Urbanity in Harlem Renaissance Literature
Bright lights, big city. That's what we think of when we hear "New York City." Well, that and Jay Z (we're just trying to be honest here.)
But anyway, New York City—and Harlem especially—isn't just about the kind of 24/7 action you see at Times Square. And especially to African Americans in the 1920s, New York represented the promise of social, political, and personal progress.
The city came to hold all the dreams of Southern ex-slaves who yearned not just for racial equality, but also for economic freedom and individual happiness. And luckily, the good city of New York had jobs in spades back then, because World War I drew so many young American men onto the front lines.
Now, it's important to recall that prior to World War I and the Great Migration, most black Americans lived in the South. They worked on plantations as slaves, where cotton stalks were man's best friends (or, more properly, their worst enemies). Then, all of a sudden, city life—not to mention life in the biggest and possibly coolest American city—opened up to former black slaves.
Suddenly, people were trading rural living for two-bedroom apartments in city blocks densely populated with other black Americans. So African Americans became surrounded with other like-minded African Americans who shared many of the same hopes and dreams.
Not everything was shiny and perfect in NYC, though. Even in this seeming utopia of black-dominant spaces, the racial injustice of the 1920s-1930s reigned. Segregation was still in effect. If you dared to stray beyond Harlem to other, white-dominant, parts of New York, you faced a constant threat of oppression and violence.
Which means that even though many African Americans finally had some chance of pursuing their dreams in the big city, these dreams were still quite often, as Langston Hughes put it, "deferred."
Society doesn't always change as quickly as laws do. Now-free black Americans still had to deal with racism, from white New Yorkers as well as from other blacks who favored lighter-colored skin (or, you might say, favored the privilege lighter-colored skin brought them in a racist society).
So big city life wasn't always Broadway, booze, and Liza Minnelli songs. But that didn't stop people from flocking to NYC and other big cities in the northeast.
And who could blame them? Would you rather pick cotton (even as a free person) in searing, humid heat all day or work a 9-to-5 with the option of enjoying a cozy happy hour and hitting the jazz clubs in the evening? Which sounds better to you?
Chew on This:
We've said it before, and we'll say it again: if you want to understand Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance (and afterward), then you have to read Ralph Ellison's epic novel Invisible Man. The book's about a guy who discovers his identity as a black man through his relationship with Harlem and the rest of NYC. So, to say the least, the intricacies of Harlem and city life in general play a huge part in the novel, just like they did in the happenings of the Harlem Renaissance.
You can't get more urban—or urbane—than Langston Hughes's famous poem "Harlem (Dream Deferred)." Read it and rediscover your inevitably complicated, love-hate relationship with New York. Aw, it's okay. We understand.