Vickie Baillio
November 26, 2002

Harlem Renaissance

            For my journal topic, I chose to focus on the Harlem Renaissance.  Being a literature major, I was already familiar with the subject, though, only minimally at best.  For instance, I knew that the Harlem Renaissance referred to a time in the early 1900s, in which Harlem, N.Y., was the hub of a cultural movement that produced actors, writers, artists, and black intellectuals.  I also knew that writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston played important roles in this movement, as I had often heard their names mentioned in association with it.  Beyond this, however, I knew little.  Desiring to increase my knowledge about this time in history and those connected with it, I decided to investigate further. 

            I wanted to learn more about the driving forces that propelled people like Hughes and Hurston to Harlem. I wondered why Harlem was the chosen site, as opposed to other cities in the United States.  What did those who gathered there hope to accomplish? Were all welcomed there, regardless of skin color or background, or was it more of a closed sect of people and ideas?  These are a few of the many questions I hoped my research would answer. 

            Beginning with an overview of the Harlem Renaissance, this journal includes a brief biography of Zora Neale Hurston, along with primary and secondary bibliographies.  In addition, I have provided a book review, two article reviews, and three website reviews, all relating to the Harlem Renaissance.  In the web reviews, I include information as to the user-friendliness of the site, organization, and its credibility.      

Overview of the Harlem Renaissance

            In post-World War I, the Harlem community of New York City became the hub of a black cultural movement which lasted until the mid 1930s.  Out of this movement came a plethora of black writers, artists, musicians, and intellectuals.  The Harlem Renaissance, as the movement was termed, signaled a kind of rebirth in ethnic pride and self-awareness. 

            In the years following WWI, Harlem housed one of the largest communities of blacks in any one area. This was due in part to the Great Migration, where thousands and thousands of black Americans moved from the rural south to the urban north, in search of better economic opportunities.  By the mid-1920s, Harlem had emerged as the “black metropolis and the social and cultural center of black America” (Wintz 17).  What was it about Harlem that attracted individuals such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Claude McKay? Though their ideas and voices varied as to how best to present best black literature to the public, their “sense of community [and] a feeling that they were all part of the same endeavor” was what united them as a whole (Wintz 2).  This diverse group of individuals was determined in their commitment to present both their culture and their statements to a wider audience.  It seemed as though many of the writers were not content to merely entertain readers, especially those in the dominant society.  Instead, they strove to present life accurately and honestly through their poetry and other writings.  In addition to binding the otherwise diverse participants together, Harlem also provided the backdrop for many of the literary creations of the Renaissance.  Many of the writings portrayed characters and setting taken directly from the streets of Harlem (Wintz).    

            One event that aid in the launching of the Harlem Renaissance and the careers of many of its participants occurred on the night of March 21, 1924.  Charles S. Johnson of the Urban League and editor of the literary magazine Opportunity invited a number of distinguished and prominent white literary figures to dinner, along with W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke among others.   Also present were young black writers and poets such as Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen.  This dinner, initially seen as a kind of celebration of black literature, “transformed into a major literary event that introduced the emerging black literary renaissance to New York’s white literary establishment” (Wintz 81).  Later that same year, Alan Locke wrote The New Negro, a book he used to introduce the Harlem Renaissance, which he saw as the “cultural embodiment of a ‘New Negro’ and the hope of the black race” (Wintz 81).  Locke’s work was filled with “black art, literature, and critical comment . . . which he dedicated to the younger generation whom he believed represented a new vitality never before seen in black literature” Wintz 81). 

            The literature, music, and art of the Harlem Renaissance appealed to a diverse and racially mixed audience.  While many of those involved in the renaissance welcomed the financial support and literary access white patrons supplied, they also realized for many of those professing interest in black artists, it was due more to their “fascination with the exotic” and seeing the “Harlem writers and their art . . [as] the new fad for white society” (Hudlin 275) as factors in their contributions.  Langston Hughes believed that “when [black artists] cease[d] to be exotic, [their works would] not sell well” (Hudlin 275).

