Museum Kurá Hulanda has a continuing program of creating temporary exhibitions, as well as importing a variety of temporary exhibitions relevant to our themes and of interest to the public. Some of our past temporary exhibits have included; the Henrietta Marie Slave Ship exhibit, about archaeology of a 17th century slave ship sunk off the coast of Florida; and an exhibit on Harlem Renaissance, about African-American cultural florescence and Cotton Club life in Harlem, New York, during the 1920-30's. The Museum had for the last two years an exhibition about evolution, called The Darwin-Leakey room and an exhibition called Black by White.
Harlem as an African American community
Harlem was originally a Dutch settlement north of New York City (which in the 17th and 18th centuries was concentrated in the southern tip of Manhattan). In the 19th century most blacks lived in lower or mid Manhattan in crowded tenements in segregated but small concentrations. At the turn of the century Harlem was not an African American neighborhood but as more and more Blacks poured into New York, real estate developers and population forces turned Harlem into a Afro-American city within a city that was getting more crowded every day with new arrivals from the south and the West Indies.
Though they paid more than others, a few Blacks who could afford it started to move uptown to Harlem about 1900. As time went on the number of Blacks in Harlem grew (despite efforts to keep them out). Finally, entire blocks of homes and buildings became Black as Whites fled, real estate prices fell and the fear of neighborhood change was encouraged by real estate people who stood to gain.
In the World War I era, Black churches spurred the development of Harlem as an African American community by buying space there. Lodges and other groups financed home ownership and business development among Blacks. By the 1920s large parts of Harlem (though not all of it) were largely identified as an African American community.
Overview of The Harlem Renaissance and the new Negro period
The Harlem Renaissance was a period (between 1920 and 1940) of great cultural, economic and identity assertion among talented and expressive African Americans. Its high point occurred between 1920 and 1930 but it had started before then and continued after. It involved many active, talented African Americans doing new and memorable things in a very exciting, interesting place. It was a time of important ideas, books, culture, art, entertainment and other aspects of life (e.g. politics, sports and business). It revealed a Black America that had never been seen before.
In the 1920s and 30s Harlem started to have an impact on the rest of Black America through ideas, styles, language and culture.
It produced for example, some of the most influential slang in Black America. In both popular and classical music, Blacks became active, known and self-assertive. From jazz to the classical and concert music of Roland Hayes and Nathaniel Dett, the idea of a new type of proud, self-accepting Negro was constantly expressed.
The Harlem Renaissance was part of a larger movement, the New Negro Renaissance, which presented the world with a type of African American (urbane, cultured, self-assured and assertive) who would not fit into the stereotypes of the past. In Harlem, this talented "New Negro" gathered together in enough of a concentration to create an exciting, lively, published, artistic world.
In the first two decades of the 20th century all across America, there was a desire among African Americans to stop being and seeming like the "old" style Negro and start being a new type of Negro. A very influential and famous book by a noted African American intellectual (Alain Locke) was called the "New Negro" and this title characterized the whole spirit of those times. The New Negro period was a cultural movement but even more it was a change in identity and lifestyle. The Harlem Renaissance was just that part of the national New Negro movement that happened in Harlem. Though nation-wide, it was in Harlem that the New Negro feeling was expressed most articulately and strongly and in more ways. It was therefore in Harlem that the New Negro movement happened biggest and best. The old Negro had been rural, ignorant, humbly servile, superstitious and able only to be plantation laborer. In contrast, the new style Negro was urbane, educated, literate, proud of being themselves, assertive and a sophisticated city dweller. Whereas the old Negro was considered inferior and someone to be laughed at, the New Negro was someone to be admired and respected as an equal, in some cases even more talented than many others were.
The Harlem Renaissance got its name because it reminded observers of the European Renaissance (i.e. "re-birth") that began in the 14th and 15th centuries and permanently changed European culture and society. Beginning in the cities of Italy and spreading over the next two centuries to all of Europe, this first Renaissance represented the end of the middle ages and the start of a new period in history. The European Renaissance - which looked to classical Greek and Roman civilization for insight and inspiration - was an upsurge of culture, learning, entertainment and rediscovery of roots that showed itself in art, writing, literature, politics, technology and many other areas (e.g. social relations and warfare). In addition, people moved to the cities and started to look at themselves in a new way and many became literate. For African Americans, the Harlem Renaissance of the New Negro period was a similar period of progressive change (in how people saw themselves, where they lived, cultural expression, literature and literacy, politics and many other ways). There were some differences however. The Harlem Renaissance looked to Africa and Black American culture for inspiration and was confined to mostly (but not totally) one country and one race. Nevertheless, both Renaissances represented a period of enlightenment after a period of barbarous destruction, rediscovery of culture and a glorious past, new thinking, literateness, urbaneness, and the creation of new expressions and consciousness.
Key developments in the Harlem Renaissance were:
One of the most interesting aspects of the Harlem Renaissance was the important and pervasive role played by women as writers, artists, performers, patrons, supporters and social activists. In the 1920s and 30s African American women were more active and influential than in any other period since the days of the 19th anti-slavery struggle. The New Negro period was thus the age of the New Negro woman. Jessie Faucet, for example, was literary editor of Crisis magazine, a major collaborator with W.E.B. DuBois and a successful novelist in her own right. Madame C.J. Walker's daughter (A'Leleia) held salons and parties which featured classy parties and rising talented writers and artists. Major women entertainers and performers (Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall, Ma Rainey, etc.) made Harlem a musical and dance capital whose influence was felt worldwide. Women's contribution was not only in the literary, cultural and entertainment sphere however, it was also in very practical areas of life that the masses could benefit from even far beyond Harlem's boundaries. Both in and outside New York, key women leaders (e.g. Mary McCleod Bethune and Mary Talbert for example) were important in the anti lynching movement and the establishment of organizations and educational institutions that changed the course of Black American history.
The Harlem Renaissance is usually thought to end when the stock market crashed in 1929, the great depression of the 1930s hit America and the prosperity of the 1920s ended for almost everyone. Even though the depression affected Harlem seriously, the creativity, achievements and glamour of the 20s did not die immediately. The Harlem renaissance lived on (though not as well as before). Harlem as a worthwhile and exciting place to live, work and create did not change for the worse for several more decades.
Why did The Harlem Renaissance happen and why did it happen in Harlem
The Harlem Renaissance occurred because several social and cultural forces came together at the same time in an exciting place to produce a world in which new things could occur. The chief factors which produced the Harlem Renaissance included:
The Harlem Renaissance happened in New York City specifically because of several factors:
Literature is one of the areas in which the Harlem Renaissance is best known and had its widest impact on many people living outside Harlem. The writers of the Harlem Renaissance produced ideas and an identity that has left a lasting influence on both Black and White America. There were many key writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Some of the major names include:
In addition to novels and books written by single authors, there were also collaborative efforts. One very important one was the short-lived magazine "Fire!!" which featured the work of several writers and artists. Most of the copies were burned up in a real warehouse fire and the few surviving copies are rare and expensive treasures today.
Art
Art was one of the areas in which the 1920s and 30s were distinct and the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance is as much expressed in the visual arts as it was in literature. The Harmon Foundation (an organization set up by wealthy people to support culture) discovered and gave prizes to many rising young Black artists who later became famous. Some went to Europe and some stayed in America.
