Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Foreword Preface
List of Illustrations
PART ONE Introduction: The Harlem Renaissance as History, Memory, and Myth
The New Negro
Harlem Real and Imagined
Beginnings of the Harlem Renaissance
Themes in Black Identity
Controversies over Art and Politics
The Harlem Renaissance: Vogue or Watershed?
Major Harlem Renaissance Figures and Publications
PART TWO The Documents
Background and Beginnings
1. W.E.B. Du Bois,
Returning Soldiers, May 1919
2. A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen,
The New Negro — What Is He? August 1920
3. Marcus Garvey,
Speech to the Second International Convention of Negroes, August 14, 1921
4. James Weldon Johnson,
Black Manhattan, 1930
5. Helene Johnson,
Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem, 1927
6. Claude McKay,
Harlem Shadows and
The Liberator, 1922
The Harlem DancerHarlem ShadowsIf We Must DieAmericaThe White House7. Jean Toomer,
Cane, 1923
Karintha
Reapers
November Cotton Flower
Becky
8. Countee Cullen,
Color, 1925, and
Copper Sun, 1927
To John Keats, Poet. At Spring Time Yet Do I MarvelFrom the Dark TowerHarlem Wine9. Langston Hughes,
The Weary Blues, 1926
The Negro Speaks of RiversThe Weary BluesDream VariationHarlem NightclubEpilogue: I, Too, Sing America10.
Opportunity, The Debut of the Younger School of Negro Writers, including Gwendolyn Bennett,
To Usward, May 1924
11. Alain Locke, Editor,
The Survey Graphic, Harlem Issue, March 1925
Winold Reiss, cover
Alain Locke,
Harlem
12. Alain Locke, ed.,
The New Negro, 1925
2. Themes in Black Identity13. Claude McKay,
A Long Way from Home, 1937
14. Langston Hughes,
Fine Clothes to the Jew, 1927
Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret Song for a Dark Girl15. Countée Cullen,
Hentage, 1925
16. Gwendolyn Bennett,
Heritage, 1923
17. Richard Bruce Nugent,
Sahdji, 1925
Aaron Douglas, illustration
18. Zora Neale Hurston,
Mules and Men, 1935
19. Sterling Brown,
Southern Road, 1932
Odyssey of Big BoySouthern RoadMa RaineyStrong Men20. Ma Rainey,
See See Rider, 1924
21. Bessie Smith,
Young Woman’s Blues, 1926
22. Joel A. Rogers,
Jazz at Home, 1925
23. Nella Larsen,
Passing, 1929
24. Jessie Fauset,
Plum Bun, 1929
25. Nella Larsen,
Quicksand, 1928
26. Georgia Douglass Johnson,
The Heart of a Woman, 1918
27. Anne Spencer,
Lady, Lady, 1925, and
Letter to My Sister,1928
3. Controversies in Art and Politics28. George S. Schuyler,
The Negro Art-Hokum, 1926
29. Langston Hughes,
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, 1926
30. Wallace Thurman, Editor,
Fire!!, 1926
Aaron Douglas, Cover Art
Wallace Thurman,
Cordelia the Crude
31. W.E.B. Du Bois,
Criteria of Negro Art, 1926
32. Alain Locke,
Art or Propaganda, 1928
33. Richard Wright,
Blueprint for Negro Writing, 1937
34. Zora Neale Hurston,
Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937
35. Alain Locke,
The Negro: "New" or "Newer"?
AppendixesA Brief Chronology of the Harlem Renaissance (1914–1939)
Questions for Consideration
Selected Bibliography
Index