            With the stock market crash of 1929 and then the Great Depression of the 1930s,  black authors quickly began to experience increasing difficulties in supporting themselves, as well as a decline in the financial support supplied by their white patrons.  The Harlem Renaissance slowed almost to a halt.  The increasing social and economic pressure of this time, along with the many uncertainties as to what the future held, affected both individuals and institutions.  Many of those who had previously supported black artists were now increasingly reluctant to do so.  The former “preoccupation with defining the meaning of the black experience, . . . was replaced in the 1930s with a preoccupation with economic matter” (Wintz 222).  Some who had been directly involved with the Harlem Renaissance, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, also chose to weaken their ties with the community and the movement and take their careers elsewhere.  In his essay “When Harlem Was in Vogue,” David Levering Lewis writes that Du Bois “left the NAACP and Harlem for a university professorship in Atlanta” (Lewis 134).  In trying to explain the collapse of the cultural movement, some, like Arthur Fauset, believed it “had left the race unprepared because of the unrealistic belief that social and economic recognition will be inevitable when once the race has produced a sufficiently large number of persons who have properly qualified themselves in the arts” (Lewis 134). 

While many of those associated with the Harlem Renaissance chose to leave the community of Harlem, other new young artists of the 1930s and 1940s picked up where

they left off, though they were not directly associated with this cultural movement.  Writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin offered acclaimed works of their own.  The Harlem Renaissance, without a doubt, paved the way for future black writers and for some, even affected the way they thought of themselves and their writings.  One such writer was LeRoi Jones, who “applauded Langston Hughes and the Harlem school for describing life as they saw it and turning out a ‘literature about poverty, a literature about violence, a literature about the seamier side of the so-called American dream” (Wintz 228).  Later, in the 1960s, those involved in the Black Arts Movement would also find inspiration and guidance from the Harlem Renaissance as they also chose to create their own rules and new themes in their various writings.         

Hudlin, Warrington. “The Renaissance Re-examined.” The Harlem Renaissance Remembered. Ed. Arna Bontemps. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1972.             

Lewis, David Levering. “When Harlem Was in Vogue.” Major Problems in American History 1920-1945. Ed. Colin Gordon. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999.

Wintz, Cary. Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance. Houston: Rice University Press, 1988. 

Biography of Zora Neale Hurston

            Zora Neale Hurston was born in Eatonville, Florida on January 7, 1891, the fifth child of Lucy Ann and John Hurston.  In Eatonville, an all-black community where traditional black culture flourished, she grew up in an atmosphere free of the violence and racial prejudice experienced by most southern blacks.  Even as a child, Hurston was filled with curiosity and a thirst for knowledge.  Though her mother encouraged these characteristics, her father saw them as dangerous and strove to make her meek and self-effacing in order to get along in a white society. 

After her mother’s death when Zora was thirteen, she was shuffled from relative to relative for a year until she began financially supporting herself at the age of fourteen, mostly by working at odd jobs such as a waitress or a maid.  It was through these trying experiences that Hurston discovered she could depend on only herself to get her through life’s trials.  She spent at least five years wandering from one job to another and living in poverty, before she joined a Gilbert and Sullivan traveling troupe as a lady’s maid in 1910. 

While attending college, Hurston was exposed to the exciting voices, such as that of W.E.B. Du Bois, that were being raised in the fight for racial equality.  Despite experiencing racism and discrimination, Hurston never defined herself as a member of an exploited race.  Though she wrote on racism, she refused to allow it as an excuse or reason to resent the entire white race.  Encouraged by Howard University’s Alain Locke, Hurston “published her first short story, John Redding Goes to Sea, in the May 1921 issue of Stylus, the school’s literary magazine” (Witcover 47).  In 1924, after publishing Drenched in Light in Opportunity , the editor urged Hurston to go to New York and continue her writing there. 

