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The Book That Launched the Harlem Renaissance Author(s): Arnold Rampersad Source: The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 38 (Winter, 2002-2003), pp. 87-91 Published by: JBHE Foundation, Inc Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3134215 Accessed: 31-12-2015 07:44 UTC

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This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Thu, 31 Dec 2015 07:44:09 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Book That Launched the Harlem Renaissance

Alain Locke's1925 text The New Negro offeredthe world thefirst comprehensive look at literaryand culturalachievements of blacksas seen throughthe eyes of AfricanAmericans.

by Arnold Rampersad

O MANY SCHOLARSand criticsof the move- some aspects,it has also provedto have been decidedly ment known as the HarlemRenaissance - that misleadingin others. dramaticupsurge of creativityin literature,music, Subsequentgenerations have continuedto see Locke in andart within black America that reached its zenithin the this centralrole in the HarlemRenaissance. "Locke's edit- - second half of the 1920s The New Negro is He wasan energeticchampion ing of and contributionto this volume," the its definitivetext, its Bible. Most of the partic- of theintellectual achievements historian Nathan I. Huggins has written in his ipants in the movement probablyheld the book ofNegroes landmark volume The Harlem Renaissance in similar regard.Conceived and edited by (1971),"and his energeticchampioning of the Alain Locke, illustratedby WinoldReiss and - intellectualachievement of Negroes in the :-- Aaron Douglas, and publishedby the then f 1920smade him the fatherof the New Negro prominentfirm of Albertand Charles Boni, The andthe so-calledHarlem Renaissance." How- NewNegro alerted the world in 1925that some- / ever,a contemporaryobserver in a betterposi- thing approachinga culturalrevolution was tion to know, LangstonHughes, described taking place among blacks in New York, as Lockeonly as one of the three"midwives" of well as elsewherein the UnitedStates and per- 7 the movement,along with Charles S. Johnson hapsaround the world.The book also attempt- andthe literaryeditor of TheCrisis magazine, ed in a fairlyambitious, expansive way to offer JessieFauset. Other observers were less prais- a definitionof this culturalmovement. ' / ing of Locke's performancein this respect. The storyof the makingof TheNew Negrois Indeed,for variousreasons, Locke was an complicatedand, in certainaspects, paradoxi- \I1 7 improbablethough by no means illogical cal. The book, an anthology,represents the tri- choice as "dean"of the movement,or as edi- umphof its compiler'svision of a community torof a volumedesigned to defineits spirit. anda nationchanging before his eyes. And yet / Thirty-nineyears old in 1924, and an assis- this man,Alain Locke, never lived in Harlem P tant professorof philosophyat historically andwas not himselfeither an artistor an editor. AlainLeRoy Locke black Howard University in Washington, The book emphasizedachievements by blacksin the arts, D.C., Locke was a graduateof Harvardand Oxford,to but it had its origins in a magazinethat had no special whichhe hadgone in 1907on a Rhodesscholarship. There interestwhatsoever in writing,painting, or music.Virtual- andat the Universityof Berlinand the Collegede France ly fromthe momentit appearedin 1925, TheNew Negro in Paris,he hadstudied philosophy, Greek, and moder lit- was widely hailed as a definitiveanthology; yet it also erature.He was also devotedto the studyof Germancul- immediatelydrew fire fromcertain of its contributorsand tureand philosophy. Joining the faculty at Howard in 1912, was soon in effect, if not in words,repudiated in crucial he eventuallymoved from teachingEnglish to teaching waysby others.Prophetic of the futureof blackAmerica in philosophy,but was preventedfrom teaching a subjectof Arnold Rampersadis Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities at increasingimportance to him - race, and especiallythe StanfordUniversity. This article is adapted from his introductionto The interactionof racesaffected by whatis calledthe African New edited Alain Locke. ? 1992 MacmillanPublish- Negro by Copyright Locke'sefforts here were not the ing Company.Reprinted with permissionof Scribner,an imprintof Simon diaspora.Blocking only & SchusterAdult Publishing Group. reactionaryuniversity trustees but also the fact thathe had

