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American Literature: Romanticism research assignment Student Research Submissions 2013 research journal |
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Jacob A. McCleese
2 May 2013
Introduction: Dichotomous Jazz Age
America is a nation built on dichotomies, Christian
and secular, republican and democrat, immigrant and citizen, homosexual and
heterosexual, etc. Dividing the world into categories makes it easier for human
kind to delineate right from wrong, good from bad, and white from black. The
last distinction is most emblematic of American culture. Separating the white
world from the black world has always been a part of the American experience.
The Jazz Age, unfortunately, is not exempted from this trend.
Jazz is a beautifully repulsive form of music. Its
discursive rhythms and dissonant tones provide any listener with feelings of
unrest, while, almost by some form of magic, it can lull any listener into a
perpetual state of peace. It is the perfect symbol for literary expression in
the 1920’. Jazz was born out of black pain and suffering. In what Zora Neale
Hurston and many other critics call Jook parties, Jazz is the perfect
amalgamation of blues and various other forms of African American musical
expression. By declaring the 1920s the Jazz Age, it allows the inclusion of
authors from various backgrounds, beliefs, and societies to join under the
variegated emblem of jazz. However, the Jazz Age, as I stated earlier, is not
exempt from the American color line. Although writers and intellectuals
attempted to transcend the color line, history does not allow them to be
completely free.
This essay will explore the color line of 1920s
literature. I will argue that the literature of this era can be separated into
two distinct categories: modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. To accomplish
this I will attempt to answer several questions regarding this period. First, if
modernism and the Harlem Renaissance both occurred in the Jazz Age, why is there
a need to separate the two? Second, Are the differences separating the two
imagined or real? Lastly, can or will the Harlem Renaissance writers ever be
welcomed into the canon or tradition of great American writers. Each section of
this journal will focus on these questions in an attempt to shed some light on
exactly what the Jazz Age is.
Modernism, I’m Searching For What Now?
On the brink of the First World
War, unease with social order and traditional beliefs pervaded the conversations
of American intellectuals. Most critics have affectionately called the rise and
spread of this unrest Modernism. Modernist authors are characterized by, “(1) a
belief in sexual freedom; (2) the rejection of social protocols and propriety;
(3) contempt for prohibitionism;
(4) religious skepticism; (5) disdain for the middle
class; (6) a penchant for “debunking”; and (7) fear of mass production and the
machine” (Rhodes 5).
These characteristics of
Modernism lead some critics to conclude that modernist writers were running away
or escaping from American culture. This was not the case. America, like the rest
of the world, was in a deplorable state after WW I, leaving authors with a sense
of foreboding. Good artists, fiction writers, painters, poets, and sculptors,
derive inspiration from the world around them. American modernists emerged from
WW I to a consumerist’s culture; a culture that lead the world in technological
advances, economic prosperity, and military efficiency. America was the receding
light for the rest of the world to follow. Yet, they lagged beyond in more
mature aspects of existence, such as, slavery, women’s rights, and equality for
all people.
How should an author feel about all of this? Optimism seems
like an appropriate response; however, most artists understand the natural law
of rising and falling. And like biblical prophets, Modernists writers foresaw
the falling of America.
Fitzgerald’s short story
Winter Dreams
represents the foreboding of 1920’s American authors. The main character in this
story, Dexter, struggles with his place in the universe. Fitzgerald writes,
“Often he reached out for the best without knowing why he wanted it…he ran up
against the mysterious denials and prohibitions in which life indulges” (5).
The struggle expressed here is not the struggle
found in Dickens, Chaucer, or Shakespeare. There is no struggle for a new social
order or a place among the social elite, American Modernism strove for something
much higher, a place in the universe.
When looking at the 1920’s in light of WW I, it
appears that the artists were indeed escaping tradition. However, a slight
change in perspective allows for a different conclusion. America was never
burdened by class struggle, at least not the way European nations were. The
authors of the twenties did not have to wrestle with images of royalty looking
down on peasants behind castle walls. Instead modernist artists had to deal with
America the child. America was an unbridled colt let loose on the world. With a
newfound international power, the world wanted to see America’s next move.
According to George Harmon Knoles, Americans behaved like any child given power
would have.
