For Monday: Readings in The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader

For Monday, read the following excerpts from The Portable Harlem Renaissance: “Returning Soldiers,” “The Migration of the Talented Tenth,” “Africa for Africans,” “from Black Manhattan,” The New Negro,” “The Task of Negro Womanhood” (pp.3-75--note, I skipped some readings, so you're not reading 72 pages, it turns out to be much less)

These are contemporary writings to the African Americans who had settled in Harlem and were trying to forge a common identity, through literature, in a post-slavery world. Many in Harlem had felt the South in a mass exodus known as The Great Migration, which went through several waves, and brought Southerners to big Northern cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and New York/Harlem. The question then remained, in escaping Jim Crow laws and lynchings, do they now settle for second-class citizenship, or do they demand an equal share in being American? Or should they just leave America altogether? Many African Americans who fought in WWI saw a different world in France, and some elected to stay there for good. Others, such as Marcus Garvey, advocated relocating to Africa and creating a new "Negro" nation. These essays detail the struggle many residents of Harlem felt at facing a new century and a new idea of citizenship.

As you read, consider some of the following: 

* How do many of the writers define their identity as black, Negro, or African? Which terms do they seem to prefer and why? What does it mean to be black and American in the 1920's? 

* Why couldn't African Americans remain in the South? What forces made it seem impossible to stay there, even though many leaders, such as Frederick Douglass, felt it was imperative to remain? Why are the "talented tenth" usually the first to go? 

* How does W.E.B. Du Bois' view of the future of his race contrast wildly with someone like Marcus Garvey? Why did they each advocate two different responses to American racism and injustice? 

* Culler talks about differentiating literature from propaganda: literature has more than one meaning and can be interpreted in wildly different manners. Why might many writers of the Harlem Renaissance be skeptical of Culler's claims for literature? Why might they feel that propaganda is vital for writing the identity of a people--or an individual? 

* How does Johnson describe the explosion of African American life in Harlem? Why there? And how did it come about? What are his hopes and fears for the community? Can Harlem sustain itself as a vital cultural force in America?