In 1925, Hurston arrived in Harlem, New York and within months established herself as a literary celebrity, and found herself being sought out by New York’s artistic and literary community.  Finding herself with the likes of Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes, Hurston became an “enthusiastic contributor to the New Negro Renaissance literary movement” (138).  Not all in Harlem agreed with the manner in which Hurston told her stories.  Some accused her of using language that was too black and telling stories that reinforced the white society’s idea of black stereotypes.  While continuing to write, Hurston also pursued a career in the field of social science. In 1931, together with Langston Hughes, Hurston wrote Mule Bone, a Negro folk comedy, but it was never published during their lifetimes.  Due to a quarrel over in part to ownership of the play, Hughes and Hurston severed their long friendship and never reconciled. 

In 1932 Hurston reentered the literary world of fiction with her short story, The Gilded Six-Bits, and the novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, in 1934, which received high praise from book reviewers.  In 1937, Hurston published what most consider to be her best work, Their Eyes Were Watching God.  By the mid-1940s, her literary career was on a downslide.  Although her pieces continued to appear frequently in journals, “few pieces captured the verve and flair of her earlier writing” (Oxford 211).  Her last novel, Seraph on the Suwanee was published just as her personal life was shattered by charges of molesting a ten-year old boy.  Although the charges were false and were later dropped, the scandal affected both her reputation and her state of mind, and proved to be overwhelming. 

In 1950, Hurston again made headlines when the Miami Herald newspaper printed her picture and an article revealing her employment as a domestic to a wealthy white woman in Miami (Witcover 108). Embarrassed to admit she was working to support herself, she told “reporters she had wanted a break in her routine” (Witcover 110).  In 1959, after suffering a stroke, Hurston was forced to enter the St. Lucie County welfare home.  Shortly thereafter, on January 28, 1960, just days before her 69^th birthday, Hurston suffered a heart attack and died.  Having died forgotten and penniless, she was buried in an unmarked grave in the Garden of the Heavenly Rest, a segregated cemetery.  

Wall, Cheryl. “Zora Neale Hurston.” The Concise Oxford Companion to African New

American Literature. Eds. Williams Andrews, Frances Foster, and Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 

Witcover, Paul. Zora Neale Hurston, Author. New York: Chelsea House, 1991.

Zaidman, Laura M. “Zora Neale Hurston” Dictionary of Literary Biography, African

American Writers from the Harlem Renaissance to 1940 v 51. Ed. Trudier Harris,

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: The Gale Group, 1987. P 133-145.

Primary Bibliography – Zora Neale Hurston

·        Fast and Furious (musical play), written with Clinton Fletcher and Time Moore and published in Best Plays of 1931-32, edited by Burns Mantle and Garrison, Sherwood, 1931.

·        Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts, written with Langston Hughes, HarperPerennial, 1931, reprint, 1991.

·        Jonah’s Gourd Vine (novel), with an introduction by Fanny Hurst, Lippincott, 1934, reprinted with a new introduction by Rita Dove, Perennial, 1990.

·        Mules and Men (folklore), with an introduction by Franz Boas, Lippincott, 1935, reprinted with a new foreword by Arnold Rampersad, Perennial, 1990.

·        Their Eyes Were Watching God (novel), Lippincott, 1937, reprinted, University of Illinois Press, 1991.

·        Tell My Horse (nonfiction), Lippincott, 1938, reprinted, Turtle Island Foundation, 1981, published as Voodoo Gods: An Inquiry into Native Myths and Magic in Jamaica and Haiti, Dent, 1939, reprint published as Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica, with an introduction by Ishmael Reed, Perennial, 1990.

·        Moses, Man of the Mountain (novel), Lippincott, 1939, reprint, HarperPerennial, 1991.

·        Dust Tracks on a Road (autobiography), Lippincott, 1942, reprinted with an introduction by Neal, 1971, reprinted with a foreword by Maya Angelou, HarperPerennial, 1991.

·        Stephen Kelen-d’Oxylion Presents Polk County: A Comedy of Negro Life on a Sawmill Camp with Authentic Negro Music, written with Dorothy Waring, (three act play), [New York], c. 1944.

·        Seraph on the Suwanee (novel), Scribner, 1948, reprint, HarperPerennial, 1991.

·        I love Myself When I Am Laughing. . . And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive, edited by Allice Walker, Feminist Press, 1979.

