The Harlem Renaissance: Part 5 of 5

Countee Cullen (1903-1946) (born Countee Lee Porter) was probably born in Louisville, Kentucky, although Cullen was known to confuse his associates with tales of being born in Baltimore, MD., or New York City. Most have settled on the idea that he was born in Kentucky. His young life was filled with tragedy. His mother died when he was still a young boy. He was then entrusted to a woman who is believed to be his grandmother, who took him to Harlem to live. She died in 1918, when Cullen was just 15. He was taken in by the Rev. F. A. Cullen and his wife. He was never officially adopted by the Rev. and Mrs. Cullen, but, he eventually took on their last name. Although he was one of the few Blacks at his high school, he became very active, becoming known for his poetry and for being inducted into his school’s honor society.

He attended New York University (NYU) and was editor of The Arch, the school newspaper. One of his most notable works, Color (1925), was published during his senior year. The book dealt with race, and was ushered in with concern from his critics. His second book, Copper Sun (1927) was less about race and more concerned with life and love. He graduated from Harvard University in 1927. From that time until 1928, he worked as associate editor of the magazine Opportunity. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to study abroad. Before leaving for Europe, he married Nina Yolande Du Bois, daughter to W.E.B. DuBois. That union lasted less than a year.

Countee Cullen wanted to be recognized as an “Anglo-American” as opposed to a “Black poet”, causing an uproar with such acquaintances as Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Zora Neale Hurston. He wrote The Ballad of the Brown Girl in 1928 and The Black Christ and Other Poems in 1929. From 1929, until his death, he wrote many articles and poems, but, the reception that he had received with his earlier works was no longer present. His remaining years were dedicated to teaching English and French to mostly black high school students. He collaborated on a play with Arna Bontemps entitled St. Louis Woman. The play was based on Bontemps’ novel God Sends Sunday (1931). A few months before the play was to open, Countee Cullen died of high blood pressure on January 9, 1946.

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We thank you for following our five-part series on The Harlem Renaissance, and hope that it was entertaining, as well as informative. There is a wealth of information on The Harlem Renaissance to be found on the internet. Here are a just few links:

Perspectives in American Literature

Harlem Renaissance (MSN Encarta)

Harlem Renaissance - The New Negro Movement

Please join us soon for an important series exploring the dangers presented by none other than our own Supreme Court system, and the justices that rule with absolute power.

This is blackstarr saying “Vive La Renaissance!”

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copyright © 2008 blackstarr

Renaissance, New Millennium, Countee Cullen, Harlem Renaissance, literature, poetry, Color, Copper Sun

Harlem Renaissance: Part 4 of 5

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was born on January 7, 1891, in Eatonville, Florida. Her family wanted for little and they lived on five acres of land in an eight-room house. Eatonville and her experiences there provided the inspiration for several of her novels, including Dust Tracks on the Road (1939). While she grew up in Florida, Hurston made her fame in New York as a writer in the 1920s and '30s during the Harlem Renaissance. She attended Morgan Academy (now Morgan State University) in Baltimore. There, she completed her high school requirements, then studied at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Her first publication came in May of 1921, which caught the attention of writer and professor, Alain Locke. Impressed with Hurston's storytelling ability, he recommended her work to Opportunity editor, Dr. Charles S. Johnson, who invited Hurston to submit material to Opportunity. She obliged, and later, at Johnson's urging, Zora packed her manuscripts and clothes and headed to New York.

In New York, she met the likes of Langston Hughes and Fannie Hurst. Before long, Hurston became an integral part of Harlem, attending rent parties and hanging out with the other newly well-known personalities such as Carl Van Vechten, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay. She was seen as clever, witty and out-going. She was a person that people wanted to be around. She soon met Ms Charlotte Osgood Mason, an elderly white woman who employed Hurston at $200 a month to gather folk-tales and history of the African Americans of the south. Unfortunately, the relationship with Mason was severely limiting for Hurston. She could only write on subjects that were pre-approved by Mason. It wasn’t until after she severed her financial ties with Mason that her work began to take off.

One of Zora Neale Hurston's best-known works, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was published in 1937. It was deemed controversial because it didn't fit easily into stereotypes of black stories. She was criticized within the black community for taking funds from whites to support her writing. Hurston answered with an essay entitled "How It Feels to be Colored Me." (1928). She wrote: "I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul . . . I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal.... No, I do not weep at the world--I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife."

