Reading Journal: Week 2

9/1 “Returning Soldiers”

With the lecture in mind, Dubois’s mentioning of France takes on several dimensions. The French recognized the black soldiers with high honors, which contrasted the disingenuous behavior by their own country, the United States. In several ways Dubois aligns the condition of blacks in the U.S. to that of France. Both a country and a race of people are bleeding, and there appears to be some kindred relationship.

While only mentioning “German race arrogance,” but enumerating the many awful hate crimes against blacks in the U.S., Dubois links the enemy in the First World War to racism (Dubois 4). He closes the connection, stating: “But by the God of Heaven, we are cowards and jackasses, if now that that war is over, we do not marshal every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight a sterner, longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own land” (Dubois 5). The real war appears just on the horizon.

Dubois’s piece holds several parallels to the Declaration of Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson. For one it lists grievances and suggests how those actions are unjust according to the country’s own moral standards. Dubois also punts to recycling popular rhetoric by bringing up the rallying cry: “It taxes us without representation” (Dubois, 4). As there was a King in the 1770s, there was a “dominant minority” then in the United States (Dubois 4). Dubois is already tempered in his approach to race relations: It is not all of citizens fault that black people are where they are (as Garvey might have it), it is the fault of a few (relative to the entire population) racists.

In this early work we see several ideas that are apparent in later works by Dubois: France, race relations, and racism and its infection of American systems.

Dubois, W. E. B. “Returning Soldiers.” Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David Levering

Lewis. New York: Penguin, 1994. 3-5.

9/3 excerpt from Black Manhattan

I feel this piece of James Weldon Johnson’s history addresses the popular black separatist movement while also restoring class to particular artistic contributions of blacks during the 1920s. As it is edited in our anthology, the piece outlines two major tensions between separate black groups: how do blacks acquire equality and what purpose does art have? What Johnson details and what he neglects indicate some favoritism, a favoritism shaped by his post as executive secretary with the NAACP and his association with the Talented Tenth.

Johnson’s description of landowners has the undertone of defying black separatism espoused by Marcus Garvey and others during the 1920s. The diction employed by Johnson especially emphasizes his insistence, and the Talented Tenth’s, of changing racial perceptions and relations by remaining in the United States. “All classes bought,” Johnson writes, as the classes spent at an unimaginable pace so as to never have to experience that “precarious foothold” they held in the hostile territory of the United States (Johnson, 34). Specifically, the term “hegira” on page 34 illustrates Johnson’s bias, for the term means an exodus of a particular group (in this case white people), and in that aftermath of the exodus a new era begins (OED). Johnson carries an understanding of beginnings that does not rely on having new land to have a new beginning (as Garvey would have it), but rather a new beginning out of an existing land. Later he calls Harlem an expanding “colony,” which reveals the nationalism budding in Harlem, for colonies are typically settlements by like-minded people concentrated on propagating their way of life. So not only is their land already in the United States, but fertile soil for a black identity to grow. In the second half of the reading, Johnson describes some of the art that transmits culture to Harlemites.

The second half’s discussion of various stage performances marks acceptable art. Charles Gilpin emerges as a leading figure recognized by esteemed organizations such as the Drama League. It was Gilpin’s performance in the serious playwright Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones that set off his popularity and critical adoration (Johnson, 38). In addition to Gilpin, several musicals, such as Shuffle Along, Runnin’ Wild, and Dixie to Broadway, elevated black artists to wild popularity. Conspicuously absent from any discussion is vaudeville. Its only mention is in Gilpin’s shameful past, which includes menial jobs such as being an elevator boy, railroad porter, and a boxing trainer (Johnson, 38).

The audiences for very high art performances, particularly interpretations of Shakespeare, are also agonizingly obscured. Johnson’s clunky opener: “On May 7, 1923 there was at the Frazee Theatre what was the most ambitious attempt Negroes had yet made in the legitimate theatre in New York,” hides who actually showed up to the Frazee Theatre and emphasizes the date and theatrical ambition (Johnson 41). Unlike portions discussing the musicals, no mention of traffic stoppages are made, but rather the text moves directly to critical reception. While black artists pushed the Shakespearean envelope, the size of the audience for such a venture is never described.

Through its form Black Manhattan seems to serve as partially a death-knell and resurrecting power. The introduction quotes the famous line: “Harlem is still in the process of making,” though culturally it was being pulled into something not well received by the Talented Tenth (Lewis, xxxvi). Within the timeline of the Harlem Renaissance, Black Manhattan appears alongside other works that did not have the same ambition. Wallace Thurman, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes all wrote about themes troubling to the Talented Tenth. Johnson had taken a professorship at Fisk University in Tennessee in 1930 and W. E. B. Dubois taught at Atlanta University in Georgia. Harlem was left to be sacked by the mongrels with their base art. With Johnson writing his version of history, he closes off any more contributions that can be made under that particular name, signaling its end—its death. But history also serves to inspire, especially if written properly, so Black Manhattan has the capacity to inspire a new generation to continue racial uplift as seen fit by the Talented Tenth. The introduction’s author points out the romanticized Harlem that cheered when blacks won awards of serious merit and read of “activities above Central Park” (Lewis, xxxvi). In his history of Harlem, Johnson populates the humming “mecca” with landowners and people who appreciate serious stage performances.

"Hegira." The Oxford English Dictionary. Available online at www.oed.com

Johnson, Charles Weldon. from Black Manhattan. Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David

Levering Lewis. New York: Penguin, 1995. 34-45.

Levering Lewis, David. “Introduction.” Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David Levering

Lewis. New York: Penguin, 1995. XII-XLI.