Black painters began to portray Blacks as sensitive, dignified individuals rather than comic stereotypes. Pride in Africa and African origins arose and became widespread in the 1920s and especially the 30s. Afro-American artists began to use an African style and Africanic visual devices to suggest themes such as the African past and liberation for African derived peoples in their work. The expression of African images and motifs as well as modernist themes in Black American art is one of the hallmarks of the Harlem Renaissance.
Many artists of various kinds contributed to the Harlem Renaissance but some of them are most representative of its art message. In painting, Aaron Douglas who used Black men and women (often in strong silhouettes) as central symbolic figures, was often chosen to illustrate key books (e.g. by James Weldon Johnson) and magazines (e.g. Opportunity) of the era. Palmer Hayden and Archibald Motley depicted, among other things, folklore, African American community-level social life and strongly African features.
In sculpture, Richmond Barthe and Meta Warrick Fuller excelled with themes related to Africa and the beauty of the common Black man. Their art consciously sought to express the "Black is beautiful" concept long before it arose as an identify principle and esthetic ideology many years later in the 1960s.
In photography, then just starting to secure its place as a fine art medium, photographers such as James Van Der Zee and others (e.g. James L. Allen and the Morgan brothers) visually documented Harlem's community life and prominent African American cultural and intellectual personalities.
Business & Economics
Business people are a less discussed but key element in the Harlem Renaissance. They started the real estate boom early in the 20th century that produced the concentration of Blacks in one neighborhood (i.e. Harlem). They also put up much of the money for the glamour shown in Harlem. Stores, banks, funeral homes, photographers (such as James Van der Zee), theaters and other commercial establishments (not to speak of nightclubs) made Harlem an exciting and fun-filled place to live, work and visit. Business and professional people were active, entrepreneurs and family businesses flourished. People were often poor but the kind of long term hopeless "culture of poverty" that later became identified with Harlem was not yet in evidence. Though she died before the Harlem Renaissance really got going, one very important business figure of the early 20th century that deserves mention was Madame C.J. Walker. Madam walker was a highly successful entrepreneur who created a cosmetics and hair care empire drawing revenue from both products and salons. She was the first female African American millionaire. Her business provided employment and upward mobility for Black women for decades. Her daughter became one of the leading hostesses and patrons of Harlem Renaissance intellectuals.
Music & Entertainment
Another major element of the Harlem Renaissance was its music. Black musicians were drawn to New York by the excitement, the opportunity to make big money and the opportunity to show their talent, see their works on stage. Even before the Harlem Renaissance period, many talented Black musicians and actors had come to New York and made a name for themselves. Will Marion Cook, Rosamond Johnson (James Weldon Johnson's brother) and many others created a tradition of successful Black musicians. The great comedy team of Bert Williams and George Walker had starred in New York for years.
New York in the 1920s and 30s became the scene of a long lasting Black musical explosion. Popular music (on the stage and in the cabarets) had overwhelming success. Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle were a very successful musical theater team who took Broadway by storm. Jazz and popular musicians of national importance such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and others brought Harlem's music to the rest of the world and were widely acclaimed.
Harry Burleigh (the singer) and Nathaniel Dett (the composer and conductor) insisted on presenting music form a Black point of view even though they were classically trained and fully competent to perform any way they chose. Major concert singers such as Roland Hayes and Marian Anderson became internationally recognized for their excellence and artistry.
Music is one of the areas in which the achievements of the Harlem Renaissance continued long after it had formally ended in other ways. For example, in the 1940s and 50s, Harlem saw another musical upsurge in the Bebop era with people such as Charley Parker and Thelonius Monk. Even later, in the 1960s, the musical creativity of Harlem (as witnessed in many R&B performances in the Apollo Theater) was going strong.
Sports and the black defeat of Nazi ideology
Sports played a role in the change in consciousness of the Harlem Renaissance period, especially in the 1930s. Starting in the 1920s and reaching a peak in the 1930s and 40s, sports became an important arena for Black advancement that the average person could relate to and appreciate, regardless of their personal circumstances. It was also in this period that sports became a means of racial pride and advancement when Black athletes showed conclusively that Nazi Germans and their allies were certainly not invincible.
In the 1930s in Europe, the Nazi party arose in Germany and Austria by exploiting social unrest and using propaganda and ruthless tactics. The Nazis believed and asserted that Germans were racially superior (physically and mentally) to others and should rule the rest of an inferior world. The Nazis and their allies established totalitarian, militaristic regimes which sought to conquer other countries in Europe, Africa (especially Ethiopia) and Asia. It was in this period that Haille Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, became a hero and a symbol of Black resistance to oppression and aggression for African Americans and others in the Caribbean.
The message of Black non-inferiority became clear in the 1936 Olympics when Black American track stars nearly made a clean sweep of prizes and medals. Their outstanding performance (Jesse Owens was the most notable) proved to the world that Nazi claims of physical superiority were false and ridiculous. Adolph Hitler, the disappointed founder and leader of the Nazis disgustedly walked out of the Olympic stadium rather than give glory and awards to Black athletes. The performance of the most famous of these outstanding athletes was a source of pride for the whole of America and, for the first time, Blacks were seen as assets by representing the country internationally.
Elsewhere other gains were being made by African Americans in sports. Joe Louis, one of the best boxers America has ever produced became a national figure with his long and very successful career in the ring. His victories made Black Americans proud and increased their prestige among other Americans. One of Louis' greatest victories was against Max Schmeling. Though he lost at first, Louis came back in a later fight with undeniable success.
The ordinary person
The Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro period in general was a multi-faceted and multi-level period. Africans Americans were active, achieving, developing and changing on many fronts and at various levels, not only the culture, literature and art areas for which the period is famous. For example, in politics, sports, business and religion, many important things were happening that had never happened before and that had long term impact on African Americans and the world. Furthermore, it was not only the cultural elite who were doing things of note but the common man and woman were also active, enjoying themselves, confronting difficult problems and creating a new world for themselves. It should never be forgotten that although artists and writers express realities and dreams and hopes and get rewarded for their powers of expression, their inspiration and raw material comes from the common folk whose lives provide the insights, characters and emotions needed for creative expression.
Harlem had a rich social life and among ordinary people there were many concerts, social clubs and social events. Organizations like the masons and the fraternities made Harlem an exciting place to live, even if one was not a writer or artist. Not everyone was cultured, there were also gangsters and other non-lawful types who tried to share in the wealth however they could. The Harlem Renaissance period was also the era of Prohibition (of alcohol) yet many people engaged in drinking. On the other hand, Many of Harlem's citizens were upstanding, church-going citizens who frowned upon nightlife, illegal or borderline activities.
Popular culture, night clubs and "Harlemania"
The Harlem Renaissance did not only occur on the level of art and literature but also on the popular culture level as well. The 1920s being the Jazz Age in America saw popular Black music and entertainment emerge and be adopted by White mainstream culture. In music dance, fashion, language and other areas, Black styles and creativity swept America and went beyond its borders to become a strong presence in Europe. Music and dance were influenced from several sources: Jazz and Blues performers in Harlem, Black-themed stage shows and not least of all Harlem's many nightclubs. Harlem also had a great influence of popular modes of speech, developing a unique and powerful slang vocabulary of great expressiveness and charm that continues to influence American popular culture to this day.