Knoles wrote that Americans were impatient, the American individual was a lover of short cuts, and would do anything for excitement and enjoyment (48). F. Scott Fitzgerald appears to agree. His main character, Dexter, in Winter Dreams is enthralled with a young lady named Judy. Her very presence sends him into spells of ecstasy. He is so in love with her that he allows her to treat him like a harlot. While Judy is off gallivanting with other men, Dexter patiently waits for her return. Love did not have a place in Judy’s heart; she was “entertained only by the gratification of her desires” (11). Wasn’t that the character exhibited by 1920’s America?
Great wealth and prosperity, for most of
the culture, provided the opportunity for experimentation. Gone were the
characteristics of romanticism and realism. There was no more tradition. Women
didn’t feel the need to be domestic anymore and men loss the need to be knights
in shining armor. All of the things prohibited in the world preceding the
1920’s, were no longer restricted, in fact, many of these things were
encouraged. For example, consuming alcohol was looked down on as the behavior of
drunkards and sinners in American society. However, the 1920’s artists did not
abide by this social perspective. This was especially true of the “white
moderns---Menken, Louis, Fitzgerald, Parker, Thurber, Millay, Edmund Wilson, and
Crane---only two (Moore and Menken) were not alcoholics” (Douglas 90).
Modernism is marked by wealth, prosperity, unbridled
enthusiasm for the new American way. Yet, many novels and short stories of the
time period are replete with undercurrents of angst. This is the dichotomy of
the white world. They were wealthy, they did have all of the power, they did set
the standard for American ideologies, but modernists authors yearned for
something more. How does one celebrate being alive without destroying that life?
Especially without religion or traditional standards to uphold, where does on
look for direction?
I don’t particularly like employing the term lost for
modernist authors. That term gives the image of a generation of people wandering
about aimlessly with no hope of finding their way. Instead, I see the modernist
authors actively searching for something better. Something that would lead
America into a bright new future while still maintaining the robust vitality
that made the nation great. It is a great and worthy task the artists of this
era were well aware that they did not have specific answers, but like the most
great explorers this did not stop them from trying.
In the same arena as modernism, struggling for a place in the
world, was the Harlem Renaissance. A movement of black intellectuals that
sustained popularity and controversy throughout the 1920’s, Harlem Renaissance
writers made the world stand up and recognize black artistic expression. The
only major difference between these authors and the modernist authors was skin
color, the one constant boundary during the Jazz Age and beyond.
Harlem! Wait, Why are there so many Negroes here?
In Harlem, a common reply to the greeting “How are
you?” is “Oh, man, I’m nowhere” (Ellison 323). Harlem during the 1920’s was a
site of African American rebirth, redefinition, and emergence onto the world
stage. Harlem was the site of opportunity for a people group enslaved a
generation before, to rise out of dark past and literally walk into a bright
future. The Harlem Renaissance is largely recognized for it’s black literary
expression, black intellectuals, and black enterprise. However, the renaissance,
like most rebirths, was a direct result of the deplorable conditions facing
Negros in the south.
In the 1920’s, life for the Negro in the south was
not a life at all. With the harsh restrictions of the Jim Crow laws, Negros
migrated North in search of new life and better opportunities. Negros found new
opportunities, but they also found a different kind of poverty, northern style
racism, and skyscrapers opposed to trees. New arrivals in Harlem were literally
stepping across a time barrier when they migrated to Harlem. Many places in the
South held fast to many antebellum beliefs. Traditional Negro folk beliefs were
not an exception. In Harlem, former cotton pickers could develop the sensitive
hands of a surgeon, and men whose parents believed in magic prepared to study
science. The Harlem Renaissance moved the Negro forward intellectually,
socially, physically, and culturally by figuratively killing the folk Negro and
giving birth to the New Negro.
The birth of the New Negro did
not eliminate stereotypes assumed about the Folk Negro. As I stated earlier,
Harlem was the site of new black experience, the geographic Harlem was
affectionately known to many as the black Manhattan. This is a strange name for
anyone unfamiliar with New York. Manhattan is the bourgeois burrow of New York.
With its extravagant shopping malls and high dollar restaurants, Manhattan is
the site for upper class socialites. It was the same in the 1920’s. Harlem was
intended to be just as grand as Manhattan but “excessive speculation and over
building resulted in empty apartments and houses” (Wintz 32), at the beginning
of the 20th
century. This made Harlem the perfect place for dislocated southern blacks.