·        The Sanctified Church, Turtle Island Foundation, 1983.

·        Spunk: The Selected Stories of Zora Neale Hurston, Turtle Island Foundation, 1985, reprint, Dramatists Play Service, 1992.

·        The Gilded Six-Bits, Redpath Press, 1986.

·        The Complete Stories, HarperCollins, 1994.

·        Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings, Library of America, 1995.

·        Novels and Stories, Library of America, 1995.

·        Sweat, edited and with an introduction by Cheryl A. Wall, (New Brunswick, NJ), Rutgers University Press, 1997.

·        Collected Essays, HarperCollins, 1998.

·        Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk Tales from the Gulf States, HarperCollins, 2001.

·        Zora Neal Hurston: A Life in Letters, edited by Carla Kaplan, Doubleday, 2002.

Also author of The First One (one-act play), published in Ebony and Topaz, edited by Johnson, and of Great Day (play). Work represented in anthologies, including Black Writers in America, edited by Barksdale and Kinnamon; Story in America, edited E. W. Burnett and Martha Foley, Vanguard, 1934; American Negro Short Stories, edited by Clarke; The Best Short Stories by Negro Writers, edited by Hughes; From the Roots, edited by James; Anthology of American Negro Literature, edited by Watkins.  Contributor of stories and articles to periodicals, including American Mercury, Negro Digest, Journal of American Folklore, Saturday Evening Post, and Journal of Negro History

Secondary Bibliography

·        Black Literature Criticism, Gale, 1992.

·        Bloom, Harold, editor, Nora Neale Hurston, Chelsea House, 1986.

·        Bone, Robert, Down Home: A History of Afro-American Short Fiction from Its Beginnings to the End of the Harlem Renaissance, Putnam, 1975.

·        Carter-Sigglow, Janet, Making Her Way With Thunder: A Reappraisal of Zora Neale Hurston’s Narrative Art, P. Lang (New York, NY), 1994.

·        Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale, Volume 7, 1977, Volume 30, 1984; Volume 61, 1990.

·        Cronin, Gloria L., ed., Critical Essays on Zora Neale Hurston, G. K. Hall, 1998.

·        Davis, Arthur P., From the Dark Tower, Howard University Press, 1974.

·        Davis, Rose Parkman, Zora Neale Hurston: An Annotated Bibliography and Reference Guide, Greenwood Press, 1997.

·        Dictionary of Literary Biography, Gale, Volume 51: Afro-American Writers From the Harlem Renaissance to 1940, 1987; Volume 86: American Short-Story Writers, 1910-1945, 1989.

·        Harris, Trudier, The Power of the Porch: the Storyteller’s Craft in Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan, University of Georgia Press (Athens), 1996.

·        Hemenway, Robert E., Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography, University of Illinois Press, 1977.

·        Hill, Lynda Marion, Social Rituals and the Verbal Art of Zora Neale Hurston, Howard University Press (Washington, DC), 1996.

·        Howard, Lillie P., Zora Neal Hurston, G. K. Hall, 1980.

·        Hughes, Langston, The Big Sea, Knopf, 1940.

·        Hughes, Langston and Arna Bontemps, editors, The Harlem Renaissance Remembered, Dodd, 1972.

·        Hurston, Zora Neale, Dust Tracks on a Road (autobiography), Lippincott, 1942.

·        Johnson, Yvonne, The Voices of African American Women: The Use of Narrative and Authorial Voice in the Works of Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston, and Alice Walker, P. Lang (New York, NY), 1996.

·        Kaplan, Carla, The Erotics of Talk: Women’s Writing and Feminist Paradigms, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

·        Karanja, Ayana I., Zora Neale Hurston: Dialogue in Spirit and in Truth, P. Lang (New York, NY), 1996.

·        Lowe, John, Jump at the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston’s Cosmic Comedy, University of Illinois Press (Urbana), 1994.

·        Peters, Pearlie Mae Fisher, The Assertive Woman in Zora Neale Hurston’s Fiction, Folklore, and Drama, Garland, 1997.