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This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Thu, 31 Dec 2015 07:44:09 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THEJOURNALOF BLACKSIN HIGHEREDUCATION publishedlittle on the subject.In fact, by the time of the he was as persistentin seekingfriendships and profession- Civic Clubdinner in 1924, Lockehad publishedlittle on al contactsas he was in pursuingknowledge. Eventually, any subject.In a way, in spite of his fine educationand severalof the contributorsto TheNew Negrobroke with intellectualgifts, he was driftinguntil he foundthe Harlem Locke.Before doing so, however,they surrenderedto his Renaissance- or until the HarlemRenaissance found charmand rareintelligence, and helpedto makethe vol- him. umethat followed a landmarkin African-Americancultur- al history. Locke vs. Du Bois A comparisonwith an olderfigure, W.E.B. Du Bois, who "Thebook, an anthology,represents the triumphof had also studiedat Harvardand Berlin, is instructive. its compiler'svision of a communityand a nation AdmiringGerman culture, both men saw a similarity changingbefore his eyes." betweenblack America and Germany in theirstruggles to achieveunity and power.They deeplyrespected the Ger- Liberaland cosmopolitan in his views, Lockemade sure man intellectualtradition, notably the workof Herderon thathis listof contributorsincluded men and women, blacks the transcendentpower of folk cultureand Fichtein his andwhites, young and old. Outnumberedby male writers, nationalisticAddresses to the GermanNation. But Locke six women are representedin The New Negro;however, did not haveDu Bois' backgroundin rigorouslyempirical only two offeredessays - Jessie Fauseton drama,and sociology, and had never lived or taughtin the South, EliseJohnson McDougald on 'The Taskof NegroWoman- where the overwhelmingmajority of black Americans hood."The whites were Albert C. Bames,the eccentric mil- lived at the turnof the century;his sense of the folk was lionaireart collector from Pennsylvania, who wouldeven- mainlytheoretical. He hadnothing approaching Du Bois' tuallyleave his extraordinarycollection in the controlof almostobsessive determination to be a forcein the shaping predominantlyblack Lincoln University; Paul Kelloggof of theirpeople's future. By Locke'sage in 1924, Du Bois Surveymagazine; and Melville J. Herskovits,one of the hadalready published three major books and edited over a leadingstudents and associates of the renownedanthropol- dozenstudies. He hadalso quitthe universityin 1910 for ogistFranz Boas of ColumbiaUniversity and future author the job of crusadingeditor of The Crisis magazine,the of TheMyth of theNegro Past (1941).Several of thepoets, organof the aggressivenew civil rightsorganization, the includingLangston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Bruce NationalAssociation for the Advancement of ColoredPeo- Nugent,were under 25 yearsof age;men like Du Bois and ple. Locke,on the otherhand, although unhappy with the Kelly Millerwere close to or just past 60. Lockebrought Howard administration,had done almost nothing to themall together. fomentchange except to readand reflect on thequestion of the meaningof racein the twentiethcentury. NotableAbsentee His contributorsamounted almost to a Who'sWho among "TheNew Negro alerted the world in 1925 that blackAmerican artists, intellectuals, and scholars. Perhaps somethingapproaching a culturalrevolution was the only notableabsentee was the independenthistorian takingplace among blacks in New York." CarterG. Woodson,founder of the Associationfor the Study of Negro Life and Culturein Washington,D.C. A frequentvisitor to New York,he knewvirtually all the Amongthe youngerwriters Locke missed virtually no one olderblack writers and intellectuals, such as Du Bois and who hadpublished with any distinctionthus far, and virtu- JamesWeldon Johnson. And Locke let neitherdifference ally all of those selectedwent on to achievea measureof in age nor social or professionalstanding keep him from fame.He was too earlyfor Ama Bontemps,Wallace Thur- makingfriends with artistssuch as CounteeCullen and man, and Nella Larsen,but just in time for the fledgling LangstonHughes, who werealmost 20 yearshis junior. He ZoraNeale Hurston.Among the olderwriters he included would go virtuallyanywhere to meet anyonewho might virtuallyeveryone of the old guard,from William Stanley haveanything to contribute.Learned on a varietyof topics, Braithwaite,the poet, critic,and anthologist;James Wel-