With new-found friends such as Jean Toomer and Countee Cullen, Hurston became one of the "New Negroes." They, along with Langston Hughes, were the black intellectuals demanding equal billing for African-American culture in American history. Many held Hurston with special admiration. A talented young writer who would celebrate that culture through her art, she is said to have personified the movement and was dubbed the "Queen of the Renaissance." She and Hughes took off in a car, headed for the South, an adventure which would produce the folklore for which she was most well-known, including Mules And Men (1935). In 1931, she and Hughes fell out of favor with each other due to a grave argument over the authorship of a play, Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life (1920), on which they collaborated. It wasn’t produced on Broadway until 1991.

Zora Neale Hurston wrote seven books and more than fifty articles and short stories. She was a playwright, traveler, anthropologist, and folklorist. In 1959 she suffered a stroke and was forced to move into a welfare home. She died penniless on January 20, 1960.

In 1973, Alice Walker made a pilgrimage to Fort Pierce, Florida and placed a tombstone on the site she guessed to be Hurston's unmarked grave. The stone was inscribed: "Zora Neale Hurston, A Genius of the South."

This is blackstarr saying “Vive La Renaissance!”

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copyright © 2008 blackstarr

Renaissance, New Millennium, Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Southern folklore, Queen of the Renaissance ,Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Alice Walker, Jean Toomer, Alain Locke

Harlem Renaissance: Part 3 of 5

Claude McKay (1890-1948) was born in Jamaica to relatively prosperous parents. He was the youngest of his siblings and was taught by his brother, Uriah Theodore, who was a teacher. In 1907, McKay met Walter Jekyll, who would later become his close friend and patron. Jekyll encouraged him to write poetry in his native dialect, which did not thrill McKay. Jekyll was very instrumental in having two volumes of McKay’s poetry published: Songs of Jamaica, which detailed pheasant life, and Constab Ballads, which chronicled his short-lived career as a policeman (both 1912). At Jekyll’s urging, McKay ventured to America later that year.

Claude McKay attended Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State College, but farming was not in his blood. In 1914, he moved to New York. For the next five years, he held various jobs, including that as a waiter on the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was that experience which would later serve as the meat of his critically acclaimed novel Home To Harlem (1920). In 1919, McKay met Max Eastman. Eastman and his sister, Crystal, were co-owners of a radical journal entitled The Liberator. In July of 1919, one of McKay’s most recognized poems, If We Must Die, was published in The Liberator. McKay rose to instant stardom.

Sylvia Pankhurt, the British socialist, had McKay write for her, in England, for her magazine The Workers’ Dreadnought. He had become fascinated with and pulled into the world of Communism, followed by Socialism. In 1921, he returned to the U.S., and became the co-editor of The Liberator. Disagreements caused that venture to crumble after a very short time. In 1923, he returned to Europe, spending time in Paris and Berlin. While in Europe, he met Alain Locke, educator, philosopher, and the man who would later become known as the “mentor of the Harlem Renaissance”. The two worked together on a number of projects, but, McKay would become angered by Locke for publishing one of McKay’s poems, “White House” under a different title, “White Houses”, which had a severe impact on the dynamics of the title. Despite their differences, the relationship continued to flourish.

Claude McKay was outwardly unreceptive to both Marcus Garvey (and nationalism) and the NAACP. He and his associates fought for Black self-determination, but, went about achieving it within the context of social revolution. In 1928, his most famous novel was published, Home To Harlem, which depicted street life in Harlem. Despite its success, W.E.B. Dubois sharply criticized it as meeting the prurient demands of white readers and publishers looking for portrayals of black licentiousness. Dubois said that Home To Harlem “nauseated me and after the dirtier parts of its filth I feel distinctly like taking a bath”. Through the years, critics have come to dismiss that criticism. Among his other novels were Banjo (1930) and Banana Bottom (1933). He wrote two autobiographical pieces, A Long Way From Home (1937) and Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940).

Claude McKay died in Chicago on May 22, 1948.

This is blackstarr saying “Vive La Renaissance”.

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Renaissance, New Millennium, The Harlem Renaissance, Claude McKay, Max Eastman, W E B Dubois, Walter Jekyll, African-American Writers, expatriation, Sylvia Pankhurst, Marcus Garvey

The Harlem Renaissance: Part 2 of 5

One of the most well-known writers to come out of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes (1906-1967). His father disapproved of his choice of careers (writing), and suggested that he take up engineering. Hughes enrolled at Columbia University. Although he maintained a B+ average, he dropped out after a short time. In 1923, he took a stewardship aboard a freighter bound for Africa. He soon found himself in Italy. Shortly thereafter, he spent time in Washington, D.C, but by 1926, he returned to Harlem which he loved so much. Whether his time was in D.C. or in Harlem, he spent a great deal of time in cafes and clubs, listening to Jazz and Blues. It was those very places where much of his famed works were conceived, including “Weary Blues” (1926).