The 1920s witnessed the advent of "Harlemania", a widespread interest in and craze for things associated with Harlem on the part of people from outside Harlem, even those (e.g. in places like France) that were outside the U.S. Harlemania occurred for very good reasons, since most of America and even New York was not nearly as exciting and vibrant as Harlem was in those days.Harlem's night clubs were legendary places of recreation and fun, especially for well off Whites who would come uptown for music, dancing and other experiences they could not get in their own neighborhoods. The nightclubs featured much African American entertainment talent. Many important performers were discovered or established in them - Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and many others.
The Cotton Club was one of the most glamorous nightclubs in Harlem. It attracted patrons with elaborate shows and top-flight music and dancing talent. Its décor featured plantation scenery and many interesting props. Some of nightclubs (e.g. the Cotton Club, Happy Rhone's, Connie's Inn and Small's) became national style setters and world famous in terms of dance, music and fashion. Ironically, though these clubs were in Harlem and used African American entertainers, many (the Cotton Club for example) did not allow African Americans to attend shows and sit with Whites. Small's, however, was a Black-owned club with a mostly Black clientele. Local African Americans naturally patronized certain clubs and types of activities that admitted them and these were often more interesting to be in (especially those that featured dancing). Many other clubs were part of the Harlem scene, allowing the serving of alcohol (then prohibited by law) and operating long after other clubs were closed for the night.
Differences in new Negro ideology- high brow vs. low brow culture
There were noticeable and sometimes even important differences among people and groups in the 1920s and 30s. As in all human affairs, not everyone in the Harlem Renaissance agreed with everyone else. Many times those who strongly espoused a certain approach to racial advancement greatly disagreed with and distrusted others, despite the fact that they were all working toward the betterment of African Americans in general. One major controversy was about the Negro image, the definition of what the New Negro should be and how he should be portrayed. Some cultural and social activists of the Harlem Renaissance wanted to emphasize African Americans' ability to express and handle mainstream culture in order to show that the race was not as the common stereotypes portrayed and had intellectual and cultural abilities equal to those of White Americans. Others did not care as much about proving equality with Whites and instead asserted the beauty and importance of African American's unique inherited culture and the earthiness of Harlem life among the masses, even if that meant exposing its unflattering aspects. Whereas the "talented tenth" philosophy of DuBois saw the New Negro as a legion of professionals and intelligentsia who would be exhibit established mainstream cultural virtues in dark skin and with a race salvation agenda. The low brow culture enthusiasts on the other hand were fascinated by the issues, music, lifestyles and language of the common people and those with untraditional lifestyles in what would now be considered the ghetto. Another related controversy was whether the New Negro should be race leaders first ad use art and culture as tools for racial upliftment or whether they should be artists and writers first who used their culture as a source of inspiration and insight. It was in the literary realm and in social advancement ideas that these controversy were most felt and acted out.
Racism and oppression during The Harlem Renaissance
Ironically, while Black America was achieving a cultural peak in the Harlem Renaissance, others in America did not know and did not want to know of its development and achievements. Although the Harlem Renaissance was a high point in African American cultural history, it was not seen as such by the many non-African Americans who did not appreciate African Americans or their talents. Many in the general public did not know or believe that a Black cultural renaissance was going on or even possible and they insisted on treating African Americans according to long-held negative stereotypes and prejudices.
It must be remembered that before and during the Harlem Renaissance period, racism and oppression was common and virulent all across America (in both the south and the north). In the 1900s through the 1930s, lynchings were consistently reported although they trailed off in frequency as time went on. Furthermore, the ordinary White American at that time regarded Blacks as a source of cheap, exploitable labor, an inferior nuisance, an economic threat or an ignorant, quaint, comical group who deserved second class citizenship and the scorn of others. Popular artifacts and expressions from that period reveal the total ignorance of what was going on in the New Negro consciousness of Harlem and other cities. It was only until decades later that the achievements and experiences of the Harem renaissance were widely known and appreciated. For the great majority of Americans then the New Negro image had not yet replaced that of the old Negro.
Key Themes of The Harlem Renaissance
To truly understand the Harlem Renaissance and appreciate its contributions, it is necessary to know some of the major ideas and issues underlying its creative works and cultural activities. There were many themes, ideas and issues that ran through Harlem Renaissance thinking and expression. A few of them include:
1. Roots in the south and Africa: The Harlem Renaissance celebrated, respected and explored the origins of African Americans in the south and in Africa. Rather than looking to Europe and colonial America as the source of ideas, beauty and insight, many of its novels and other creative works were based on themes and issues in Africa and southern life. Previously, Africa and the south were seen as embarrassingly backward, primitive places that progressive Blacks tried not to be identified with but the Harlem Renaissance changed this feeling.
An interest in and identification with Africa had started earlier in the century (e.g. in the form of the Pan-African Congresses organized by DuBois) and was reflected widely in literature, dance, music and the visual arts. Even in businesses the interest in Africa was reflected (for example in the names of companies and in advertising). Ethiopia was considered a symbol of all of Africa and members of the African race were often euphemistically called Ethiopian or Nubian. For example, one services business was named "The Ethiopian Life Insurance Company". European artists also were heavily influenced by the values and appearance of African art. Major sculptures with African themes started to appear in non-African settings. Artists such as Aaron Douglas began to use themes such as African Masks and the desire to relate to an African homeland in magazine illustrations, murals and paintings. It should be noted that not only was Africa seen and respected as the homeland of African Americans but the image of Africa began to be upgraded and redefined. Instead of seeing Africa as primitive, pagan and embarrassingly backward, Harlem Renaissance creative types redefined Africa as a worthwhile, beautiful homeland that had given much, had much to teach and should be celebrated with a sense of pride of origins.
2. Racial identity and self-acceptance: In the Harlem Renaissance, the acceptance of and fascination with African Americans themselves and their origins, culture, personalities and styles was highlighted. It was felt that African Americans should define themselves and be the expressers and interpreters of their own culture. This concentration on Blackness went beyond the quaint, homey and pleasant characters of Paul Laurence Dunbar and broke new ground to explore complex and sometimes unpleasant themes. In many ways this theme anticipated the ideas of the Black is Beautiful movement decades later in the 1960s and 70s.
3. Black vs. white mainstream culture: Though they were African Americans, Harlem Renaissance cultural activists were also intellectuals in general and they thus also felt a kinship with general artistic and literary trends. The tension between belonging to and being spokespersons for a specific group while also belonging to a general artistic tradition created a sense of divided and competing loyalties. Their racial identity made them Black but their profession placed them in what was then considered a European intellectual tradition. Some were concerned with proving to the world that African Americans could create and express European culture as well as any European could while others wanted to abandon Europe as a cultural model and base their work on African, Caribbean or southern Black models. Some artists, musicians and writers handled this conflict differently from others.
4. Expressing oneself and the black man's feelings: The Harlem Renaissance was nothing if not an expressive period. Its concerns were to express what Blacks saw, felt, experienced and thought from the inside. Rather than be depicted, characterized or portrayed by others, its practitioners took upon themselves the task of expressing and describing Black realities, problems and thoughts. On a more comprehensive level, the ability and responsibility to express themselves was itself one of the major issues the New Negro had to face.
5. Harlem: Harlem, the place and the state of mind it involved, is itself a major theme of the Harlem Renaissance. The people, character types, lifestyle and activities of Harlem energized and inspired its creative types. A number of important books have Harlem in their titles or refer to Harlem issues in their plots.
