The Great Migration, 1916-1919

In 1910, three out of every four black Americans lived on farms, and nine out of ten lived in the South. World War I changed that profile. Hoping to escape tenant farming, sharecropping, and peonage, 1.5 million Southern blacks moved to cities. During the 1910s and 1920s, Chicago's black population grew by 148 percent; Cleveland's by 307 percent; Detroit's by 611 percent.

Leaving

The 1910s: Back to Africa or Follow the North Star?

• "We have a beautiful history, and we shall create another one in the future." – Marcus Garvey • The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) won important Supreme Court decisions against the grandfather clause (1915) and restrictive covenants (1917, but reversed in 1926). The NAACP also fought school segregation in Northern cities during the 1920s and lobbied hard, though unsuccessfully, for a federal anti-lynching bill.

• In World War I, a higher proportion of black soldiers than white soldiers had lost their lives: 14.4 percent black compared to 6.3 percent white. • Ten African American soldiers were among the 70 blacks lynched in 1919. Twenty-five anti-black riots took place that year.

Power in the Darkness

• One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not remember that Daniel Webster got drunk but only that he was a splendid constitutional lawyer. We must forget that George Washington was a slave owner . . . and simply remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect man and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth. • WEB Dubois

Destinations

Black Family Arriving in Chicago

"Bronzeville

Southside Chicago Tenements

The Migrant

Statue in Chicago

The Great Migration in the Artist's Eye

Jacob Lawrence

The Migration of the Negro

Ida B. Wells and Justice for African Americans and Women

Journalist Anti-Imperialist Pro-Imperialist Women's Suffrage

Well's home in Chicago

Harlem Renaissance, 1924-?

    Cultural/Political Explosion in the Black Community Authors: Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, WEB Dubois Artists: Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Palmer Hayden Musicians: Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway and More

Harlem in the 1920s: Transforming African American Identity WEB Dubois Alain Locke Stephanie St. Claire, “Queenie”

Cultures of Resistance

• Cultural Forms and Practices which Evolve as a Reaction to Real or Perceived Oppression • Art, Music, Literature and Poetry as Expressions of Defiance or Preservation of a Culture under Siege – - Anger, Sorrow, Hope, Liberation are Dominant Themes • Can Include Rituals, Outlawed Customs and/or Religion • Often Evolve Because Physical Resistance or Flight is Difficult to Impossible • Often Accompanied by Sporadic or Sustained Physical Struggle – Shared Traditions, Customs, Cultural Heritage, Beliefs and Values – Examples: African American Culture, Native American Culture, Irish, other Immigrant Communities, Islamic Fundamentalist Movement

This Is Harlem

Our homes were very decorative, full of pattern, like inexpensive throw rugs, all around the house. It must have had some influence, all this color and everything. Because we were so poor the people used this as a means of brightening their life. I used to do bright patterns after these throw rugs; I got ideas from them, the arabesques, the movement and so on.

Jacob Lawrence

Mailou Jones

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” Zora Neale Hurston

Jacob Lawrence

The Negroes who had been North for quite some time met their fellowmen with disgust and aloofness.

Negroes encountered a different kind of discrimination in the North.

William Johnson

“The 1930s was actually a wonderful period in Harlem although we didn't know this at the time. Of course it wasn't wonderful for our parents. For them, it was a struggle, but for the younger people coming along like myself, there was a real vitality in the community.“ Jacob Lawrence

If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and Penned in an inglorious spot, While all around us bark mad and hungry dogs Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, let us nobly die So that our blood may not be shed In Vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us, though dead!

Oh kinsmen, let us meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave And for their thousand blows, let us deal one death blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back.

Claude Mckay

Palmer Hayden

Claude McKay

Harlem is the queen of black belts, drawing Afroamericans together into a vast humming hive. They have swarmed from different states, from the islands of the Caribbean and from Africa. And they are still coming in spite of the grim misery that lurks behind the inviting facades. Over-crowded tenements, the harsh Northern climate and un employment do not daunt them. Harlem remains the magnet.

• "There is no reason to it...but you love one and rejoice in her companionship“ Comparing Religious Faith to Loving a Woman

A Nationwide Explosion in African American Painting

Themes: Work, Play, Street Life, Africa, and Dreams Held and Lost

Black Belt, Archibald Motley

Scenes of Chicago Street Life

Honoring the Black Working Class

“I painted it because no one called Cloyde a painter; they called him a janitor.”

Cleaning Windows

Aaron Douglas

Negro Worker

James Wells

The Janitor Who Paints -

Palmer Hayden

Power Plant, Aaron Douglas

Homage to the Infrastructure That Enabled the Culture

• • “Upon the clothes behind the tenement, That hang like ghosts suspended from the lines, Linking each flat, but to each indifferent, Incongruous and strange the moonlight shines”

Claude McKay Aaron Douglas,

Aspects

“If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.” Claude McKay

Building More Stately Mansions Aspirations What do you see?

Archibald Motley,

Nightlife

“Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,/ And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess/ I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!”