Cheap real estate and developers looking to sell to anyone drew black families
in by the thousands.
However, moving from the south to the north did not
spark a revolution of ideologies. The migration got all of the key figures in
the same place, but it was the desire for change that brought about the
renaissance. Literature, music, dance, and art were all a part of the Harlem
renaissance. Yet, it was the ideals promoted by literary intellectuals that
drove the Harlem Renaissance to greatness.
Langston Hughes, the unofficial poet laureate of the
Harlem Renaissance, represented a younger breed of Negro writers that refused to
adhere to the expectations of white society or black society. In an essay, “The
Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”, Hughes states the spirit of the Harlem
Renaissance. His full statement is worth quoting:
“We younger Negro artists who create now intend
to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white
people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we
are beautiful. And ugly, too…If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they
are not their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We will build our temples for
tomorrow, strong as we know how and we will stand on top of the mountain, free
within ourselves” (Wintz 15).
At
this point, W.E.B Du Bois and Alain Locke were still recognized as the leading
Negro intellectuals of their time. Both men largely disproved of Hughes and his
cohorts. Du Bois and Locke recognized the Harlem Renaissance but they insisted
that the younger writers channel black creativity into proper aesthetic and
political directions (Wintz 14). As is apparent in the statement above, the
young artists had different plans for their creativity. Hughes and his cohorts,
Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas to name a
few, no longer cared for the failed plan of their elders. They, in accordance
with the American character discussed in the Modernism essay, wanted change and
they wanted it now.
The desire of black writers to follow their own path
was a principal characteristic of the Harlem Renaissance. It allowed Hurston to
write “with the map of Dixie on her tongue” (West 116); it allowed Hughes to
write poems infused with the flavor and rhythm of jazz. Yet as much as these
artists wanted to remain individual and express the true spirit of Negro art, in
America, the black experience is never complete without a little white
influence.
Many of the Harlem Renaissance writers had patrons,
rich white socialites enthralled with the New Negro. Most black writers referred
to their patron by endearing names such as, “godmother” or “good angel.” These
patrons offered financial backing, political connections, publishing
opportunities, and a form of friendship. Two of the most prominent patrons were
Charlotte Osgood Mason and Carl Van Vechten. Both of these individuals
influenced the Harlem Renaissance scene as much, if not more, than any author
they favored.
Charlotte Osgood Mason was 70
years old when the Renaissance began. She was a rich white widow and she was
obsessed with black culture. Although she was patron to Alain Locke and Langston
Hughes, her favorite protégé, as she referred to her artists, was Zora Neale
Hurston. Mason had a deep love for Negro culture. She specifically loved the
primitive appeal that accompanied a friendship with Hurston. Zora Neale Hurston
was a trained anthropologist and folklorist and when it came to belief in the
old Negro folk magic, she was a serious adherent. Mason loved this about Zora.
Mason, as I stated, was an elderly lady. She believed that Negroes had special
healing powers that lay dormant under there civilized exterior (Douglas 283).
She encouraged all of her protégés to slough off the influence of white culture
and become their savage selves.
This is interesting considering the source.
Mason saw Hurston as a fellow lover of primitivism,
the belief in the regenerative powers of black life and culture, and paganism.
And though she acted as a loving, caring mother toward Hurston, Mason’s
intentions were less than admirable. Mason wanted to mold Negro expression and
ultimately the Harlem Renaissance to reflect her own vision of African American
life.
Hurston’s anthropological
collection
Mules and Men is the greatest example of Mason’s
influence over Hurston’s writing. This collection is a trove of black Southern
folktales and magic. Mason called it a “lasting Monument” (Douglas 284) to the
Southern Negro. Several playhouses offered to dramatize Hurston’s work, but
Mason told her this would be like prostituting her authentic black material.
Mason praised the adept attention that Hurston gave to the beautiful darkness of
the southern Negro, but several black critics reacted much differently.
One of the more vocal critics
of Mules and
Men was Sterling Brown, a poet and critic of the
Renaissance. He stated that the collection “white-washed” the bitterness of the
“total-truth.” There was no lynching, no beatings, no race riots, no trace of
the south that prosecuted and the Scottsboro boys. Where was the real south? The
real south was lost, like Hurston was, under the looming shadow of Mason. It
wasn’t until the early 1930’s, when Mason and Hurston drifted apart, that
Hurston’s best novel
There Eyes Were Watching God
was published.