·        Plant, Deborah G., Every Tub Must Sit on Its Own bottom: The Philosophy and Politics of Zora Neale Hurston, University of Illinois Press (Urbana), 1995.

·        Turner, Darwin T., In a Minor Chord: Three Afro-American Writers and Their Search for Identity, Southern Illinois University Press, 1971.

·        Wall, Cheryl A., Women of the Harlem Renaissance, Indiana University Press (Bloomington), 1995.

·        Witcover, Paul, Zora Neale Hurston, Melrose Square (Los Angeles), 1994.

·        Yannuzzi, Della A., Zora Neale Hurston: Southern Storyteller, Enslow (Springfield, NJ), 1996.

Periodicals

·        African American Review, summer, 1994, p. 283; spring, 1995, p. 17.

·        Black World, August, 1972; August, 1974

·        Entertainment Weekly, March 17, 1995, p. 82.

·        Ms., March, 1975; June, 1978.

·        National Review, April 3, 1995, p. 58.

·        Negro American Literature Forum, spring, 1972.

·        Negro Digest, February, 1962.

·        New Masses, October 5, 1937.

·        New Republic, February 11, 1978; July 3, 1995, p. 30.

·        New Statesman, July 3, 1987, pp. 29-30.

·        Newsweek, February 15, 1960.

·        New York Times, February 5, 1960.

·        New York Times Book Review, February 19, 1978; April 21, 1985, p. 43, 45.

·        Observer, February 16, 1986.

·        Publishers Weekly, February 15, 1960.

·        Time, February 15, 1960.

·        Times Literary Supplement, May 2, 1986, p. 479.

·        Village Voice, August 17, 1972.

·        Washing Post Book World, July 23, 1978; May 12, 1985, p. 10; March 5, 1995, p. 4.

·        Wilson Library Bulletin, April, 1960.

·        Women’s Review of Books, July, 1985, p.; November, 1995, p. 28

Book and Article Reviews

Hardy, P. Stephen and Sheila Jackson Hardy. Extraordinary People of the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Children’s Press, 2000.

            Within the 288 pages of this book, readers will find over forty biographical sketches of notable individuals connected with the Harlem Renaissance.  Those individuals included come from the fields of writers, poets, artists, musicians, and intellectuals.  Figures such as Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Louis Armstrong, Zora Neale Hurston, and Bessie Smith are some of the more widely known individuals found here.  The authors provide several pages of written information,  as well as black and white photos of each individual represented.  In addition to the biographies, the Hardy’s have included historical perspectives and essays such as “The Jazz Age” that provides important and relevant background information on the Harlem Renaissance.  Readers will also be pleased to find that the authors have chosen to provide an extensive bibliography, a glossary, and a list of internet sites all related to the topic. 

            This work contains a wealth of information that is especially useful for students in  high school.  As a research tool, this book could come in quite handy, as students would not only gain new knowledge on the individuals provided, but would also be directed to related websites on the Harlem Renaissance.

Story, Ralph D. “Gender and Ambition: Zora Neale Hurston in the Harlem Renaissance.” Critical Essays on Zora Neale Hurston. Ed. Gloria Cronin. New York, G. K. Hall & Co., 1998.

Story’s essay addresses the conflicting views of black male writers and black female writers who characterize and attempt to define Zora Neale Hurston and her works.  In addressing these conflicting opinions, Story distinguishes the various motivations behind the writings of black literature, based upon gender. 

Story offers Langston Hughes’ characterization of Hurston and views it as typical of the male species.  Story writes that Langston depicts Hurston as “a joke-telling, uproariously funny woman who went of her way to ingratiate herself with influential, rich whites” for the purpose of “furthering her literary career” (129).  While Hughes often ignores Hurston’s abilities as a writer, contemporary black women writers devote their views to the lasting importance of her works.  Alice Walker sees Hurston’s writing in a different light than Hughes.  Walker believes Hurston offers in her writings “a sense of black people as complete, complex, and undiminished human beings” (129). 