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This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Thu, 31 Dec 2015 07:44:09 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THEBOOK THAT LAUNCHED THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE don Johnson,poet, novelist, lyricist;the educatorKelly housein over 10 years.Efforts by organizationssuch as the Miller; and the renownedDu Bois, whose accomplish- NAACPand the NationalUrban League underscored the for a of that ments as historian,sociologist, novel- He was dean of the movementand editor quest degree progress ist, biographer, and crusading editor of thevolume that defined its spirit. would transform the situation of made him almostwithout question blacksin the UnitedStates. the preeminentAfrican-American It is fair to say that,in the face of intellectualof his age - or perhaps racial"science," most of the contrib- any age. Du Bois' presence was utors to the volume accepted the important.In many respects, The notion of black racial and cultural New Negro was the first literary inferioritycompared to the highest attemptto revisethe collectivepor- standardsof Europeancivilization. trait of black Americapainted by Mostalso believed, however, that the him in his own epochalcollection Africanrace was on the move for- TheSouls of BlackFolk in 1903. ward,that politically,economically, Uniting these men and women and culturally,peoples of African was theirgrowing sense of certainty descent around the world were thatblack America was on theverge engagedin the firststages of a trans- of somethinglike a secondEmanci- formationthat would eventually lead pation- this time not by govern- to independencefrom Europe.Af- ment mandatebut by the will and rica, now colonized by Europe, accomplishmentsof the people, would eventuallybe free. Blacks in especiallythe artistsand intellectu- the UnitedStates and the Caribbean, als. The migrationaway from the themajor centers of theAfrican dias- hatedSouth, with its bitterlegacy of pora,would liberate themselves from slavery and segregation, to the the consequences of centuries of greatestcity in the nation,and the Alain Locke slavery and quasi-slavery.Liberal settlementof blacksin an excellent- 1886-1954 whiteswould aid in this movement. ly locateddistrict that boasted the finesthousing stock that Whiteswere probablythe majortarget of TheNew Negro blacks had ever been allowed to inhabit(according to andefforts like it. Throughthe displayof blacksensitivity, JamesWeldon Johnson), seemed to augura new day for intelligence,and artistic versatility, it was believed,whites AfricanAmericans. Sharing in the prosperityof the nation would come to a new understandingof the humanityof as a whole, andenjoying many of the freedomsof the era AfricanAmericans and help to acceleratesocial change. that followed World War I, Accordingly,Locke's central blacks respondedwith a new aim was to producea book,as confidencein themselvesand Lockemissed virtuallyno one who had published he says in his "Foreword,"that their abilities.As reflectedin with any distinctionthus far; and virtuallyall of those would be "of' rather than magazinesand newspapers,as selected went on to achieve a measureoffame. "about"the Negro Thus he well as on the stage and in decidedto concentratenot on nightclubs,literature, music, and the other arts began to statisticsof sociologyor treatiseson historybut on "self- flourishvirtually as neverbefore. The nationalsuccess on expressionand the forces and motives of self-determination. Broadwayof the all-blackmusical play ShuffleAlong in So far as he is culturallyarticulate, we shalllet the Negro 1921brought black song and dance into a new prominence. speakfor himself." In 1923came the firstnovel (if JeanToomer's blend of fic- As carefullyproduced and as influentialas TheNew Negro tion, poetry,and drama in Canecan be calleda novel) by was, the volumeis in no way exemptfrom criticism.In an AfricanAmerican to appearfrom a majorpublishing recentyears, several of Locke'seditorial decisions and pre-

