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The Harlem Renaissance:
Angela Wiley
In New York in 1905, after a successful real estate market had declined,
landlords and developers attempted to entice African-American realtors and
tenants. After and during World War I, thousands of blacks migrated from the
South and other areas to look for jobs and, by 1923, the number of blacks in New
York was estimated to be 183,428, nearly three times that reported in 1910. Two
thirds of these people settled in Harlem which, at that time, was distinctively
black (Lewis, "Harlem's First Shining" 57). In 1917, an intellectual movement,
known as the Harlem Renaissance, began in Harlem and lasted until 1935. David
Levering Lewis, in his introduction to The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader,
writes that:
The Harlem Renaissance was a somewhat forced phenomenon, a cultural nationalism
of the parlor, institutionally encouraged and directed by leaders of the
national civil rights establishment for the paramount purpose of improving race
relations in a time of extreme national backlash, caused in a large part by
ecomonic gains won by Afro-Americans during the Great War. (xv)
W.E.B. Du Bois described the leaders of the movement as the Talented Tenth, a
few privileged professionals who were nearly all second generation college
graduates. These intellectuals "perceived that, although the roads to the ballot
box, the union hall . . . and the office were blocked" off, there were two paths
that were not barred: arts and letters (Lewis, "Harlem's First Shining" 58). The
Talented Tenth created a new ideology of racial assertiveness that was to be
embraced by influential African-Americans, which included educated doctors,
lawyers and businessmen. These people, as Du Bois theorized, would comprise ten
percent of the total African-American population in 1920 (Lewis, Introduction
xv). However, statistics show that there were by no means as many educated
African-American leaders in 1920 as Du Bois had hoped.
In the fall of 1917, the rediscovered African-American was publicly announced
with Emily Hapgood's production of three one-act plays: The Rider of Dreams,
Simon the Cyrenian, and Granny Maumee, all written by her husband,
Ridgely Torrence. This production, presented at the Old Garden Street Theater
near Broadway, was a significant event because the cast was all-black and the
parts were dignified. The plays and the actors were both given high reviews,
which helped propel African-Americans into the spotlight (Lewis, Introduction
xx). Thus, African-Americans were beginning to assert themselves and to be
recognized in the literary and artistic realms, which white Americans dominated
at the time. Two years later, the Hapgood production was preceeded by the
presentation of O'Neill's Emperor Jones and several other plays which
featured black actors. The Harlem Renaissance, which would develop a new
African-American consciousness, had officially begun and would continue until
1935.
Acccording to David Levering Lewis, the literary movement was broken up into
three phases: the Bohemian Renaissance, the era of the Talented Tenth, and the
Negro Renaissance (Introducation xvii). Each phase had distinctly different
influences and produced different writings. Phase one, the Bohemian Renaissance,
spanning from 1917-1923, was dominated by white authors writing about black
people. These authors, the Bohemians and Revolutionaries, were fascinated with
the life of black people (Lewis, Introduction xvii). Eugene O'Neill's Emperor
Jones was an example of a play, written by a white author, which featured a
black man as a main character who was, in turn, played by a black actor, Charles
Gilpin. Ironically, the play was not accepted by the Harlem community. "Although
O'Neill's Harlem audience probably knew little, intellectually, of psychic
journeys and racial unconscious, they knew that the jungle had no connection
with their lives, and they recognized the stereotypes O'Neill was using" (Cooley
60). However, the play was a huge success outside of Harlem for many decades. In
fact, Gilpin's superb acting and O'Neill's theatrical affects (gathered from
"superficial contacts with black life") combined to produce a play that helped
shaped the course of American Drama of the time (Cooley 60).
The second phase, from 1924-1926, was presided over by the Civil Rights
establishments of the National Urban League (NUL) and the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was a "period of interracial
collaboration between Zora Neal Hurston's 'Negrotarian' whites and the African
American Talented Tenth" (Lewis, Introduction xvii). The dominant ideology of
the third phase was the advancement of African-American civil rights through the
creation of an artistic and literary movement (Lewis, Introduction xxxi).
According to W.E.B. Du Bois, white people, who suggested that blacks quit
complaining about not having recognition and start showing what they could do,
helped create the second period of the Harlem Renaissance. Black writers, afraid
to fight and allured by money and publicity, agreed and decided to show what
they deserved and let the reward come to them (Du Bois 101).
And it is right here that the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People comes upon the field, comes with its great call to a new battle,
a new fight and new things to fight before the old things are wholly won; and to
say that the beauty of truth and freedom which shall some day be our heritage
and the heritage of all civilized men is not in our hands yet and that we
ourselves must not fail to realize. (Du Bois 101)
The NUL and NAACP, which propaganda had influenced, were the driving force in
this phase of the Harlem Renaissance and dictated what should be written.
The third and final phase, beginning before the second phase was complete, was
called the Negro Renaissance. African-Americans themselves dominated the third
phase of the Harlem Renaissance, which began in 1926 and ended with the Harlem
riot of 1935 and was the longest-running of the three phases (Lewis,
Introduction xvii-xviii). It was marked by a rebellion of writers and artists
against many of the Civil Rights establishments. "Among some of the poets and
writers there was simmering ingratitude and, finally, even open revolt against
the high-toned artistic standards of the NAACP's and Urban League's
distinguished directors" (Lewis, "Harlem's First Shining" 61). Writers such as
Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurmon openly expressed their
feelings and their identities without fear or shame. No longer looking for
approval from whites, they only considered whether their works pleased
African-Americans (Lewis, "Harlem's First Shining" 61). The black writers were
reacting against the stereotypes of African-Americans and were attempting to
maintain an art that was unique while also maintaining their self- and
racial-identities (Cooley 62-63).
As short as the literary period of the Harlem Renaissance was, a legacy was left
that African-Americans today can be proud of. Although the uneducated workingman
of Harlem knew little about the success of the black writers, studies estimate
that, between 1919 and 1930, more black writers were published than in any other
decade in American history prior to the 1960s (Hemenway 36). "America at large,
if more by osmosis than conscious attention, was also the richer for the color,
emotion, humanity and cautionary vision thrown up by Harlem during its Golden
Age" (Lewis, "Harlem's First Shining" 92). The Harlem Renaissance created a new
consciousness in both white and black Americans, and its importance lies more in
the legacy it left behind of a new type of black fiction than in the actual
socio-economic changes it incurred.
Works Cited
Cooley, John. "In Pursuit of the Primitive: Black Portraits by Eugene O'Neill
and Other Village
Bohemians." The Harlem Renaissance Re-examined. Ed. Victor A.
Kramer.
New York: AMS Press, 1987. 51-63.
Du Bois, W.E.B. "Criteria of Negro Art." The Portable Harlem Renaissance
Reader. Ed. David
Levering Lewis. New York: Viking, 1994. 100-105.
Hemenway, Robert E. Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography.
Chicago: U of Illinois P,
1977.
Lewis, David Levering. "Harlem's First Shining." Modern Maturity 32.1.
(Feb.-Mar. 1989):
57-62 & 92.
- - - . Introduction. The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader.
Ed. David Levering Lewis.
New York: Viking, 1994. xv-xliii.
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