HARLEM RENAISSANCE

February 20, 1998
		An exhibit in San Francisco explores the artistic and cultural legacies of the 1920s and 30s.

Questions asked in this forum: Why did the Harlem Renaissance use exotic, sensual images to celebrate African-American culture? How did the Harlem Renaissance affect the politics leading up to the Civil Rights Movement? With so many economic and cultural hurdles, why was Harlem Renaissance art so optimistic in tone? What was it about Paris that allowed African-American artists to achieve recognition there? Why did the Harlem Renaissance end?	The Online NewsHour asks: The art of the Harlem Renaissance seems overwhelmingly optimistic, despite the fact that Harlem was already in a state of economic decline and many African-American performers were not embraced by mainstream America. Why? Professor Richard Powell responds: This is a tough question to answer, because it assumes that economic deprivation and racial segregation would cause artists to only paint depressing pictures or to only create an art of protest. I guess the best way to answer this question is to say that, while political and social forces can and do affect public expressions and the creative voices of the artist, the outcome is not always in direct, cause-and-effect correlation to the greater political and cultural climate. Another way of answering this question is to paraphrase the renown African American artist Jacob Lawrence, whose first important works were created in Depression era Harlem towards the end of the Harlem Renaissance era. While Jacob Lawrence devotes a significant part of his early work to depictions of street beggars, common folks hanging out in bars, and to the horrific and depressing history of slavery, he also created images of urban vitality and community ingenuity. His frequent response to the above question is that, for a young man growing up in Depression era Harlem, the good, the positive, and the progressive outweighed all of the negatives that are often heaped onto black lives. I'm also thinking of a famous line from a poem by the modern African American writer Nikki Giovanni, who wrote: "and I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me because they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy." Professor Jeffrey Stewart responds: The art of the Harlem Renaissance was optimistic because many artists and writers of the 1920s enjoyed greater opportunities to publish and disseminate their art than they had ever had before. For one thing, African American artists of the 1920s did not have to deny their racial identity by publishing works anonymously, as had James Weldon Johnson when he published "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" in 1912 or to write poems, short stories, novels, or create works of art that avoided the racial theme, as Henry O.Tanner, William Stanley Braithwaite, and others had done before the 1920s. For the first time in American culture, for better or worse, African American creative artists could claim that there was something distinctive about the Black experience, while at the same time arguing that it was an integral part of the American experience. That freedom was exhilarating for many. As a secondary motivation for optimism, many also believed that their work would contribute to better racial relations by exposing European Americans to a more sensitive, nuanced, and sympathetic view of the life of African Americans. While economic decline may have begun in the 1920s, most of the signs of that decline were not apparent during the decade, especially for writers and artists of the Renaissance, most of whom did not live in Harlem. Moreover, in such works as "The New Negro," it was the image of Harlem that was most important, the idea of Harlem as a "Negro Mecca," a beckoning, pulsating, and exciting enclave of New York City that represented the hopes and dreams of a rapidly modernizing people. It should also be remembered that the "vogue of the Negro" in the 1920s poured money into the entertainment economy of Harlem, and many working class folk did find jobs in speakeasies, nightclubs, restaurants, hotels, revues, etc., that would disappear in the 1930s after the "fad" was over. So, the Harlem Renaissance did inject economic vitality, if only of a superficial variety, into Harlem. While complete acceptance by the "mainstream"--whatever that is-- was not forthcoming to African Americans, artists such as Duke Ellington did enjoy remarkable patronage from the national audience, and even after the 1920s, went on to national and international careers. Is it possible that people like Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Jacob Lawrence, and Richmond Barthe could have enjoyed more popularity than they did enjoy? I think not. What is most important to remember is that this generation of African American artists, writers, and performers refused to the let the reality of racism and discrimination in America keep them from pursuing lives of distinction, refinement, and productivity. In that sense, their optimism was founded in a sense of purpose that they were the best minds of their generation and were committed to producing a whole lot of stuff, from plays to poems to sculpture to intellectual tracts as their way of confronting the existential predicament that faces all men and women. Professor William Drummond responds: Today I interviewed Jacob Lawrence, the country's most celebrated African-American painter and a man who lived through the Harlem Renaissance, for a piece I'm doing for National Public Radio.  Based on his answers and my own research into the issues, I'll try to respond to the queries. Mr. Lawrence had a very interesting answer to the question about the "optimism" of the movement in light of the poverty and political repressing that blacks faced during the 1920s and 30s.  He compared the art and literature of the Harlem Renaissance to the themes in the movies at the time.  He said people were seeking fantasies to raise them out of their immediate despair. The humor of Langston Hughes and the comedy on stage at the Apollo Theater were vehicles for bringing artists and audiences out of despair. They were all seeking a better, brighter way.  Countee Cullen's refrain, "What is Africa to me?" was one effort to look for renewal in the discovery of an original culture.  Marcus Garvey similarly led Negroes toward a political fantasy in his urging them to return to Africa. These were efforts to re-construct reality separate from the grimness of the day-to-day.