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This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Thu, 31 Dec 2015 07:44:09 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THEJOURNALOF BLACKSIN HIGHEREDUCATION dispositions,not to say prejudices,have been called into in the 1920swithout extended reference to Garveyis a puz- questionby critics and scholars.In his highly regarded zle. But one couldnot imagineGarvey and Du Bois, bitter study of the HarlemRenaissance When Harlem WasIn publicantagonists, coexisting in thesame book; and Locke's Vogue(1981), David LeveringLewis has challengednot loyalties,such as they were,lay with the NAACP,with its only the idea of Locke's centralityto the movementbut integratedbut largely white leadership at thattime, and not also the general wisdom of what Lewis identifies as with the defiantlyblack UniversalNegro Improvement Locke'skey assumption- thatthe race's"more immedi- Associationof Garvey,with its Back-to-Africaslogan. atehope rests in therevaluation by whiteand black alike of the Negroin termsof his artisticendowments and cultural "TheNew Negroexudes a sense of racialpride and yet contributions,past and prospective."Calling this idea also ignoresthe most important mass movement in black "irresponsiblydelusional," Lewis traces its impact on Americaof the 1920s,which was led by MarcusGarvey." Locke's design. "Eurocentricto the tip of his cane,"he sumsup, "Lockesought to graftabstractions from German, Radicalsocialism, too, is given shortshrift in TheNew Irish,Italian, Jewish, and Slovakiannationalisms to Afro- Negro.A. PhilipRandolph and Chandler Owen, for exam- America.... It was headystuff, but the timeswere intoxi- ple, who hadedited the monthlymagazine The Messenger catedwith optimism." since 1917, and who certainlyhad helpedto get the new movement started by publishing poetry and fiction "Unitingthese men and womenwas theirgrowing remarkablylike thatin The Crisisand Opportunity,were sense of certaintythat blackAmerica was on the verge also not included.As David Lewis has written,"Harlem of somethinglike a second Emancipation." was turningits backon Garveyismand socialism to gawk in perplexedadmiration at Phi Beta Kappapoets [a refer- The decisionto emphasizethe artsat the expenseof soci- ence to CounteeCullen], university-trained painters [such ology and historyremains controversial. The book that as AaronDouglas], concertizing musicians [Paul Robeson resultedcertainly gained in a certainway by its emphasis andRoland Hayes], and novel-writing civil rightsofficials on literatureand painting; however, it probablyforfeited at [WalterWhite]." The New Negro helpedHarlem turn its once, for the same reason,its implied claims to speak backeven morefirmly on radicalsocial movements. definitivelyabout African-American culture, its past,pres- Important,too, is the processof smootheningrequired to ent, andfuture. A sense of the economicunderpinnings of makeall theseartists and intellectuals conform to Locke's societyis lacking,as is a senseof historyas beingin large perceptionof a new breedof Negroesin a bravenew world part economichistory. Du Bois is allowed to raise this of Negro-ness. In many ways, the avant-gardeJean - pointin his essay "TheNegro Mind Reaches Out," where Toomerwas out of place in TheNew Negro certainly he remarksthat the majorproblem of the centurywas not Toomerhimself thought so, havingalready protested to a race,as he hadonce claimed,but "whatwe call Labor,the numberof peoplethat (despite his blackancestry) he was problemof allocatingwork and income in the tremendous not a Negro and resentedbeing referredto as one. Bruce and increasingly intricate world-embracingindustrial Nugentwas farmore concerned with his gay identitythan machinethat our civilization built." with his sense of race or ethnicity;but the questionof But this point of view is seldomseen elsewherein The homosexualityis neverraised in thistext - the age would New Negro.In spite of its successes,the volumedid not nothave permitted it. Andthe definitionof New Negroism prepareits readersfor the Crashof 1929 and the ensuing that would includeboth LangstonHughes and Countee Depression,which effectively destroyed the Harlem Renais- Cullenwould have to be elastic.In 1925, Cullen,conser- sance. vativein thistechniques and a consciousimitator of British TheNew Negro exudes a senseof racialpride and yet also romanticpoets, had already formed the basic antipathy that ignoresthe most important mass movement in blackAmer- would lead him to questionthe achievementof Hughes' ica of the 1920s, which was led by MarcusGarvey. How jazz andblues poemsin The WearyBlues (1926). In turn, one could writeabout a new spiritof Negro assertiveness in June1926, Hughes would open his mostpowerful essay,