6. The common folk: The interestingness, problems and nobility of the common person and his culture was also a concern for Harlem Renaissance artists and intellectuals, just as it was for other writers and thinkers of the 1930s. The music of the common man, jazz and the blues, formerly considered low down or even sinful, began to rise in acceptance among the cultural set. There was also a certain amount of inner conflict over not being the common man. Though they spoke of and for the common man, they themselves were in fact not the common man. A subtle and sometimes overt conflict between admiring and sympathizing with the masses while not being restricted to the thinking and lifestyle limits of the masses is evident in many Harlem Renaissance works.
The impact of The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance had a number of results and outcomes that lasted long after it ended and that were felt far beyond the boundaries of Harlem and Black America:
Though not as creative literarily, Harlem was still a vibrant community in the 1940s, 50s and early 60s. In the 1950s New York became the state with the greatest number of African Americans (most of whom lived in the New York City metropolitan area).
However, in the 1960s things started to change for the worse and Harlem began to decline socially, economically and culturally. Drugs (heroin) came in and with it came crime, unemployment and social decay. Many prosperous and middle class people moved out to other areas of New York City and its suburbs. Old time New Yorkers who saw and help make Harlem in its glory days started to die out or move out. Prosperous, middle class and professional people went to Brooklyn, Queens or the suburbs. Gangs and destructive, out-of-control young people without family roots took over street corners and Harlem's reputation as a place to have fun was replaced by a reputation as a dangerous place to be careful about. Nightclubs and cultural sites closed up and although Black culture in general stayed influential, Harlem was no longer its main fountain and source. Later, even more destructive drugs (cocaine), unemployment and other factors caused crime to rise and community business ownership and family life to decline.
After two or three decades of decline Harlem is now undergoing a revival. Harlem is now the scene of a new inbound migration. New money is restoring its beautiful architecture and more new residents (White as well as Black) with good jobs and talent are arriving every day. Blacks from Africa and other places are moving in and setting up businesses there. It is also becoming a more diverse community as Asians, Whites and Black professional move in to take advantage of its prime location, interesting buildings and business potential. Real estate in Harlem is soaring in price. New stores and cultural spots are cropping up every year. Even more, there is a concerted attempt by economic development agencies to bring Harlem glamour days back and some of the old clubs and sites are being revived.
Not all Harlemites are satisfied with or benefiting from new developments (whose rewards have been unevenly distributed). Those with little and who could not get more are being left behind and pushed out. Gainful employment for ordinary people and those new to the workforce is often still unavailable. Many old time Harlemites are now complaining that Harlem is getting so gentrified and housing so expensive that it is harder and harder to live there now.
Despite its past and current difficulties however, Harlem is now the scene of much hope and rising optimism. As the names of some of its new places and the conversation of many people reflect, it is now the scene of a second Harlem Renaissance.
The Darwin - Leakey room.
This room is situated in a beautifully restored 19th century house which also forms the entrance to the museum Kurá Hulanda. In the so-called Darwin-Leakey room there are on exhibit fossils, skulls and bone artifacts of finds in Africa and in particular from the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Africa's garden of Eden. The Olduvai Gorge is specially known on account of the excavations of Mary, Louis and Richard Leakey that took place since the middle of this century.
The room itself is decorated with lots of authentical objects and furniture. It gives a good impression of the interior of a study of Darwin and other discoverers of his period.
Black by White
The presentation of African Black men and women in the Western world had been concescending for centuries. Religious arrogance and belief in the supremacy of the white race supplied the needed approval. For centuries spiritual leaders, politicians, physicians and scientists exerted themselves to prove the Negro was just 'quasi-human'; an excellent animal, but just an animal, born to serve the superior white race. Thus justificating the profitable slave trade and colonization of the African continent.
Acceptance of the Black race became possible only by 'White-washing' the Black man. Africans had to be Christened and educated in the White traditions. In the words of the Caribbean philosofer Fanon: 'Black men had to wear 'white masks'. The excistence of an independent African culture was consequently denied.
A hesitating change started in the 19th century. Several explorers and anthropologists traveled to Africa to learn more about the traditions and culture of the African people. Many looked down upon these with 'white' superior eyes.
The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century brought foreward a group of philosophers over African and racial matters, like Mary Kingsley, Dudley kidd, the governor of Jamaica Sir Sydney Olivier and head-editor M. Finot of the Paris' newspaper La Revue. They published - after thorough research in Africa itself - several books in which they settled the old prejudices.
In spite of that Western scorn of Black Men prevails with large segments of the European and White American population until today.
The picture galley at the second floor of the entrance building shows the presentation of Black men and women in the French and German press from about 1850 till 1950. The collection consists of more than two hundred historical drawings of Black man as anthropological species, rediscovered by Western discoverers. Also there are pages of newspapers with drawings of the colonial wars in Africa, newly independent African republics displayed as 'monkey' republics and cartoons about Blacks and Black man as sexually de-filed beings.
Harlem as an African American community
Harlem was originally a Dutch settlement north of New York City (which in the 17th and 18th centuries was concentrated in the southern tip of Manhattan). In the 19th century most blacks lived in lower or mid Manhattan in crowded tenements in segregated but small concentrations. At the turn of the century Harlem was not an African American neighborhood but as more and more Blacks poured into New York, real estate developers and population forces turned Harlem into a Afro-American city within a city that was getting more crowded every day with new arrivals from the south and the West Indies.
Though they paid more than others, a few Blacks who could afford it started to move uptown to Harlem about 1900. As time went on the number of Blacks in Harlem grew (despite efforts to keep them out). Finally, entire blocks of homes and buildings became Black as Whites fled, real estate prices fell and the fear of neighborhood change was encouraged by real estate people who stood to gain.
In the World War I era, Black churches spurred the development of Harlem as an African American community by buying space there. Lodges and other groups financed home ownership and business development among Blacks. By the 1920s large parts of Harlem (though not all of it) were largely identified as an African American community.
Overview of The Harlem Renaissance and the new Negro period
The Harlem Renaissance was a period (between 1920 and 1940) of great cultural, economic and identity assertion among talented and expressive African Americans. Its high point occurred between 1920 and 1930 but it had started before then and continued after. It involved many active, talented African Americans doing new and memorable things in a very exciting, interesting place. It was a time of important ideas, books, culture, art, entertainment and other aspects of life (e.g. politics, sports and business). It revealed a Black America that had never been seen before.
In the 1920s and 30s Harlem started to have an impact on the rest of Black America through ideas, styles, language and culture.
It produced for example, some of the most influential slang in Black America. In both popular and classical music, Blacks became active, known and self-assertive. From jazz to the classical and concert music of Roland Hayes and Nathaniel Dett, the idea of a new type of proud, self-accepting Negro was constantly expressed.
The Harlem Renaissance was part of a larger movement, the New Negro Renaissance, which presented the world with a type of African American (urbane, cultured, self-assured and assertive) who would not fit into the stereotypes of the past. In Harlem, this talented "New Negro" gathered together in enough of a concentration to create an exciting, lively, published, artistic world.
