Week 9, entry two

10/23

“When the Negro was in Vogue” and Black Manhattan

The part from Hughes’ autobiography further describes the first part of the Harlem Renaissance identified by David Levering Lewis, when an interest from white bohemians propelled black artists to new recognition and also seemingly financial security. Hughes reminisces with the same light heartedness he often writes his fictional prose from, weaving between sarcasm (“I don’t know what made any Negroes think that—except that they were mostly intellectuals doing the thinking”) and an old, weary narrative tone that seems eager in some ways to close the door on this chapter (“It was the period when the Negro was in vogue”). As an artist who received his start in racial uplift publications such as Crisis, and then left those pretensions for communicating the experience of the “common” black person, Hughes uses his own experience to color his outlook of the Harlem Renaissance.

Within the first paragraphs Hughes’ irony illuminates the talent black artists had that only surfaced because of white recognition. In recounting the all-star cast of the early show Shuffle Along, the punch line and “Wow!” in Hughes’ humor comes from the fact that such stars could gather on the same stage, on it or behind it. While Hughes recognizes the show supplanted the primitive depiction of blacks, it seemed to have created a new portrayal in the minds of white consumers who now saw blacks as these partyers who play great music, have catchy dances, and throw great parties. There is no real authentic mixing of the races, much less a genuine, sincere appreciation of black artistic output, it seems. As Hughes comments, white audiences still stared at black performers like animals at a zoo. Some clubs were also segregated in Harlem. It seems like “vogue” for a time replaced the notion of “primitive,” that while blacks could be admired, it was still an admiration from a distance—not a genuine recognition of their humanness. Hughes seems to comment on this when he writes that whites came to Harlem but “saw nothing but the cabarets, not the houses” (Hughes, 78).

In some ways this piece is hard to reconcile with James Weldon Johnson’s work Black Manhattan. Johnson portrays a much better picture of Harlem, one where blacks sustain the life of the city and seem to live happily, for there is no mention of their housing situation. Johnson also focuses on the artistic creativty around many of the works, not the white patronage, or condescenion as Hughes probably sees it, providing the opportunities for such artistic work. Hughes line, “It was the period when the Negro was in vogue,” encapsulates his turn from being preoccupied with racial uplift and toeing the Talented Tenth line to the artist intent on authentically giving voice to the “common” black person’s condition.