As African-American actor Mahershala Ali remembers, “when I was growing up, Harlem was the Mecca of black culture. I was so inspired by it, the aspirational feeling you’d get spending time there. Experiences that were really specific to that place.” Alike most of the black community in the United States, Ali finds a sense of belonging and amazement in the famous Harlem neighborhood in northern Manhattan. To understand why Harlem had become and has maintained its status as a cultural capital for the negro population, one must study the era of the Harlem Renaissance. During the first World War, thousands of black migrants moved north to escape the racial brutality of the South and to fill the war’s labor industry. With New York being a hot spot in addition to the buyout of Harlem real-estate from successful black businessmen, Harlem eventually became a growing home for thousands of black families, including prominent intellectuals such as Langston Hughes and Alain Locke. As the war ended and as black soldiers marched pridefully down the streets of Harlem, African-Americans throughout the nation called for an end to segregation and racial wrongdoings. With an atmosphere of unified black people full of intellectuals and artists, Harlem experienced a cultural and artistic explosion that, for the first time in American negro history, was able to provide the black community a brief moment in the sun.
Although the 1920s Harlem Renaissance flourished with artistic masterpieces and beautiful literary works, the negro still faced undeniable racial discrimination that would not simply subside from an outburst of black intellectual success. Unfortunately, Harlemites were too innocent and quick to assume that with the power of morality and a belief in the American democratic system, the issue of racial inequality would be easily resolved. What black folk of the decade failed to understand was that racism, unlike other American problems, which could be fixed with reforms and the right leadership, was too deeply rooted in the American psyche and “would require deep social convulsions to make black and white Americans conscious of its enormity.” (51) With this in mind, it becomes important to reconsider whether the achievements of the Renaissance were truly black achievements. However magnificent and ethnic the accomplishments may seem, how could the negro escape the shadow and the influence of the dangerous yet seemingly permanent issue of racism? Langston Hughes, amongst others, for example, often suffered in keeping black integrity due to his dependency on white patrons. For the black intellectual, it was relatively impossible to avoid the white-dominated American society that wrapped its tentacles around all aspects of art, history, and culture. Essentially, an analysis of the Renaissance will reveal that not only should the negro authenticity of the Renaissance art be put into question, but that white and black people, however different, are interdependent, are both of the same culture, of the same people, and should both be referred to as American.
When World War I ended in 1919, African-Americans who once called themselves radicals began to notice a shift in the negro attitude. The negro of postwar America, as the Harlem magazine Messenger noted, “would not accept accommodation or ignore grievances even in the interest of war.” (53) By no longer ‘turning the other cheek,’ black folk insisted on achieving absolute social equality and focused on immediate economic interests, such as higher wages. Known as the father of the renaissance, Alain Locke coined the black folk of this period as the “New Negro,” a race that no longer lingered in the shadows as the “Old Negro” had done. Instead, he insisted that the New Negro should reject stereotypes, emphasize personal and racial integrity, and embark on a journey to rediscover oneself. Essentially, Locke claimed that negroes need not see themselves as the problem of society, but as an equal people in the American civilization. In his own words, Locke states that the negro “now becomes a conscious contributor and lays aside the status of a beneficiary and ward for that of a collaborator and participant in American civilization.” To simplify, Locke was trying to explain that the new negroes’ task was to discover their own cultural contribution to the United States, ridding the common misconception that black folk are indeed a burden to and a dependent of the nation.
However strong African-American intellectuals called upon their people to embrace the ideology of the ‘New Negro,’ it was nearly impossible for the negro to escape the harsh segregation that was present during the 1920s. To start, black folk were incredibly ashamed of their past. White oppression, constant humiliation, and a lack of education on the negro’s history led African-Americans to reject the reality of their situation. Ideas reminiscent of their former conditions such as unskilled labour and enthusiastic religion were undermined while white measures of achievement, social mobility, and the Protestant ethic was upheld. While these symbols allowed the Negro to measure “the distance a black man or woman had traveled from his past of chains,” (62) they forced the negro to constantly view themselves and their own people as unworthy while viewing their white counterparts as superior. In addition to these feelings, the American education also reinforced a value in white virtue. While schools did not necessarily shame black children for their race, they were always taught to behave and follow the path of a white man and never their own black fathers. For example, black children were taught that the speech and dialects of their fathers were improper English, that their tales were not culture, and that their spirituals were not music. Rather, they were introduced to a culture that was distant and alien to them, a culture that was European by origin and “fitted on like a suit of clothes.” (63) In educating the black youth in this manner, African-American children were dragged into a vortex of Anglo-Saxon norms denying negro traditions and way of living.
In order to refrain from being culturally undermined, Harlem intellectuals decided to promote their culture and convince white America of the Negro’s worth. By strategizing propaganda and Harlem art in this manner, the Harlem Renaissance essentially functioned not only as a platform for negro art and literature, but as a platform to advance the cultural integrity and the humanity of African-Americans themselves. To accomplish this, the New Negro needed to discover their heritage and search for their self-worth and identity. Therefore, many turned towards their ties to the African continent. With the genuine folk traditions, the spirituals, and the tales, negroes felt united in their quest to find heritage in their mother continent. Black leader W.E.B. Du Bois, for instance, recognized the power of negro spirituals in his chapter “sorrow songs” from his novel Souls of Black Folk. He understood that the songs bound the race emotionally and allowed African-Americans a glimpse into their historical ties to Africa. With all of this coming at a time when negro folk materials were being integrated into Renaissance art, it became inevitable for any conversation on racial culture to be “thrown back upon Africa,” the ultimate cultural beginning. (79) It becomes evident that by attempting to connect back to Africa, by promoting the negro culture, and by working towards racial equality, the New Negro became race conscious and assertive and was able to build a Renaissance and create a black cultural capital in Harlem.
Fortunately for the black community, Postwar America was ready for this New Negro of Harlem. This neighborhood of Manhattan was constantly filled with festivities, lively nights, culture, and was a place where both races could relax and enjoy there time. Unlike the rest of the nation, Harlem did not possess the moral codes, guilt-producing norms, and the Protestant ethic and values that characterized America. Instead, the black cultural enclave escaped the relentless engine of the nation by being associated “with spiritual and emotional enthusiasm, indulgence, play, passion, and lust.” (80) While white Americans fueled the economy of Harlem by pleasuring themselves with the alcohol, sex, and the drugs of Harlem nightlife, they were also exposed to the innocence of the neighborhood and the revelation that black people were not savages, but instead civilized men. In hindsight, Harlem represented for the white community a means to reject the sterility of their lives and experience life in simpler and more exciting ways. In this regard, through his speech, music, manners, and emotional and spiritual draw, the negro became the white man’s agent to subvert the conventional American lifestyle.
Of all the white enthusiasts of Harlem, Carl Van Vechten was undeniably the most prominent. In addition to being well respected within the neighborhood both socially and professionally, Vechten considered black intellectuals such as James Johnson and Countee Cullen close friends and made an avid career promoting negro writers and artists. In his book, Ni&&er Heaven, Vechten brilliantly describes the negro and Harlem as a “social microcosm of New York City.” (102) He wanted his white readers to reject the definition of negroes as a type, but rather to understand that African-Americans could be as diverse as any other race, capable of encompassing a variety of values, tastes, and characters. By furthermore introducing the spirited social life of Harlem, with the parties, intellectual salons, and elegant dinners, Vetchen informs the reader that the negro fit no stereotype and that Harlem was as interesting and important as the rest of New York.