In the first two decades of the 20th century all across America, there was a desire among African Americans to stop being and seeming like the "old" style Negro and start being a new type of Negro. A very influential and famous book by a noted African American intellectual (Alain Locke) was called the "New Negro" and this title characterized the whole spirit of those times. The New Negro period was a cultural movement but even more it was a change in identity and lifestyle. The Harlem Renaissance was just that part of the national New Negro movement that happened in Harlem. Though nation-wide, it was in Harlem that the New Negro feeling was expressed most articulately and strongly and in more ways. It was therefore in Harlem that the New Negro movement happened biggest and best. The old Negro had been rural, ignorant, humbly servile, superstitious and able only to be plantation laborer. In contrast, the new style Negro was urbane, educated, literate, proud of being themselves, assertive and a sophisticated city dweller. Whereas the old Negro was considered inferior and someone to be laughed at, the New Negro was someone to be admired and respected as an equal, in some cases even more talented than many others were.
The Harlem Renaissance got its name because it reminded observers of the European Renaissance (i.e. "re-birth") that began in the 14th and 15th centuries and permanently changed European culture and society. Beginning in the cities of Italy and spreading over the next two centuries to all of Europe, this first Renaissance represented the end of the middle ages and the start of a new period in history. The European Renaissance - which looked to classical Greek and Roman civilization for insight and inspiration - was an upsurge of culture, learning, entertainment and rediscovery of roots that showed itself in art, writing, literature, politics, technology and many other areas (e.g. social relations and warfare). In addition, people moved to the cities and started to look at themselves in a new way and many became literate. For African Americans, the Harlem Renaissance of the New Negro period was a similar period of progressive change (in how people saw themselves, where they lived, cultural expression, literature and literacy, politics and many other ways). There were some differences however. The Harlem Renaissance looked to Africa and Black American culture for inspiration and was confined to mostly (but not totally) one country and one race. Nevertheless, both Renaissances represented a period of enlightenment after a period of barbarous destruction, rediscovery of culture and a glorious past, new thinking, literateness, urbaneness, and the creation of new expressions and consciousness.
Key developments in the Harlem Renaissance were:
- The increased activity of talented people (from writers and show girls to painters and photographers)
- The advent of successful, hugely popular Black theater, film and musical events
- The publication of major books by important writers such as Alain Locke (considered the father of the New Negro idea) Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Jessie Faucett, etc.
- The rise of a new African American art movement
- The rise of successful Black businesses and professional people
- The patronage of Black intellectuals by wealthy and connected Whites who admired or were fascinated with African American culture (the (Negrotarians") such as Carl Van Vechten, Amy and Joel Spingarn and Charlotte Mason
- The setting up, in Harlem, of cultured salons, popular night spots and fun entertainment
- The rise of assertive social activism and aggressive political movements (e.g. Garvey, etc.)
- The establishment of Harlem as the cultural, intellectual and social capital of Black America. The fame and drawing power of many places in Harlem increased and sometimes became legendary. Entertainment-oriented places including night clubs such as the Cotton Club and theaters (e.g. the Lafayette Theater) and other places such as churches and studios also became well known.
- The holding of social events (e.g. dinners, receptions, etc.) to bring together talented people, create enjoyment and further the spread of new ideas and culture.
- The development and/or spreading of important racial advancement social change ideas and initiatives: e.g. Garveyism and the Back To Africa movement; the "Talented Tenth" concept (i.e. leadership by the intelligentsia) of DuBois and others.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Harlem Renaissance was the important and pervasive role played by women as writers, artists, performers, patrons, supporters and social activists. In the 1920s and 30s African American women were more active and influential than in any other period since the days of the 19th anti-slavery struggle. The New Negro period was thus the age of the New Negro woman. Jessie Faucet, for example, was literary editor of Crisis magazine, a major collaborator with W.E.B. DuBois and a successful novelist in her own right. Madame C.J. Walker's daughter (A'Leleia) held salons and parties which featured classy parties and rising talented writers and artists. Major women entertainers and performers (Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall, Ma Rainey, etc.) made Harlem a musical and dance capital whose influence was felt worldwide. Women's contribution was not only in the literary, cultural and entertainment sphere however, it was also in very practical areas of life that the masses could benefit from even far beyond Harlem's boundaries. Both in and outside New York, key women leaders (e.g. Mary McCleod Bethune and Mary Talbert for example) were important in the anti lynching movement and the establishment of organizations and educational institutions that changed the course of Black American history.
The Harlem Renaissance is usually thought to end when the stock market crashed in 1929, the great depression of the 1930s hit America and the prosperity of the 1920s ended for almost everyone. Even though the depression affected Harlem seriously, the creativity, achievements and glamour of the 20s did not die immediately. The Harlem renaissance lived on (though not as well as before). Harlem as a worthwhile and exciting place to live, work and create did not change for the worse for several more decades.
Why did The Harlem Renaissance happen and why did it happen in Harlem
The Harlem Renaissance occurred because several social and cultural forces came together at the same time in an exciting place to produce a world in which new things could occur. The chief factors which produced the Harlem Renaissance included:
- Many Blacks coming to New York and concentrating in one neighborhood
- The economy improved in the 1920s and many middle class Blacks prospered
- More money and patronage from wealthy Whites who had discovered the charms of Black intellectual and social life
- An exciting pre-existing theater and entertainment life in New York that attracted talent and ambition
- A strong economy that allowed talented people to make a good living creating culture
- A post-World War I environment where Blacks wanted more, had more to say and wanted to deal with their situation more aggressively
- More education, literacy and awareness within the Black population
- More energy for growth, expression and experimentation in general
The Harlem Renaissance happened in New York City specifically because of several factors:
- The continuing, vigorous black New York presence: Through the centuries, since the earliest days, New York City and New York State has always had a vigorous Black presence. New York City has seen a number of social, political and religious leaders and intellectuals of African descent. New York African Americans have made many notable achievements, major religious denominations started there and many thinkers and race leaders have made their home there.
- New York was the cultural, economic and social movement capital of the country: New York had always been the cultural, musical, publishing and entertainment capital of the country. This was true for Blacks as well as Whites. Though Black music was created and developed in the south, it could not be systematically published, produced on a professional level and consistently delivered on a large scale to audiences except in New York. Furthermore good performers could not get high pay and good performing circumstances outside New York. Blacks in New York had for some time (long before the 1920s) had been able to succeed and make money in the entertainment business. The 1920s ("the jazz age") was also the time when jazz (a creation of African Americans popular musicians) became a strong national musical movement and New York became a natural center of popular and classical music and entertainment. In other areas of the culture industry (writing and publishing, art and design, etc.) New York was (and still is) "the Big Apple".
- Caribbean migration to New York: Many if not most people in the early waves of Black Caribbean migration to America came to the New York City area. They brought with them relationships, values and ways of living that greatly impacted Harlem in many ways. Caribbean New Yorkers were hard working and known to be proud, becoming business leaders, politicians and religious leaders in the City. Many of the leaders of Garvey's movement were Caribbeans as were many of the creative types (e.g. writers and some performers). Thus a considerable part of the creative, social change and political energy of the Harlem Renaissance period and Black consciousness (e.g. as seen in Garveyism) was in part due to Caribbean migration.
- A progressive social change tradition in New York: New York was not only the cultural capital of the country but it was also the economic and social change capital as well. Many social movements (labor, ethnic, civic and social welfare organizations) either started in New York City or became well established there. New York City and New York State had been a center of anti-slavery activity in the 19th century and generated much social welfare activity in the 20th century. The Underground Railroad ran through New York City and continued upstate to Canada. The city of Rochester in upstate New York was where Frederick Douglas and other anti-slavery fighters lived for a time.