Charlotte Osgood Mason was a tyrannical figure
disguised as a loving patron. Her influence over Hurston ensured that the Harlem
Renaissance’s leading lady would not stray to far from white influence. Carl Van
Vechten’s influence over Hughes was different, but with nearly the same results.
A music, dance, and literary
critic of much distinction, Carl Van Vechten was a true man around town. Vechten
immersed himself in the life of Harlem more than any other white male ever had.
He was obsessed with the Negro life, almost to an addictive level. He was such
an integral part of the Renaissance that the starting year, 1924, corresponds
with the year Vechten began immersing himself in the Harlem scene.
Vechten was an unapologetic drunk. He remarked
“every time he lost his silver flask during some excursion to the wildest parts
of Harlem, it was invariably returned to him” (Douglas 287). His larger than
life personality was like a magnet for young Negro artists seeking a new way of
life. His willingness to introduce those artists to publishers was a bonus.
Vechten’s intentions, however helpful on the surface, were not above reproach.
He shared Ms. Mason’s love for the primitive. His favorite caricature of himself
was one done by a Mexican artist. In the drawing, Vechten is drawn as a Negro
and the caption reads “A Prediction” (Douglas 288).
By all appearances, Vechten’s
love of Negro culture appears innocent. Yet, when considering that Vechten’s
major contribution to the Harlem Renaissance is a book called,
Nigger Heaven,
his intentions must be questioned. This novel is a popular expose of Harlem
life. Its title is derived from the slang for the balcony of the segregated
black section of a theatre (Wintz 13). The novel increased white interest in
Harlem life and created “Negro vogue” which drew sophisticated crowds to Harlem
to peruse the local scene. Vechten took advantage of this. When his
sophisticated white friends came to Harlem, he would take them to the most
lavish clubs. He played a huge role in making the nightlife in Harlem marvelous,
and he profited from it as well.
Vechten and Mason did not care to know about the
painful aspects of black existence. Both of these white “god parents” profited
from the romanticization of the primitive. For them, Harlem was little more than
a glorified zoo. During the day, Vechten would lead his white friends on tours
of Harlem, being careful to avoid the less than attractive parts of town. The
working class Negro held no attraction for these white patrons, and this feeling
rubbed off on many of their protégés.
Working class Negros did not rub elbows with the
white visitors in Harlem. Even if a white patron accidently strayed to the wrong
part of Harlem, working class Negros would avoid him or her. The working classes
nightlife was just as booming as the middle and upper class Negros. “House Rent
Parties” were for the working class by the working class. They were usually put
on in one of the lower rent houses and everyone that attended paid a cover
charge, in order to help with the rent of the host house. Hughes, after he fled
the influence of Vechten and Mason, enjoyed going to these parties. His
sympathetic feelings for the less fortunate of his race returned when he was
freed himself from white influence. However, many other upper class Negroes,
Locke, Du Bois, Ellington, Hurston, avoided these low-class parties. They felt
that these parties were beneath them and lacked a certain white splendor (Wintz
45).
The Harlem Renaissance was a time of great artistic
expression and great cultural divide. Although the races crossed paths here,
there was still a distinct line between the superior race and the inferior race.
The black populace, for the white patrons, was nothing more than animals at a
zoo. The questions posed at the beginning of this journal become very important
here. Where do the Harlem Renaissance authors fit on the grand stage of great
American literature? Is there a need to separate modernism from the Harlem
Renaissance or is it ok to bring both movements under the umbrella of the Jazz
Age? There are many opinions about these questions and many opportunities for
exploration.
So…the Jazz Age?
Both movements, Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, had
special characteristics. Modernist artists were white and forced to cope with
the emotional, mental, and social turmoil left in the wake of World War I. Many
critics still see this group of writers as lost, but as I’ve tried to explain,
they were not lost just actively searching. Most modernist literature has a deep
overwhelming feeling of the desire to regain something lost. Whether it is
tradition, religion, spirituality, or just a sense of confidence in human
existence, Modernist yearned for something that WWI took away from the world.
Once they realized that they could not go backward, these writers attempted to
move forward.