Claude McKay

Class Within Race

• Archibald Motley, Cocktails William Johnson, Chain Gang

The Jazz Age and Harlem

Africa, Jamaica, New Orleans, The Mississippi Delta, St. Louis and Chicago All Rolled Together in NYC

Night Life

Everybody Has One Dreams Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club in Harlem

Winold Reiss

Cab Calloway

The Jazz Age

Zora Neale Hurston … when I sit in the drafty basement that is The New World Cabaret with a white person, my color comes. We enter chatting about any little nothing that we have in common and are seated by the jazz waiter. In the abrupt way that jazz orchestras have, this one plunges into a number. It loses no time in circumlocutions, but gets right down to business. It constricts the thorax and splits the heart with its tempo and narcotic harmonics. This orchestra grows rambunctious, rears on its hind legs and attacks the tonal veil with primitive fury, rending it, clawing it, until it breaks through to the jungle beyond. I follow those heathen – follow them exultantly. I dance wildly inside myself; I yell within. I whoop; I shake my assegai above my head. I hurl it true to the mark yeeeeooww! I am in the jungle and living in the jungle way. My face is painted red and yellow and my body is painted blue. My pulse is throbbing like a war drum. I want to slaughter something – give pain, give death to what, I do not know. But the piece ends. The men of the orchestra wipe their lips and rest their fingers. I creep back slowly to the veneer we call civilization with the last tone and find the white friend sitting motionless in his seat, smoking calmly.

Marion Anderson International Opera Star

Harlem Renaissance Reloaded: Aaron Douglas

Rebirth • Judgment Day Crucification Dance

Africa in the Artist’s Imagination

•

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers .

•

Into Bondage

From

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes

, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with permission.

The Unknown

Hughes and Douglas

 Langston Hughes: Refugee in America There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heart-strings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I knew, You would know why.

I, too, sing America

• • • • • I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then. Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed- I, too, am America.

The Harlem Writers: Politics and Poetry – Articulating Black Identity

•

"We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. . . . We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top of the mountain, free within ourselves."

(from Langston Hughes, “ The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain ") •

"It is the duty of the younger Negro artist . . . to change through the force of his art that old whispering "I want to be white". . . to "I am a Negro--and beautiful."

(from Langston Hughes, “ The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain ")

Aspects of Negro Life From Slavery Through Reconstruction

Two for the Road

• God’s Trombones Mailou Jones, Fetiches

God’s Trombones: James Weldon Johnson

The Role of the Minister as Prophet Creation

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

The Creation

And God stepped out on space And he looked around and said: I'm lonely - I'll make me a world.

And as far as the eye of God could see Darkness covered everything, Blacker than a hundred midnights Down in a cypress swamp Then God smiled, And the light broke, And the darkness rolled up on one side, And the light stood shining on the other, And God said: that's good!

Bearden, Jones and Lawrence

Rhomare Bearden, Soul History Mailou Jones, Buddha Lawrence, Dreams

James Baldwin

All over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand; and the wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive.

Joyce is right about history being a nightmare - but it may be the nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

(from 'Stranger in the Village')

Africa in the Artist’s Imagination

•

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers .

•

Into Bondage

From

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes

, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with permission.

"Yet do I marvel at a curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing!"

Zora Neale Hurston, 1891-1960

I wrote

Their Eyes Were Watching God

in Haiti.

It was dammed up in me,-and I wrote it under internal pressure- -in seven weeks. I wish that I could write it again.

In fact, I regret all my books. It is one of tragedies of life- --that one cannot have all the wisdom- -one is ever to possess, in the beginning. Perhaps it is just as well to be rash and foolish for awhile. If writers, were too wise, perhaps no books would be written at all. Anyway, the force from somewhere in space- --which commands you to write in the first place- -gives you no choice. You take up the pen when you are told,--and write what is commanded.

There is no agony like bearing an untold story- -inside of you. You have all heard of the Spartan youth with the fox under his cloak?

-Zora Neale Hurston,

Dust Tracks on a Road

The Black Finger I have just seen a beautiful thing I have just seen a beautiful thing Slim and still, Against a gold, gold sky, A straight cypress, Sensitive Exquisite, A black finger Pointing upwards.

Why, beautiful, still finger are you black?

And why are you pointing upwards? Angelina W. Gimke

Cross My old man's a white old man And my old mother's black.

If ever I cursed my white old man I take my curses back.

If ever I cursed my black old mother And wished she were in hell, I'm sorry for that evil wish And now I wish her well My old man died in a fine big house.

My ma died in a shack.

I wonder where I'm going to die, Being neither white nor black? Langston Hughes

• •

The instructor said,

• Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you- Then, it will be true. I wonder if it's that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here to this college on the hill above Harlem. I am the only colored student in my class. The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem, through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas, Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y, the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator up to my room, sit down, and write this page: • It's not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you: hear you, hear me--we two--you, me, talk on this page. (I hear New York, too.) Me--who? Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. I like a pipe for a Christmas present, or records--Bessie, bop, or Bach. I guess being colored doesn't make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races. So will my page be colored that I write? Being me, it will not be white. But it will be a part of you, instructor. You are white- yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That's American. Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that's true! As I learn from you, I guess you learn from me- although you're older--and white- and somewhat more free.

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore- And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over- like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Extra Credit Movies

(more or less chronologically) • Apocalypto • Amistad • Roots • Glory • Sergeant Rutledge (Buffalo Soldiers, 1960) • Buffalo Soldiers (Danny Glover) • Rosewood • Cotton Club • Lady Sings the Blues • Tuskegee Airmen • Unforgivable Blackness (2 Part PBS Movie) • The Great White Hope (fictional Jack Johnson) • In the Heat of the Night • Mississippi Burning