- Black advancement organizations and their publications were in New York: Two of the most important organizations in the history of Black Americans were started and headquartered in New York. The NAACP and The Urban League worked for both rights and consciousness and made New York a refuge for those fleeing from or fighting racial oppression. These two organizations produced two of the major publications that expressed and symbolized the Harlem Renaissance: "Crisis" (the magazine of the NAACP) and "Opportunity" (the magazine of the Urban League). Not only did these magazines provide news and views of African American life in the New Negro period but they also published many young Black writers' and artists' works who were then unknown (but later became the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance). Thus, Crisis and Opportunity, both published in New York, documented the issues, concerns, mood, thinking, art and design of the Harlem Renaissance period. The editors and writers of these publications (e.g. James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B. Dubois) became leading thinkers of the period.
Literature is one of the areas in which the Harlem Renaissance is best known and had its widest impact on many people living outside Harlem. The writers of the Harlem Renaissance produced ideas and an identity that has left a lasting influence on both Black and White America. There were many key writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Some of the major names include:
- Countee Cullen the poet
- Langston Hughes the novelist, poet, essayist and all around cultural activist
- James Weldon Johnson, a poet, noveist and head of the NAACP
- Claude McKay a novelist and chronicler of Harlem
- W.E.B. DuBois, a political activist, publisher, novelist and organizer
In addition to novels and books written by single authors, there were also collaborative efforts. One very important one was the short-lived magazine "Fire!!" which featured the work of several writers and artists. Most of the copies were burned up in a real warehouse fire and the few surviving copies are rare and expensive treasures today.
Art
Art was one of the areas in which the 1920s and 30s were distinct and the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance is as much expressed in the visual arts as it was in literature. The Harmon Foundation (an organization set up by wealthy people to support culture) discovered and gave prizes to many rising young Black artists who later became famous. Some went to Europe and some stayed in America.
Black painters began to portray Blacks as sensitive, dignified individuals rather than comic stereotypes. Pride in Africa and African origins arose and became widespread in the 1920s and especially the 30s. Afro-American artists began to use an African style and Africanic visual devices to suggest themes such as the African past and liberation for African derived peoples in their work. The expression of African images and motifs as well as modernist themes in Black American art is one of the hallmarks of the Harlem Renaissance.
Many artists of various kinds contributed to the Harlem Renaissance but some of them are most representative of its art message. In painting, Aaron Douglas who used Black men and women (often in strong silhouettes) as central symbolic figures, was often chosen to illustrate key books (e.g. by James Weldon Johnson) and magazines (e.g. Opportunity) of the era. Palmer Hayden and Archibald Motley depicted, among other things, folklore, African American community-level social life and strongly African features.
In sculpture, Richmond Barthe and Meta Warrick Fuller excelled with themes related to Africa and the beauty of the common Black man. Their art consciously sought to express the "Black is beautiful" concept long before it arose as an identify principle and esthetic ideology many years later in the 1960s.
In photography, then just starting to secure its place as a fine art medium, photographers such as James Van Der Zee and others (e.g. James L. Allen and the Morgan brothers) visually documented Harlem's community life and prominent African American cultural and intellectual personalities.
Business & Economics
Business people are a less discussed but key element in the Harlem Renaissance. They started the real estate boom early in the 20th century that produced the concentration of Blacks in one neighborhood (i.e. Harlem). They also put up much of the money for the glamour shown in Harlem. Stores, banks, funeral homes, photographers (such as James Van der Zee), theaters and other commercial establishments (not to speak of nightclubs) made Harlem an exciting and fun-filled place to live, work and visit. Business and professional people were active, entrepreneurs and family businesses flourished. People were often poor but the kind of long term hopeless "culture of poverty" that later became identified with Harlem was not yet in evidence. Though she died before the Harlem Renaissance really got going, one very important business figure of the early 20th century that deserves mention was Madame C.J. Walker. Madam walker was a highly successful entrepreneur who created a cosmetics and hair care empire drawing revenue from both products and salons. She was the first female African American millionaire. Her business provided employment and upward mobility for Black women for decades. Her daughter became one of the leading hostesses and patrons of Harlem Renaissance intellectuals.
Music & Entertainment
Another major element of the Harlem Renaissance was its music. Black musicians were drawn to New York by the excitement, the opportunity to make big money and the opportunity to show their talent, see their works on stage. Even before the Harlem Renaissance period, many talented Black musicians and actors had come to New York and made a name for themselves. Will Marion Cook, Rosamond Johnson (James Weldon Johnson's brother) and many others created a tradition of successful Black musicians. The great comedy team of Bert Williams and George Walker had starred in New York for years.
New York in the 1920s and 30s became the scene of a long lasting Black musical explosion. Popular music (on the stage and in the cabarets) had overwhelming success. Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle were a very successful musical theater team who took Broadway by storm. Jazz and popular musicians of national importance such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and others brought Harlem's music to the rest of the world and were widely acclaimed.
Harry Burleigh (the singer) and Nathaniel Dett (the composer and conductor) insisted on presenting music form a Black point of view even though they were classically trained and fully competent to perform any way they chose. Major concert singers such as Roland Hayes and Marian Anderson became internationally recognized for their excellence and artistry.
Music is one of the areas in which the achievements of the Harlem Renaissance continued long after it had formally ended in other ways. For example, in the 1940s and 50s, Harlem saw another musical upsurge in the Bebop era with people such as Charley Parker and Thelonius Monk. Even later, in the 1960s, the musical creativity of Harlem (as witnessed in many R&B performances in the Apollo Theater) was going strong.
Sports and the black defeat of Nazi ideology
Sports played a role in the change in consciousness of the Harlem Renaissance period, especially in the 1930s. Starting in the 1920s and reaching a peak in the 1930s and 40s, sports became an important arena for Black advancement that the average person could relate to and appreciate, regardless of their personal circumstances. It was also in this period that sports became a means of racial pride and advancement when Black athletes showed conclusively that Nazi Germans and their allies were certainly not invincible.
In the 1930s in Europe, the Nazi party arose in Germany and Austria by exploiting social unrest and using propaganda and ruthless tactics. The Nazis believed and asserted that Germans were racially superior (physically and mentally) to others and should rule the rest of an inferior world. The Nazis and their allies established totalitarian, militaristic regimes which sought to conquer other countries in Europe, Africa (especially Ethiopia) and Asia. It was in this period that Haille Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, became a hero and a symbol of Black resistance to oppression and aggression for African Americans and others in the Caribbean.
The message of Black non-inferiority became clear in the 1936 Olympics when Black American track stars nearly made a clean sweep of prizes and medals. Their outstanding performance (Jesse Owens was the most notable) proved to the world that Nazi claims of physical superiority were false and ridiculous. Adolph Hitler, the disappointed founder and leader of the Nazis disgustedly walked out of the Olympic stadium rather than give glory and awards to Black athletes. The performance of the most famous of these outstanding athletes was a source of pride for the whole of America and, for the first time, Blacks were seen as assets by representing the country internationally.
Elsewhere other gains were being made by African Americans in sports. Joe Louis, one of the best boxers America has ever produced became a national figure with his long and very successful career in the ring. His victories made Black Americans proud and increased their prestige among other Americans. One of Louis' greatest victories was against Max Schmeling. Though he lost at first, Louis came back in a later fight with undeniable success.