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This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Thu, 31 Dec 2015 07:44:09 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THEBOOK THATLAUNCHED THEHARLEM RENAISSANCE

'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,"with a thinly Ralph Ellison on Duke Ellington's Cake Walk veiled attack on Cullen for wishing to be known as a poet who happenedto be Negro, ratherthan a Negro poet. Locke's editingpractices and his craftinessinfuriated some of his contributors.Jean Toomer would write that Locke "trickedand misused me" in makingthe book. ClaudeMcKay declaredthat the editor's treatmentof him "destroyedevery vestige of intellectualand fratemalunderstanding" between them. (McKaywas incensed,for example,when Locke timid- ly, andwithout permission, changed the title of his poem "The White House" to "WhiteHouses" in orderto avoid possible repercussions.)Perhaps the most aggrievedcontributor was Jessie Fauset.The pivotalCivic Club dinnerin 1924 had been arrangedto mark the publicationof her first novel, ThereIs Confusion.However, she had seen her achievementglossed over, and Locke hailed as the dean of the movementalthough she had done far more, as literaryeditor of The Crisis,than he to discoverand nurturethe youngerwriters. he cake walk becamea nationalphenomenon in the late 1800s. These were the faddish and "Claude declared that the editor's treatmentof daffy years McKay when whites in blackface performed the dance in the pop- him 'destroyedevery vestige of intellectualandfraternal ular minstrel shows that mocked the life of Negroes in the understanding'between them." plantation South. But the original cake walk was in fact a parody in which black people poked fun at the pretentious and dandified In spite of its shortcomings,however, the achievementof style of white society. Blacks who were known as "walk- in their best clothes with of The New was real. In this it reflects the mixed ers" would strut about pails Negro way water on their heads so that their upper bodies would record of the Harlem Renaissanceitself. In spite of the fact remain absolutely rigid. The winner was the dancer who amount of water. Often of the fact that the movement was short lived, and many of its works spilled the least ignorant that they were the objects of ridicule, whites wagered on and talents of less than stellarquality, the Renaissance suc- the outcome of the cake walk competition. ceeded in laying the foundationsfor all subsequentdepic- In 1969 it was widely expected that Duke Ellington would be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music. When he was tions in fiction, and drama of the modem African- poetry, denied the award, Ellington responded, "Fate is being Americanexperience; and the same claim can be made even kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too more strongly of its music, in the compositions and per- young." When Ralph Ellison heard of the Duke's reply, he formances of artists such as Duke Ellington, Louis Arm- remarked that Ellington's quip was "as mocking of our strong, and Bessie Smith. The centralsuccess of the anthol- double standards, hypocrisies, and pretensions as the of those slaves the windows is its creation of a noble but credible of black dancing who, looking through ogy portrait of a plantation manor house from the yard, imitated the America just as black America was entering the modem steps so gravely performed by their masters within and then added to them their own flair, the world. The energy andjoy in The New Negro have political special burlesquing white folks and then going on to force the steps into a cho- purposes;they are subversive, and thus come tinged with a reography uniquely their own. quality not unlike a thrilling psychological neuroticism, "The whites, looking out at the activity in the yard, that were flattered imitationand were which serves to authenticatethe modernist of the thought they being by identity amused at the incongruityof tattered blacks dancingcourt- New Negro. Whatever one may say of the book, one does ly steps, while missingcompletely the fact that before their a culturalform was Americanized, not find it antiquarian,or a period piece. Even today, it eyes European becoming a metamorphosisthrough the mocking activity remainsa reliableindex to the black undergoing American sensibilityat of people partially sprung from Africa. thatpoint where artand politics meet, as well as to the events "So blissfully unaware, the whites laughed while the blacks danced out their in Harlemand elsewhere among blacks in the 1920s. IJBH I mocking reply."

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