This is why the Harlem Renaissance is so important to this
time period. Marked by a fresh outlook on the plight of the Negro, Harlem
Renaissance artists represented the new way of life that America needed to
strive towards. Black artists of this movement were spurned on by the need to
leave the folk Negro, the depiction of their fathers and grandfathers, behind
them. They wanted to shed antiquated self-perceptions of the Negro and outdated
white perspectives of the Negro. Listing the proponents of this movement is like
reading a text list for studies in African American literature. The Harlem
Renaissance was a great time to be black, young, and a talented author.
Besides
being in the same time period, do these two movements overlap in any other way?
The answer to that question is a resounding yes. The reason that F. Scott
Fitzgerald and many others called this era “The Jazz Age” is because of the
overlap of black and white expression. There was a need for a term that
encompassed sensibilities, literary expressions, and the goals of both Negros
and Whites. Jazz is more than just music. It is literature, culture, social
expression, and a gateway for cultures to clash, heal, and move on. Isn’t jazz
grand? Again, the answer must be yes.
Jazz
provided the push that the black culture needed to move beyond Dixie, and it
gave the white culture an excuse to interact with the New Negro. Jazz, in the
1920’s, forced confrontation and amalgamation between cultures purposely divided
cultures. America as it is today would not be possible without the contributions
of jazz. However if jazz is so important the formation of American culture
today, how should the Jazz Age be taught? As a teacher and a person of black
heritage, it would be easy for me to overemphasize the importance of the Harlem
Renaissance and alienate my white students. Likewise, as the literary cannon did
for years, it would be just as easy for black students to feel alienated by over
emphasizing Modernism’s importance.
Knowing jazz helps avoid both situations. Any discussion of
jazz will quickly lead to a listing of the greatest jazz artists. The list will
inevitably include black, white, Latin, and many other artists from various
cultures. Jazz is not a phenomenon that can be linked to one cultural group.
Although the 1920’s saw many great historical changes, perhaps the most
important one was the rise of jazz music.
Jazz was originally a black musical expression. The West
Indies, New Orleans, and Chicago were the birthplaces of jazz music. Jazz did
not hit New York until well after it hit other places but in the words of Duke
Ellington, “Very little happens anywhere unless someone in New York presses a
button” (Douglas 15). The rhythm of jazz is disjointed. Especially when
listening to jazz compositions after the 1920’s, affectionately called bebop,
the purposefully syncopated rhythms are unnerving for the uninitiated. During
the 1920’s, jazz was exactly the kind of music that the culture needed. Instead
of traditional classical or baroque, American culture needed something that did
not have ties to European culture and way of lie, but a musical expression that
was truly American. Jazz provided that.
I’ve already said that jazz was more than
music to 1920’s culture. The term “jazz” was used to cover everything from
Eliot’s
Wasteland to Tin Pan Alley, from ragtime to the
poetry of Langston Hughes. It was the refusal to be tied down to one definitive
rhythm that linked jazz to all of these different forms or artistic expression
(Douglas 74). Jazz allowed America to operate on a dormant, basic principle that
it was founded upon, the rhythm of segments.
Although white males largely controlled
American culture during the 1920’s, America was not intended for one segment of
the population to hold sway over all others. America was not built solely on the
backs of farmers, the minds of scientists, or the wits of intellectuals and
businessmen.
It was not created by the blood of Negros, the pain of
Asians, the destruction of the Native, or the over confidence of Whites. America
is a beautiful, disjointed unity of all of these cultures, all of these people
groups coming together to make a nation. Jazz music is essentially the same
thing.
Instead of having the classical band, where the trumpet
section plays, then the tuba section plays, then violins, violas etc., all in
beautiful harmony; jazz musicians crash into each other. The bandleader stomps
the rhythm out on the floor while his hands glide across ivory and ebony keys.
He’s playing in his own world. The bassist, with his eyes closed and his head
swaying from side to side, is gone as his hands move up and down silk strings,
and the mahogany bass takes on a life of its own. Sometimes the trumpet player
or maybe a sax musician adds a little whine or piercing cry to add a little life
to the ensemble. Regardless of the size of the band, the drummer is always
present. With his hands, feet, head, arms, and legs the drummer is the heartbeat
of the jazz band. He is constant rhythm and sound that never lets the band stray
to far away. He tethers the other members of the band to earth without
restraining their artistic expression. Isn’t this what 1920’s literature was all
about?