The ordinary person
The Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro period in general was a multi-faceted and multi-level period. Africans Americans were active, achieving, developing and changing on many fronts and at various levels, not only the culture, literature and art areas for which the period is famous. For example, in politics, sports, business and religion, many important things were happening that had never happened before and that had long term impact on African Americans and the world. Furthermore, it was not only the cultural elite who were doing things of note but the common man and woman were also active, enjoying themselves, confronting difficult problems and creating a new world for themselves. It should never be forgotten that although artists and writers express realities and dreams and hopes and get rewarded for their powers of expression, their inspiration and raw material comes from the common folk whose lives provide the insights, characters and emotions needed for creative expression.
Harlem had a rich social life and among ordinary people there were many concerts, social clubs and social events. Organizations like the masons and the fraternities made Harlem an exciting place to live, even if one was not a writer or artist. Not everyone was cultured, there were also gangsters and other non-lawful types who tried to share in the wealth however they could. The Harlem Renaissance period was also the era of Prohibition (of alcohol) yet many people engaged in drinking. On the other hand, Many of Harlem's citizens were upstanding, church-going citizens who frowned upon nightlife, illegal or borderline activities.
Popular culture, night clubs and "Harlemania"
The Harlem Renaissance did not only occur on the level of art and literature but also on the popular culture level as well. The 1920s being the Jazz Age in America saw popular Black music and entertainment emerge and be adopted by White mainstream culture. In music dance, fashion, language and other areas, Black styles and creativity swept America and went beyond its borders to become a strong presence in Europe. Music and dance were influenced from several sources: Jazz and Blues performers in Harlem, Black-themed stage shows and not least of all Harlem's many nightclubs. Harlem also had a great influence of popular modes of speech, developing a unique and powerful slang vocabulary of great expressiveness and charm that continues to influence American popular culture to this day.
The 1920s witnessed the advent of "Harlemania", a widespread interest in and craze for things associated with Harlem on the part of people from outside Harlem, even those (e.g. in places like France) that were outside the U.S. Harlemania occurred for very good reasons, since most of America and even New York was not nearly as exciting and vibrant as Harlem was in those days.Harlem's night clubs were legendary places of recreation and fun, especially for well off Whites who would come uptown for music, dancing and other experiences they could not get in their own neighborhoods. The nightclubs featured much African American entertainment talent. Many important performers were discovered or established in them - Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and many others.
The Cotton Club was one of the most glamorous nightclubs in Harlem. It attracted patrons with elaborate shows and top-flight music and dancing talent. Its décor featured plantation scenery and many interesting props. Some of nightclubs (e.g. the Cotton Club, Happy Rhone's, Connie's Inn and Small's) became national style setters and world famous in terms of dance, music and fashion. Ironically, though these clubs were in Harlem and used African American entertainers, many (the Cotton Club for example) did not allow African Americans to attend shows and sit with Whites. Small's, however, was a Black-owned club with a mostly Black clientele. Local African Americans naturally patronized certain clubs and types of activities that admitted them and these were often more interesting to be in (especially those that featured dancing). Many other clubs were part of the Harlem scene, allowing the serving of alcohol (then prohibited by law) and operating long after other clubs were closed for the night.
Differences in new Negro ideology- high brow vs. low brow culture
There were noticeable and sometimes even important differences among people and groups in the 1920s and 30s. As in all human affairs, not everyone in the Harlem Renaissance agreed with everyone else. Many times those who strongly espoused a certain approach to racial advancement greatly disagreed with and distrusted others, despite the fact that they were all working toward the betterment of African Americans in general. One major controversy was about the Negro image, the definition of what the New Negro should be and how he should be portrayed. Some cultural and social activists of the Harlem Renaissance wanted to emphasize African Americans' ability to express and handle mainstream culture in order to show that the race was not as the common stereotypes portrayed and had intellectual and cultural abilities equal to those of White Americans. Others did not care as much about proving equality with Whites and instead asserted the beauty and importance of African American's unique inherited culture and the earthiness of Harlem life among the masses, even if that meant exposing its unflattering aspects. Whereas the "talented tenth" philosophy of DuBois saw the New Negro as a legion of professionals and intelligentsia who would be exhibit established mainstream cultural virtues in dark skin and with a race salvation agenda. The low brow culture enthusiasts on the other hand were fascinated by the issues, music, lifestyles and language of the common people and those with untraditional lifestyles in what would now be considered the ghetto. Another related controversy was whether the New Negro should be race leaders first ad use art and culture as tools for racial upliftment or whether they should be artists and writers first who used their culture as a source of inspiration and insight. It was in the literary realm and in social advancement ideas that these controversy were most felt and acted out.
Racism and oppression during The Harlem Renaissance
Ironically, while Black America was achieving a cultural peak in the Harlem Renaissance, others in America did not know and did not want to know of its development and achievements. Although the Harlem Renaissance was a high point in African American cultural history, it was not seen as such by the many non-African Americans who did not appreciate African Americans or their talents. Many in the general public did not know or believe that a Black cultural renaissance was going on or even possible and they insisted on treating African Americans according to long-held negative stereotypes and prejudices.
It must be remembered that before and during the Harlem Renaissance period, racism and oppression was common and virulent all across America (in both the south and the north). In the 1900s through the 1930s, lynchings were consistently reported although they trailed off in frequency as time went on. Furthermore, the ordinary White American at that time regarded Blacks as a source of cheap, exploitable labor, an inferior nuisance, an economic threat or an ignorant, quaint, comical group who deserved second class citizenship and the scorn of others. Popular artifacts and expressions from that period reveal the total ignorance of what was going on in the New Negro consciousness of Harlem and other cities. It was only until decades later that the achievements and experiences of the Harem renaissance were widely known and appreciated. For the great majority of Americans then the New Negro image had not yet replaced that of the old Negro.
Key Themes of The Harlem Renaissance
To truly understand the Harlem Renaissance and appreciate its contributions, it is necessary to know some of the major ideas and issues underlying its creative works and cultural activities. There were many themes, ideas and issues that ran through Harlem Renaissance thinking and expression. A few of them include:
1. Roots in the south and Africa: The Harlem Renaissance celebrated, respected and explored the origins of African Americans in the south and in Africa. Rather than looking to Europe and colonial America as the source of ideas, beauty and insight, many of its novels and other creative works were based on themes and issues in Africa and southern life. Previously, Africa and the south were seen as embarrassingly backward, primitive places that progressive Blacks tried not to be identified with but the Harlem Renaissance changed this feeling.
An interest in and identification with Africa had started earlier in the century (e.g. in the form of the Pan-African Congresses organized by DuBois) and was reflected widely in literature, dance, music and the visual arts. Even in businesses the interest in Africa was reflected (for example in the names of companies and in advertising). Ethiopia was considered a symbol of all of Africa and members of the African race were often euphemistically called Ethiopian or Nubian. For example, one services business was named "The Ethiopian Life Insurance Company". European artists also were heavily influenced by the values and appearance of African art. Major sculptures with African themes started to appear in non-African settings. Artists such as Aaron Douglas began to use themes such as African Masks and the desire to relate to an African homeland in magazine illustrations, murals and paintings. It should be noted that not only was Africa seen and respected as the homeland of African Americans but the image of Africa began to be upgraded and redefined. Instead of seeing Africa as primitive, pagan and embarrassingly backward, Harlem Renaissance creative types redefined Africa as a worthwhile, beautiful homeland that had given much, had much to teach and should be celebrated with a sense of pride of origins.
