Transcript Harlem at Night

African
American
Voices:
The Harlem
Renaissance
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• The name given to the movement at the end of WWI
& through the middle of the 1930’s Depression
•Talented African-American writers produced a sizable
body of literature in the four prominent genres of
poetry, fiction, drama and essay.
The Great Migration
One of the movement’s greatest influences
was the American Civil War from 1861-1865.
Due to the oppression in the South, after the
war blacks moved north to find cities that had
many job opportunities.
This is known today as the Great Migration.
As more and more educated blacks settled in
Harlem, it became a cultural hub for African
Americans.
In 1909, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
was founded to advance the rights of blacks.
This gave strength to the African American
society and served as the foundation for the
Harlem Renaissance.
Jacob Lawrence – Tombstones and Builders
Harlem
•
In the 1920s
and 1930s, the
Harlem
Renaissance
was a cultural
movement that
took place in
the streets of
Harlem, New
York.
•Also known as the “Negro Movement,” it was first time in history where
the public called attention to the literary achievements of African
Americans. Publishers and critics finally began to appreciate their works.
Parade – Jacob Lawrence
• From her editorial
perch, Fauset
became a central
force in the
Renaissance,
nurturing and
encouraging many
young writers. She
was instrumental in
the development
and publication of
both Jean Toomer
and Langston
Hughes, and offered
crucial help early
in the careers of
Arna Bontemps and
Countee Cullen.
Jesse Redmon Fauset:
Influence on Harlem
Writers
Harlem Writers
A Few of the Harlem Poets/Writers:
Countee Cullen
Langston Hughes
Zora Neale Hurston
Claude McKay
In 1926, the black literary
movement truly came into the
spotlight with the production of
Fire!!.
This was a literary magazine
produced by young black writers.
It featured the works of writers
like Zora Neale Hurston and
Langston Hughes.
•
Jazz & Blues
“It is becoming increasingly difficult to
decide where jazz starts or where it
stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and
jazz ends, or even where the borderline
lies between between classical music
and jazz. I feel there is no boundary
line.”
~ Duke Ellington~
Jazz
Earliest Jazz styles:
• Ragtime and Dixieland in
1890’s New Orleans
Has roots in:
• African rhythms
• European harmonies
• American Gospel sound
• Work songs
•Many African Americans that
flourished during this time period
continue to influence us today.
• Both jazz and blues music thrived in
the Harlem atmosphere.
•Artists such as the trumpet player
and singer, Louis Armstrong, and
pianist and composer, Duke Ellington,
flourished in their craft.
http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/window/media/page/0,,348657-1414956,00.html
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/beat/discography_artist_ellington.htm
•
The hot night spot that best evokes the glittering nights in Harlem in
the 1920’s and 1930’s. While literary urbanites appreciated Harlem
Renaissance writers like Langston Hughes, more fun-loving New
Yorkers were attracted to the neighborhood's vibrant cabarets. If you
were white and well-heeled, you could enjoy African American
entertainers like Louis Armstrong and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson at the
elegant Cotton Club.
• Harlem’s Cotton Club illustrates
concretely the paradox of blackwhite relations in many
northern capitals: the club was
instrumental in launching the
careers of many brilliant black
musicians like Duke Ellington,
yet it was operated by whites
primarily for white audiences.
• Writes Hughes: “White people
began to come in droves. For
several years they packed the
expensive Cotton Club on Lenox
Avenue. But I was never there,
because the Cotton Club was a
Jim Crow club for gangsters and
monied whites.”
Blues
• Blues is a type of music that deals
with hardships of life and love.
• This type of music was typically selfaccompanied by the singer on a
harmonica or a guitar.
• Singers often worked with jazz bands
or pianists.
• It paved the way for boogie-woogie
music which later became known as
rhythm and blues.
• Jazz and Blues were originally played
in the South but rapidly began
spreading to the North.
http://www.pbs.org/theblues/aboutfilms/wenders.html#null
“The blues ain't nothing but a good
man feelin' bad”
~Leon Redbone~
The blues is the foundation, and it's got to
carry the top.
The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz,
are the walls of the blues.
Luther Allison
Harlem at Night
Winold Reiss, 1924
Harlem Poetry…
Countee Cullen
Heritage
What is Africa to me:
Copper sun or scarlet sea,
Jungle star or jungle track,
Strong bronzed men, or regal black
Women from whose loins I sprang
When the birds of Eden sang?
