none other than mid-20th-century black activists. There were two or three general objections made against the Renaissance... Some felt that the entire style of the movement was one of “acting white”. In fact, many of the Harlem celebrities were light-skinned (“high yellow”) people with English given names and very nearly Bostonian middle class manners.

Others thought that much of the literary output catered to the prejudices of white people. Writer Zora Neal Hurston was notable for being a successful anthropologist and novelist. But she took flak for using Negro slave dialect in her (now venerated) book, Their Eyes Were Watching God. She also took flak for voting Republican and believing in individual responsibility over welfare. Where many didn’t like the white caste of the Harlem Renaissance others were rightly outraged that it was book-ended by two (then recent) decades when in fact, black music and writing have flourished for decades before.

In 2010 we are now marking the 100th anniversary of the Harlem real estate venture -- and only 4 years away from the centennial of the Apollo Theater. So what of Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington and Zora Neal Hurston? They are squarely back on their pedestals where they belong. Their contributions were in a seminal, somewhat crazy era of American history and there probably could’ve been no other cultural easement than the one that was offered.

We have a black President now, who some accuse of “acting white”. What we might just consider is that black has a thousand shades, just like a thousand shades of pale. Why presume to judge the style of a person, culture or era on such superficial criteria? The strength, beauty and wisdom comes through no matter what. In somewhat of a rebuke to the Harlem Renaissance critics, the 2009 movie Precious received Oscar nominations and rave reviews. It’s very much in a Harlem Renaissance style, updated for the 21st century. Things have come full circle and as in so many things, it’s a great bit of closure. What drives our cultural critique now is not so much anger as thoughtfulness -- and the Harlem Renaissance laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement as well as the sixties cultural revolution. Praise be to that.

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