Normally, one writes, gets recognized, and then goes on to fame. At some point, one of his/her works becomes renown, usually a later work. Ironically, one of Langston Hughes’ most famous poems ever was his first published poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. My personal favorite, not just of Hughes, but of all time and of all poems is “I, Too, Sing America”, penned in 1925. Although he was an icon of the Harlem Renaissance period, he continued his writing well into the 60’s, up until his death in 1967. One such writing was “Harlem”, written in 1951. Most of us know the poem by the question posed in its first line “What happens to a dream deferred?” That very line went on to become the muse for Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun”, which became the first Broadway play by an African-American female.

During his rise to fame, while in Harlem, he became friends with and partied with the likes of Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, and Carl Van Vechten. Two of his closest relationships were with Arna Bontemps and Jean Toomer. It was in 1926 when he met Zora Neale Hurston. After about a year of friendship, he accompanied her throughout the South on her famed quest for folklore. Although the two collaborated on the play “Mule Bone”, they had a falling-out and the play was neither published nor produced until 1991. Carl Van Vechten coaxed Hughes to align himself with Alfred A Knopf Publishing, who published “Weary Blues”. Many would say that there were other writers who were more prominent during the Harlem Renaissance than Langston Hughes, but, this writer would beg to differ. Nevertheless, his name invokes the ideal of “poet supreme”, and conjures up images of life in Harlem like no other. What makes him even more endeared to me is that although the years may be different, we share the same birthday, February 1st. Hughes finally attended Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania in 1929, where he received his bachelor degree.

Langston Hughes died of cancer on May 22, 1967. His home at 20 E. 127^th St, in Harlem, was declared a landmark.

This is blackstarr saying “Vive La Renaissance”.

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The Harlem Renaissance: Part 1 of 5

When most people hear the term “Harlem Renaissance”, Black writers and entertainers come to mind. That’s not such a far-fetched idea. Ironically, one of the most influential players of the Harlem Renaissance, and the one who virtually set it in motion was a Caucasian.

Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964), was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His family was quite prosperous, and politically speaking, they were rather liberal. He left home at the age of 19 to attend the University of Chicago. Upon graduation, he was not excited about returning home. He opted, instead, in 1903, to go to work at the Chicago American, which was a part of the Hearst chain. After being fired for a gossip column that he wrote, he left for New York City in 1906. He made various trips abroad, was wed twice, and finally settled down in New York City. While there, he went to work for the publishing company Alfred A. Knopf. It was then that he began his “crusade” to uplift and advance the goals of African-Americans. This is where his real story all begins.

Van Vechten is known more for his photography than anything else, but after meeting such prominent writers as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, and Countee Cullen, it was his intervention and coaxing that Langston Hughes’ “Weary Blues” became published by Alfred A. Knopf. Harlem became Van Vechten’s playground. He attended parties in Harlem as a regular pastime, rubbing elbows with the likes of Hughes, Cullen, Hurston, and many others. His fifth novel “Nigger Heaven” (a term used for the segregated section of movie houses where Negroes were seated) was published in 1926. By today’s standards, this novel is more than shocking. Naturally, it caused quite a stir when it was published. Although it was well-received, one of the few people who lauded the book was James Weldon Johnson. The book was a virtual peek into the lives of African-Americans encamped in Harlem. Many intimated that the book was merely an attempt at educating Van Vechten’s white readers about what goes on with the Negroes. In a review for “Opportunity” magazine, James Weldon Johnson wrote that Van Vechten’s writing “pays colored people the rare tribute of writing about them as people and not puppets”. By contrast, in “The Crisis”, W.E.B. Du Bois called it “neither truthful nor artistic”.

By 1932, Carl Van Vechten had begun to dedicate his life to photography. He photographed anyone who would sit still long enough. His portraits included all of the celebrities of the era, as well as the up and coming stars such as Harry Belafonte, Alvin Ailey, and Lena Horne. After giving up his writing career, and embracing his photography, he spent his final years in the role of philanthropist. He founded the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters at Yale University. Later, he willed his collection of photographs to the same. He also directed that any proceeds and royalties from his books that would come posthumously were to go the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters.

Carl Van Vechten died in his sleep on December 21, 1964.

This is blackstarr saying “Vive La Renaissance”. Peace.

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Harlem Renaissance, Carl Van Vechten, James Weldon Johnson, W E B Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston, Countee Cullen, Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald