Nathan Irvin Huggins - Harlem Renaissance

Huggins, Nathan Irvin. Harlem Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Print.

< Summary >

     Harlem Renaissance (1971) written by Nathan Irvin Huggins provides a comprehensive overview of the cultural upheaval and rebirth, known as the Harlem Renaissance, led by black intellectuals and artists in the 1920s in the United States. Huggins conceptualized the Harlem Renaissance from the various perspectives by looking into the different art forms such as literature, poem, music, painting, sculpture, and theater. Through each chapter, he discussed the crucial aspects of the Harlem Renaissance and examined the predicaments of those black artists entrapped between their black artistic aspirations and financial dependency on their white patrons. Black identity was formulated through these psychological and financial conflicts within those black artists at this particular moment in the United States. The "New Negro" contributed to the creation of not only African American culture but also American culture. For the review of the book, I found Chapter 2, 3, 4, and 5 particularly interesting and valuable for my future research.

  In Chapter 1, Huggins contextualized the social formations and political activisms of African American leaders in Harlem, the capital of Black world. Du Bois, Randolph, Owen, Garvey and other black intellectuals were mentioned in this section as important black leaders. By laying the historical foundations in this chapter, Huggins enabled the readers to understand how the First World War affected the activisms of those black leaders. In a larger sense, those leaders' philanthropical ideals confronted with the various restrictions and regulations inflicted upon them at this time.

In Chapter 2, Huggins brought up a heating debate about what it meant to be American culture from both black and white sides. This cultural re-defining from the black side was the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, and other black artists made attempts to regain their cultural capitals as blacks in Harlem. Jazz was the product of these series of cultural re-examinations, even though most of the Negro intellectuals barely paid attention to jazz as "high culture". Poems written by Hughes, Cullen, and McKay depicted the predicaments and inner conflicts within those black artists in different ways. Hughes urged the importance of eternity and spirituality in his poems. Cullen put forth the vulnerability of black folks. McKay revealed his militancy and self-assertion of black people. Also, as a part of rediscovery of the black heritage, folk materials were focused by Negro intellectuals such as Arthur Fauset and Zora Neale Hurston. This gave rise to the re-examinations of the spirituals and gave birth to the emergence of jazz. One of the difficulties which the “New Negro” artists had was reconnecting their roots with Africa. Alain Locke revealed his struggles to connect Africa with himself in his poems. Richmond Barthé and Aaron Douglass revived the sense of African heritage in their art works. Cullen was no exception of who got confused of claiming their roots as Africa. In short, WWI marked the crucial period for the Negro artists to race-building from various forms. Chaotic situations of the wartime and a great amount of migrants and immigrants had a huge influence on the generations from the Harlem Renaissance.

In Chapter 3, Huggins argued that the Harlem Renaissance was a creation based on the interdependency between black and white in the 1920s. During this cultural formation of American culture by white and black sides, it is impossible to discuss Harlem’s black cultural uprisings without examining the influences of the white world. Their curiosity enabled black intellectuals to publish or to express what they see and feel in Harlem. Carl Van Vechten was the white intellectual who described this interdependency since he worked as a cultural bridge between blacks and whites. Against the categorization as primitive, black artists and intellectuals tried to challenge it, but at the same time they were forced to live up to the expectations from the white world to a certain degree because white patrons held the mode of productions. Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Louise Thompson, they all had to wander between their artistic aspirations as black writers and the reality which they had to satisfy their white patrons. Harlem Renaissance was the cultural interdependency between black and white after all.

In Chapter 4, Huggins explains how to constitutes black identity was the central issue for the generations of the Harlem Renaissance. Some sought for the spirituality to hold their black identity and avoided the wartime chaos by visiting Paris. But wherever those black artists go, they ended up feeling that they were treated as strangers. So, they were forced to re-define the meaning to be an American Negro in order to make their lives livable. Overseeing the future required them to trace back their roots and to claim them as in Africa. African primitivism certainly shaped the era of the Harlem Renaissance. Not merely a primitive but did Negro try to maintain their self-esteem and self-reliance by reclaiming African tradition. Countee Cullen and Claude McKay were radical and aggressive in this point in the sense that they strongly put forth African primitivism in their works. As a painter, Aaron Douglass was the evident example that African primitivism opened up the doors of opportunities for those African artists to be recognized by both black and white worlds.

In Chapter 5, Huggins paid marked attention to the predicaments their racial and ethnic identity and those black artists’ ideals that art should be separated from these identities. Defining arts as Negro artists was the central issue for black artist not only as Negro artists but as artists. Some tried to stay as Negro artists but the other chose to make attempt to be artists. American provincialism highlighted these struggles of the Negro artists. One of the examples of American provincialism can be jazz since it was originated from New Orleans. A lot of Negro artists like McKay and Cullen considered jazz as not "high culture," while Hughes placed such an importance on jazz and the common culture and the common men. Conceptualizing of art opens the doors of discussions about what art should be like. Formalism can be detected in the works of Cullen and McKay. Poems, as a form of art, in combination of black tradition, was the remarkable aspect of the flourish of black culture in the 1920s.