One three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What images stand out to you?
What is Africa to me?
Countee Cullen’s “Tableau”
(not in packet…must include in your notes)
Locked arm in arm they cross the way
The black boy and the white,
The golden splendor of the day
The sable pride of night.
•What is the scene depicting?
From lowered blinds the dark folk
stare
And here the fair folk talk,
Indignant that these two should dare
In unison to walk.
•Why use day and night?
Oblivious to look and word
They pass, and see no wonder
That lightning brilliant as a sword
Should blaze the path of thunder.
•What is the town’s reaction?
•What lines of imagery
symbolize the two boys?
•How do the boys feel about
one another? Are they aware
of the town’s reaction?
•What does the line, “That
lightning brilliant as a sword
should blaze the path of
thunder” mean?
Countee Cullen “Incident”
(not in notes packet)
•What is the narrator describing?
Once riding in old Baltimore
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
•Is this the voice of a young narrator,
or an older man?
•Who is the antagonist? What is the
negative action the antagonist
makes?
•How does this impact the narrator?
•What is the rhyme scheme?
Claude McKay
• In the 1920’s, McKay’s
book of poetry Harlem
Shadows (1922) became
one of the first works
by African-American
authors to achieve
national acclaim with a
reputable mainstream
publisher.
“Harlem Shadows”
I hear the halting footsteps of a lass
In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall
Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass
To bend and barter at desire's call.
Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet
Go prowling through the night from street to
street!
Through the long night until the silver break
Of day the little gray feet know no rest;
Through the lone night until the last snowflake
Has dropped from heaven upon the earth's
white breast,
The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet
Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to
street.
Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched
way
Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace,
Has pushed the timid little feet of clay,
The sacred brown feet of my fallen race!
Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet
In Harlem wandering from street to street.
Zora Neale Hurston
Chapter One: My Birthplace
Like the dead-seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of
the material that went to make me. Time and place have had their say.
So you will have to know something about the time and place where I came
from, in order that you may interpret the incidents and directions of my
life.
I was born in a Negro town. I do not mean by that the black back-side of an
average town. Eatonville, Florida, is, and was at the time of my birth, a
pure Negro town--charter, mayor, council, town marshal and all. It was
not the first Negro community in America, but it was the first to be
incorporated, the first attempt at organized self-government on the part
of Negroes in America.
Theme:
* Breaking away from
childhood poverty
in the rural South
Eatonville is what you might call hitting a straight lick with a crooked stick.
The town was not in the original plan. It is a by-product of something
else.
It all started with three white men on a ship off the coast of Brazil. They
had been officers in the Union Army. When the bitter war had ended in
victory for their side, they had set out for South America. Perhaps the
post-war distress made their native homes depressing. Perhaps it was
just that they were young, and it was hard for them to return to the
monotony of everyday being after the excitement of military life, and
they, as numerous other young men, set out to find new frontiers.
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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.
N
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were
young.
G
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to
sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids
above it.
S
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N
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.
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15722
H U G H E S
Poetic Comparison: Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing”
I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it
should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank
or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work,
or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his
boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat
deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the
hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his
way in the morning, or at the noon intermission,
or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the
young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or
washing—
Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—
At night, the party of young fellows, robust,
friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious
songs.
*This is a CELEBRATION of work through the
“varied carols” of men and women who
take pride in their occupations.
*Whitman’s poetry frequently possesses the
use of catalogs, long lists of related
things, people or events.
Write/answer the following questions on your
own paper.
1.
What occupations are
celebrated? Are they “white
collar” or “blue collar”?
2.
What is the mood of Whitman’s
poem?
3.
Who is building America?
4.
If Whitman were writing this
poem today, what singing do
you think he might hear?
5.
What jobs would be celebrated?
In what way might these songs
be different?
Langston Hughes’ “I, Too, Sing..”
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.
Write and answer these on your own paper.
*Hughes’ poem alludes to Whitman’s but there is
a different meaning here.
1) What do people feel when they are
excluded from something?
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
2) What does “I, Too” suggest about
people who are excluded?
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed–
4) What warnings are contained within
the lines?
I, too, am America.
6) What is Hughes’ message? Is it all
negative, or is some of it uplifting?
3) Hughes uses metaphors to describe
his feelings and hopes. What does the
kitchen metaphor symbolize?
5) How would you paraphrase the title?
How does the Harlem Renaissance still resonate today?