2. Racial identity and self-acceptance: In the Harlem Renaissance, the acceptance of and fascination with African Americans themselves and their origins, culture, personalities and styles was highlighted. It was felt that African Americans should define themselves and be the expressers and interpreters of their own culture. This concentration on Blackness went beyond the quaint, homey and pleasant characters of Paul Laurence Dunbar and broke new ground to explore complex and sometimes unpleasant themes. In many ways this theme anticipated the ideas of the Black is Beautiful movement decades later in the 1960s and 70s.
3. Black vs. white mainstream culture: Though they were African Americans, Harlem Renaissance cultural activists were also intellectuals in general and they thus also felt a kinship with general artistic and literary trends. The tension between belonging to and being spokespersons for a specific group while also belonging to a general artistic tradition created a sense of divided and competing loyalties. Their racial identity made them Black but their profession placed them in what was then considered a European intellectual tradition. Some were concerned with proving to the world that African Americans could create and express European culture as well as any European could while others wanted to abandon Europe as a cultural model and base their work on African, Caribbean or southern Black models. Some artists, musicians and writers handled this conflict differently from others.
4. Expressing oneself and the black man's feelings: The Harlem Renaissance was nothing if not an expressive period. Its concerns were to express what Blacks saw, felt, experienced and thought from the inside. Rather than be depicted, characterized or portrayed by others, its practitioners took upon themselves the task of expressing and describing Black realities, problems and thoughts. On a more comprehensive level, the ability and responsibility to express themselves was itself one of the major issues the New Negro had to face.
5. Harlem: Harlem, the place and the state of mind it involved, is itself a major theme of the Harlem Renaissance. The people, character types, lifestyle and activities of Harlem energized and inspired its creative types. A number of important books have Harlem in their titles or refer to Harlem issues in their plots.
6. The common folk: The interestingness, problems and nobility of the common person and his culture was also a concern for Harlem Renaissance artists and intellectuals, just as it was for other writers and thinkers of the 1930s. The music of the common man, jazz and the blues, formerly considered low down or even sinful, began to rise in acceptance among the cultural set. There was also a certain amount of inner conflict over not being the common man. Though they spoke of and for the common man, they themselves were in fact not the common man. A subtle and sometimes overt conflict between admiring and sympathizing with the masses while not being restricted to the thinking and lifestyle limits of the masses is evident in many Harlem Renaissance works.
The impact of The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance had a number of results and outcomes that lasted long after it ended and that were felt far beyond the boundaries of Harlem and Black America:
- It portrayed and exemplified a new type of African American and thus helped to change the African American image forever
- It started and established the careers of many important African American writers, artists and thinkers who were influential for decades after
- It brought forth a body of creative cultural work (e.g. art, music and literature) that have become classics in African American and American culture
- It created an ongoing interest in African American culture that continues up to this day
- It bequeathed to Harlem a glamour that made it famous world-wide. Even now the word "Harlem" creates a special excitement that many people recognize and respond to, even if they know nothing else about the African American experience
- It established Harlem as the cultural and political capital of Black America for artistic, entertainment and cultural purposes (even though the south was in many senses the original geographical homeland of most African Americans).
- Its achievements led, in subtle and overt ways, to later important African American advances such as the civil rights movement.
- It caused people all over the world to admire and imitate Black American cultural styles in music, dance, language, fashion, etc.
Though not as creative literarily, Harlem was still a vibrant community in the 1940s, 50s and early 60s. In the 1950s New York became the state with the greatest number of African Americans (most of whom lived in the New York City metropolitan area).
However, in the 1960s things started to change for the worse and Harlem began to decline socially, economically and culturally. Drugs (heroin) came in and with it came crime, unemployment and social decay. Many prosperous and middle class people moved out to other areas of New York City and its suburbs. Old time New Yorkers who saw and help make Harlem in its glory days started to die out or move out. Prosperous, middle class and professional people went to Brooklyn, Queens or the suburbs. Gangs and destructive, out-of-control young people without family roots took over street corners and Harlem's reputation as a place to have fun was replaced by a reputation as a dangerous place to be careful about. Nightclubs and cultural sites closed up and although Black culture in general stayed influential, Harlem was no longer its main fountain and source. Later, even more destructive drugs (cocaine), unemployment and other factors caused crime to rise and community business ownership and family life to decline.
After two or three decades of decline Harlem is now undergoing a revival. Harlem is now the scene of a new inbound migration. New money is restoring its beautiful architecture and more new residents (White as well as Black) with good jobs and talent are arriving every day. Blacks from Africa and other places are moving in and setting up businesses there. It is also becoming a more diverse community as Asians, Whites and Black professional move in to take advantage of its prime location, interesting buildings and business potential. Real estate in Harlem is soaring in price. New stores and cultural spots are cropping up every year. Even more, there is a concerted attempt by economic development agencies to bring Harlem glamour days back and some of the old clubs and sites are being revived.
Not all Harlemites are satisfied with or benefiting from new developments (whose rewards have been unevenly distributed). Those with little and who could not get more are being left behind and pushed out. Gainful employment for ordinary people and those new to the workforce is often still unavailable. Many old time Harlemites are now complaining that Harlem is getting so gentrified and housing so expensive that it is harder and harder to live there now.
Despite its past and current difficulties however, Harlem is now the scene of much hope and rising optimism. As the names of some of its new places and the conversation of many people reflect, it is now the scene of a second Harlem Renaissance.
The Darwin - Leakey room.
This room is situated in a beautifully restored 19th century house which also forms the entrance to the museum Kurá Hulanda. In the so-called Darwin-Leakey room there are on exhibit fossils, skulls and bone artifacts of finds in Africa and in particular from the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Africa's garden of Eden. The Olduvai Gorge is specially known on account of the excavations of Mary, Louis and Richard Leakey that took place since the middle of this century.
The room itself is decorated with lots of authentical objects and furniture. It gives a good impression of the interior of a study of Darwin and other discoverers of his period.
Black by White
The presentation of African Black men and women in the Western world had been concescending for centuries. Religious arrogance and belief in the supremacy of the white race supplied the needed approval. For centuries spiritual leaders, politicians, physicians and scientists exerted themselves to prove the Negro was just 'quasi-human'; an excellent animal, but just an animal, born to serve the superior white race. Thus justificating the profitable slave trade and colonization of the African continent.
Acceptance of the Black race became possible only by 'White-washing' the Black man. Africans had to be Christened and educated in the White traditions. In the words of the Caribbean philosofer Fanon: 'Black men had to wear 'white masks'. The excistence of an independent African culture was consequently denied.
A hesitating change started in the 19th century. Several explorers and anthropologists traveled to Africa to learn more about the traditions and culture of the African people. Many looked down upon these with 'white' superior eyes.
The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century brought foreward a group of philosophers over African and racial matters, like Mary Kingsley, Dudley kidd, the governor of Jamaica Sir Sydney Olivier and head-editor M. Finot of the Paris' newspaper La Revue. They published - after thorough research in Africa itself - several books in which they settled the old prejudices.
In spite of that Western scorn of Black Men prevails with large segments of the European and White American population until today.
The picture galley at the second floor of the entrance building shows the presentation of Black men and women in the French and German press from about 1850 till 1950. The collection consists of more than two hundred historical drawings of Black man as anthropological species, rediscovered by Western discoverers. Also there are pages of newspapers with drawings of the colonial wars in Africa, newly independent African republics displayed as 'monkey' republics and cartoons about Blacks and Black man as sexually de-filed beings.