Literature will always be what it is, a reflection of the real
world. A close approximation of how authors view reality. However, 1920’s
literature allowed for authors to get loose. It allowed them to look into the
future and with closed eyes, a swaying head, and gliding fingers, these writers
dreamed of how America could be. The black writers of the period wrote the
disjointed rhythms of the New Negro trying to free himself from the ghost of the
folk Negro. These authors were trying to leave the South behind. White authors
wrote the disjointed rhythms of existence after the world tore itself apart,
where do we go from here? This was the question that haunted the 1920’s writer.
Teaching the jazz age has to include the monumental importance
of jazz music. Any culture, country, or age group can relate to the uniting
potential that jazz possesses. Jazz is a uniting force. It was for 1920’s
writers and intellectuals and it can be today. America just needs to fall in
love again with the rhythms of segments. Allow one culture to play in it’s own
little world while another play it’s own songs, but there will always be a
drummer to draw all cultures back to one uniting purpose. I am not here to say
what that purpose is, but as long as it promotes peace and harmony, it’s worth
striving for.
Hold Your Horses I’m Concluding
Sitting here staring out of my window, I realize
that not much has changed since the 1920’s. America is still the land of
individuals searching for a cause to follow, people are still divided over basic
issues of human rights and freedoms, and the color line, though not so
distinctive, still funs down the middle of the culture. The 1920’s were a time
when America was culturally fat and happy. Most people had all they needed and
even the ones that didn’t have basic needs had opportunity to seek those needs.
Unfortunately, like all good things, this time period ended with the Great
Depression.
Looking back on the 1920’s I can say with pride that
it is one of my favorite literary periods. The absence of strict boundaries of
literary and artistic expression is appealing to my personal desires as a
writer. And the search for something loss, speaks to the universal longing for
something greater that the objective world. Certainly artists in generations
previous to the 1920’s shared this longing. Emerson’s love of the human soul,
Thoreau’s longing for a world free of government influence, Poe’s probing of the
gothic, Irving’s curiosity regarding fantasy, are all examples of writers trying
to understand their world and desiring something more.
Ralph Waldo Ellison, one of my favorite authors,
describes the sensibilities of most 1920’s authors quite beautifully. He writes,
“One’s identity drifts in a capricious reality in which even the most commonly
held assumptions are questionable” (Ellison 325). Questioning the assumptions
made by the American culture is what all Jazz Age authors attempted to do. Let
that be the guiding principle when approaching this literature. Let that be the
sentiment that guides future generations in the exploration of the Jazz Age. How
did the authors of the Harlem Renaissance challenge America and themselves? How
did Modernists authors challenge assumptions made by white America? 1920’s
literature is an endless pool of great literature and great opportunity to take
away a brand new perspective.
Works Cited
Brooks, Van Wyck. “Literary Life.” Ed.
Harold E. Stearns.
Civilization in the United States: An
Inquiry by Thirty Americans.
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922. Print.
Douglas, Ann.
Terrible Honesty:
Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920’s. New York:
Farrar, Straus,
Giroux, 1995. Print.
Ellison, Ralph. “Harlem is Nowhere.” Ed.
John F. Callahan.
The Collected Essays of Ralph
Ellison. New York:
Modern Library, 2003. Print.
Knoles, George H.
The Jazz Age
Revisited. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1955. Print.
Rampersad, Arnold. “Langston Hughes.” Ed.
Cary D. Wintz.
Harlem Speaks: A Living History
of the Harlem Renaissance.
New York: Sourcebooks, 2007. Print.
Rhodes, Chip.
Structures of the
Jazz Age: Mass Culture, Progressive Education, and Racial
Discourse in American Modernism.
New York: Verso, 1998. Print.
West, M. Geevieve. “Zora Neale Hurston.”
Ed. Cary D. Wintz.
Harlem Speaks: A Living History
of the Harlem Renaissance.
New York: Sourcebooks, 2007. Print.
Wintz, Cary D. “Introduction.” Ed. Cary
D. Wintz.
Harlem Speaks: A Living History of the
Harlem Renaissance.
New York: Sourcebooks, 2007. Print.
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