In Chapter 6, Huggins explains an aspect of Harlem as the "Manhattan's 'theater'" (255) and he contextualizes how the black minstrel shows became the frontline of theatrical stages for black performers. At this time, Negro was a kind of fantasy for the white world. White performers put black masks on and acted like a fool on the stage. This was the beginning of the cultural flourish of night life in Harlem in the 1920s. Josephine Baker was the remarkable example of how black body was displayed to entertained the white audience. From the turn of century, Negro was fantasized and exaggerated and became a mystery to the white world.

< Review >

Huggins successfully unpacked several important meanings and features of the Harlem Renaissance in his book. It is no exaggeration to say that this book is one of the best introductory books to capture a big framework of cultural dynamisms of the Harlem Renaissance and their detailed attempts and predicaments of black artists and writers in the 1920s. Huggins not only focused on the cultural aspects but also connected these cultural movements with the social formations and political activisms led by the black leaders in the 1920s. This book laid a basic foundation of knowledge for me in order to look at the cultural exchanges between black French and African Americans and the formation of transnational black racial identities in the early 20th century as a topic of my master thesis.

As Huggins described in Chapter 1, it is crucial to examine the Harlem Renaissance as one aspect of huge transitions of the United States from the turn of the century to the two World Wars. Reviewing the Great Migration and the impacts of WWI opens the doors to comprehend the social and political contexts in which those black artists lived. Because of the mass migration to the northern cities, some part of the urban cities such as Harlem became a hotbed of crimes and delinquency. Blacks in Harlem placed such an importance on night life and it necessarily led to the rise of underground activities and infestation of prostitutions. In order to restore order in the urban cities, Prohibition was supposed to suppress those activities but it lacked its legal enforcement and did not produce actual outcomes in order to improve the urban situations. Night life became a lure for blacks and whites but at the same times, morality in Harlem was viewed with suspicion from the outside of Harlem.

In addition to the necessity to review historical backgrounds of the Harlem Renaissance, the remarkable analysis which Huggins carried out in his book was that the cultural movements of the Harlem Renaissance was a creation of cultural interdependency between black and white in the 1920s. After WWI, American society in general sought for the cultural foundation and tended to formulate American culture, while blacks in Harlem constituted their own unique culture. Cultural maturity was a major concern for both black and white societies. Most importantly, Huggins successfully mentioned the multi-faceted psychological conflicts within the black artists. For example, they suffered from the conflicts between their black artistic aspirations and financial dependency on their white patrons. Even though they wanted to put their art works on the market and to become successful as artists, those black artists hesitated to degrade their works as “commercialized art” (128). As another example, some black artists such as Cullen and McKay (5) exhibited a sense of cultural elitism and conservatism, whereas Langston Hughes valued optimism and commonality. Also, they had struggles about how to connect Africa with their works. Aaron Douglass implemented African primitivism in his paintings but some black artists emphasized European “rich” culture more than “primitive” African tradition. Harlem Renaissance revealed the multi-layered conflicts within the black artists.

To add on the connections of those black artists and writers with Africa, Huggins pointed out some critical significances of the Harlem Renaissance. As I mentioned previously, black artists of the Harlem Renaissance were trying to build racial consciousness through their art works and at the same time, some black artists made attempts to separate themselves from any racial stereotypes and bigotry in order to be an artist not a Negro artist. What was remarkable about Huggins analysis in terms of Africa was the fact that he pointed out the development of Pan-Africanism. Alain Locke wrote an essay called “New Negro,” which became the bible for those “New Negroes” in the 1920s and through the essay, he tried to conceptualize what Pan-Africanism is called nowadays. Also, in the political domain, Du Bois became such a huge voice who advocated Pan-Africanism and he actually organized the Pan-African Congress. McKay, as a Jamaican who migrated to Harlem, used his international background to propose the basic idea of Pan-Africanism through his novel Banjo (1929). The notion of Pan-Africanism did not appear at this moment of time but it was definitely enriched by those black intellectuals and artists.

  Huggins provides me with some analogies and connections of African American artists and writers in Harlem with Paris, which will be strongly connected with my thesis topic. The first aspect is the fact that Harlem was a symbol of black modernity. Harlem was not only a place of modernity but also a counterforce against European modernity. In this sense, Paris was considered as a site of modernity in the early 20th century because there had been successive international expositions in Paris since the turn of century. But at the same time, Paris in the 1920s and 30s offered a place for black intellectuals from Martinique and Guadeloupe, DOM, and Harlem, in the United States, to resist racial discrimination and history of oppression against racial minorities in both cities. These two urban modern cities in the 1920s were the crucial sites of cultivating their black cultures and of resisting the imposing white European modernity. Also, the other important aspect which connected both cities was Jazz. As discussed earlier in this paper, it can be said that jazz was a product of this era, even though the majority of those black artists and writers did not really appreciate it. Hughes was the only one who had such an understanding of it. In the 1920s and 30s, re-imported to Paris, jazz became a cultural bridge between black French and African Americans. So, it is essential to underline the connections between those two cities through the cultural exchanges of jazz. 

     In conclusion, Harlem Renaissance written by Huggins gives me a holistic view of the Harlem Renaissance and its historical background. It is necessary to go back to the primary sources of the “New Negro” artists and writers which Huggins referred in his book but this book becomes the knowledge basis for my master thesis to capture a big picture of the cultural dynamism of the Harlem Renaissance.