Story argues that many black males writers of the period were unwilling to acknowledge the significance of Hurston’s literary contributions – specifically, Their Eyes Were Watching God – because she failed to address what they deemed the most important issues.  Story writes that “the macrocosmic issues affecting black folk – justice, inequality and respect for the ‘race’ – were more suitable for fictional recreations of black life . .” (133).  Rather than present the struggle of blacks against whites, as did many of her male counterparts, Hurston chose to focus on the black community and the “black fold interior lives in which whites only occasionally appear . . . as mere bit players”  (Story 132). 

While Story does reprove black males writers of the Harlem Renaissance for dismissing Hurston and failing to appreciate her talent and creative power, he stereotypes the intents and desires of black female writers and black women.  Story argues that “black women, more than anything else, hve wanted love wereas black men have wanted justice and power” (134).  He seems to base this conclusion on the fact that Hurston’s protagonist, Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God, dedicated herself to a quest for love and self-fulfillment.  However, Janie’s struggle for self-fulfillment should serve as evidence of the black woman’s desire for justice and power.  Janie abandoned her conventional role in black society in search of not only a loving, but also an equal partnership.  Story seems to ignore what should be an obvious motivation behind Hurston’s focus on the interior black world; Before black women can fight against a white society, they must struggle against male dominace within their own culture.

Hughes, Langston. “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” African American Literary Criticism 1773 – 2000. Ed. Hazel Arnett Ervin. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1999.

In his essay, Hughes questions as to how the aspiring black poet can overcome the “racial mountain” and become a great artist (44).  He wrote his article in responses to George Schuyler, who dismissed the notion of an African American cultural heritage.  Hughes offers cultural motivations for creating a truer representation of the Negro, and discourages black artist from striving for whiteness.

In his writing, Hughes urges the young poet to re-discover the lower class blacks  because they “furnish a wealth of colorful, distinctive material for any artist by holding their own individuality in the face of American standardization” (45).  Apparently, Hughes believes the Negro upper and middle classes are threatened by whispers of “I want to be white” ((44).  Hughes sees these writers as abandoning what he defines as African American culture – gin, spirituals, and jazz – to chase “Nordic” ideals, in hopes of gaining applause from the white society (45).  Hughes encourages black society to set its own standards and appreciate those who can rightly portray their racial heritage.

Hughes argues that a great artist is one who is true to himself.  The “racial mountain” is a culmination of all the things that prohibit the black artist from doing that (45).  Hughes describes his own works as “racial in theme and treatment . . .,   [sometimes] grasping the meaning of rhythms and jazz” (47).  He is discouraged by his “own people”, however, who question his focus on “Negroes” (47). 

In conclusion, Hughes looks forward to the day when all Negro artists will express themselves “without fear or shame” (48).  In his opinion, if white people are pleased, he and those like him will be glad, and if not, it makes no difference; and the same for “colored people” (48). 

Hughes makes a good argument for the racial mountain but does nothing in means of reaching blacks outside of what he calls the “common elements”  (48).  While it may be true that the black middle class depends too much upon white acceptance, it is not fair to say that career and education are “white” goals (46).  It is not necessary for “high-class” blacks to discard everything inherent of their culture.  African American culture suggests not only black, but also an American heritage as well (45).  

Website Reviews

Harlem 1900-1940, An African American Community 

http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/timex/timeline.html

            This website is a history education portfolio produced by the Educational Programs Unit of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and is affiliated with the New York Public Library.  The site provides extensive and valuable information for students, teachers, and those simply looking to learn more about the Harlem community and the movement that became known as the Harlem Renaissance.  In addition to supplying a year by year timeline from 1900 to 1940, the site also includes a bibliography derived from works written by authors such as Arna Bontemps, Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, and Nathan Huggins. 

            The site is broken up into sections such as activism, arts, business, sports, writers, and intellectuals.  The timeline factual information and photos of people relating to the events that took place during this specific time in history.  One of the aims from the developers of the site is to “encourage students to be active historians and to collect, preserve, and interpret historical data, in addition to developing respect for the African American experience.” The site also includes an oral history section with information that could aid those interested in obtaining and recording oral histories.  In addition to supplying information, the site offers question which emphasis critical thinking skills. 

            I found this site to be applicable to anyone attempting to discover the fascinating history of Harlem and those connected to it.  The site’s credentials offer reliability and allow those using it to feel confidant in the information it offers.  Some of the information presented on the site is identical to what I read in researching my journal, as much of the information comes from primary sources relating to the Harlem Renaissance.

Harlem Renaissance

http://www.nku.edu/ diesmanj/harlem_intro.html  

            The author of this website, Jill Diesman, works at Nortern Kentucky University and is an avid fan of the Harlem Renaissance.  One of the pages on her site focuses on the Harlem Renaissance with a concentration on the writers and painters of this time.  In addition to offering a brief overview of the subject, Diesman includes short stories by authors such as Zora Neale Hurston, and Nella Larsen, as well as poetry by writers including Jean Toomer, Langston, and Arna Bontemps.  The site also presents a resource guide, which contains primary and secondary works of ten women of the Harlem Renaissance, and links to many other sites featuring the same topic. 

            Although the overview provided by the site is brief, the primary works of the writers included on the site more than makes up for the shortage of information.  The author of the site gives credit to Encarta Encyclopedia (overview), as well as to other sources from where she took information.  References such as PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide by Paul Reuben and the website Voices From the Gap are listed on the site.  Adding to the site’s author’s credibility is the fact that she provides her email address and seems earnest in her desire to have reader feedback and criticism.  Being that the site is both well-organized, user friendly, and seemingly reliable, this is a site I would recommend to those desire to further their knowledge of the Harlem Renaissance.    

PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide

http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/home.htm

This site’s author is Paul Reuben, Professor of English at California State University, Stanislaus.  With nearly 400 pages, including over 300 author pages, this site is an extensive research and reference tool.  According to Reuben, and I concur, this site is “particulary useful to those who have no or limited access to university libraries and data bases.”  Reuben’s site has been in existence nearly seven years and is an ongoing and ever-expanding online project. 

            The site is easily navigated by clicking on the appropriate heading.  The categories of literature are split into sections divided by a designated century, with the Harlem Renaissance and American Drama having a large category of their own.  The site lists primary works, bibliography of the authors and relating articles, study questions and more. 

            After reading the various awards and citations that this site has received, I would heartily recommend it as a useful tool in conducting research.  The site is well organized and viewers can easily reach the Harlem Renaissance section from the homepage simply by clicking on the table of contents.  In addition to reviews posted by writers such as those affiliated with C-Span American Writers, there is an entry by a student from Clear Lake High School.  Additional credibility is established with Reuben supplying a physical address and telephone number of the university where he can be reached.  Professor Michael O’ Connor of Milliken University states that “perhaps no other site on the www is more often cross referenced and linked to from the thousands of other literary web pages than the PAL site.”

Conclusion

            After conducting extensive research for my journal, I am filled with a new knowledge about an exciting time in history known as the Harlem Renaissance.  Through the varied readings I engaged in, I feel like I know some of the characters involved in this time a little better, especially Zora Neale Hurston.  I enjoyed reading about her and was pleasantly surprised to learn of her fierce independence and refusal to accept racism and discrimination as reasons for failure or reasons to condemn an entire sect of people.  I am more aware of her personality and characteristics that make up who she is as a human being, instead of simply seeing her as another writer.  When I read that she died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave, I wondered how this could have happened to her.  Somehow, it just did not seem fair to me.  I was please to read that Alice Walker had gone in search of Hurston’s gravesite. 

Before this journal, I did not realize that the community of Harlem housed such a diverse group of individuals.  With their differing backgrounds, economic status, and varying ideologies, they somehow managed to form a group united in their quest for racial and literary equality, yet, at the same time, remained unique individuals.  I learned that the Renaissance was not simply an event isolated in time, but a movement that inspired the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, and whose voice still echoes today.  One thing that always strikes me as interesting and even perplexing at times, is the fact that so many writers and other creative geniuses are often not recognized as being such until years after they are dead.  Only when they are in vogue, as one writer put it, does the public truly accept and welcome their ideas and writings.