My history textbook says that the Harlem Renaissance “broke with older genteel traditions of black literature to reclaim a cultural identity with African roots.”
I really don’t understand what that means. In what sense did the Harlem Renaissance’s cultural identity have “African roots?” To my untrained eye, the culture of blacks in Harlem in the 1920s seems to have overwhelmingly American rather than African roots. Harlem blacks spoke and wrote in English rather than Akan or Asante, practiced monogamy rather than polygamy, and AFAIK made little use of secret societies or fetishes. The only thing about Harlem black culture I can see that might have African roots is the use of dance (although very different kinds of dances, I think) in Christian worship.
Likewise, I think jazz music in Harlem relied more on Western instruments - saxophone, trombone, trumpet - than on the ashiko or dembe drums of Africa. I know that some white critics called jazz “jungle music,” but when I listen to Duke Ellington, I can’t hear anything that suggests the rain forest or the savannah. It all sounds very urban to me, more like trolleys and streetcars than birds or insects.
I think I have a little more of a clue what might be meant by the phrase “broke with the older genteel traditions of black literature.” That would mean breaking with Booker T. Washington’s or Ida Wells’ very academic, erudite style of prose? But how was the new style different or more “rooted” in Africa?
There was a political movement that occurred simultenously with the artistic movement known as “pan-Africanism”, spurred on by folks like Marcus Garvey, who felt black people should literally go “back to Africa”, and those like W.E. Du Bois, who had a more figurative sense of “back to Africa”. It was a deliberate rejection of Eurocentric standards and a call for self-identity–one that required a recognition of African influence on black American culture.
So many artists during this time started delving into the “roots” of their gifts. Zora Neal Hurston, for instance, was an anthropologist who traced African American dance elements to traditional West African ones.
Fictional characters like Benetha in A Raisin in the Sun think of themselves of belonging to an African diaspora, as opposed to being “just Americans” like their elders.
So it’s not that the Harlem Renaissance came out of Africa rather than America. It’s just that the thinkers and artists of the movement began to acknowledge and embrace their African roots, and that in turn influenced what they produced.
Not sure what you mean by “secret societies or fetishes”, nor am I sure how these things connect to African roots.
That the instrumentation of jazz is not African shouldn’t be surprising. Musicians tend to work with what’s at hand, not what’s thousands of miles away. But the structure of jazz music does have African roots. The syncopation, song structure (e.g., call-and-response), and use of improvisation are characteristically non-European.
It’s amusing to me that you think music should sound like the natural environment from which it springs from. Does classical music sound like Russian bogs, Italian chaparrel, and English gardens? And why would we expect African music to be more “natural” than other kinds of music?
Prior to the HR, black thinkers did not reflect on their African heritage because they were too busy emphasizing their similarities with whites. People like Booker T. thought blacks should earn their respect by being noble handymen and domestics–a view that was pleasing to whites. While W.E Du Bois put the “bougie” in “bourgeoisie”, he at least had the balls to say we already deserved respect, that we were capable of being more than servants, and that we have rich cultural roots. The “Back to Africa” base of the HR paved the way for the political activism of the 50s and militancy of the 60s. Malcolm X’s parents, for instance, were followers of Marcus Garvey.
I don’t have anything useful to add regarding the Harlem Renaissance, but wanted to point out that although Jazz ‘structure’ may or may not have some African antecedents, syncopation, call and response and improvisation can all be found in European music, including traditional, but also classical, baroque etc.
OK, what I’ve got clearly so far is 1) increases emphasis on African dance elements in modern black American dance, 2) call-and-response and improvisation elements in jazz, being adapted from African musical traditions.
I had to look up “syncopation”: the shift of accent in a passage or composition when a normally weak beat is stressed. My dictionary showed an example from Mozart’s 25th symphony, so I am not sure that syncopation per se is “characteristically non-European,” though maybe it’s more complex than that.
Would it be correct to say that the reclaiming of African roots was mostly limited (as in the case of Zora Hurston) to finding and celebrating those African customs that had been brought over by the enslaved immigrants from Africa and had survived the process of assimilation to be passed down to modern black Americans? As opposed to actually readopting African customs and habits that had been lost in America, like language, religions other than Protestantism, etc.?
Not to present myself as any kind of expert, but it was my understanding that secret societies have played a major role in social life, especially male social life, in West Africa for centuries.
I used the term fetish, possibly incorrectly, for a small sculpture or charm believed to have magic powers. For example, a Fante charm from Ghana that I saw in a Chicago museum some time ago that was intended to make a young woman fertile if she kept it with her while sleeping. When I look at Augusta Savage’s sculptures, I see a very different style of work - far more detailed and representational, and obviously intended for a completely different purpose.
Well, sometimes. Mussorgsky and Ravel’s “On the Steppes of Central Asia” is supposed to represent part of the Russian Empire’s landscape, or at least the sublime emotion that the landscape inspires. And Ennio Morricone based some of his western film music on the sounds of coyotes and vultures. You can certainly hear water sounds in some of Vangelis’s music. But certainly not all music is based on nature, I’ll agree. And no, I wouldn’t expect black folks’ music to be any more “natural” than white folks’ music.
OK, I get that the artists of the Harlem Renaissance felt that they should not merely imitate white Americans, much less conform to the roles that racist whites prescribed for them. What I don’t quite get yet is how they proceeded from “what we do should not be dictated by whites” to “what we do should be based on African roots.” I wonder if the emphasis on African roots undervalues the originality and innovation of the Harlem Renaissance artists.
Of course syncopation can be found in classical music. Never meant to imply otherwise. But it’s not standard form in European music.
I’d say its mostly the first, with some of the second. Many blacks began to eschew Christianity in favor of Islam (of the Nation of Islam variety) during this time. And people began to adopt African names.
I disagree that there’s a heavy emphasis on African origins. I think when people in general talk about black American culture, it is only natural to talk about its genesis in west Africa, just like it’s natural to begin the history of the United States not on this continent, but on the European continent. But I don’t think it overshadows the contributions of individual artists more than it just provides a greater context. Nothing is ever created in a vacuum.
I don’t think HR artists got together and decided to create solely from an African perspective. In fact, much of what they created were distinctly American. But since the black experience in America was so awful up to that time, it’s understandable that the HR reflected romantic notions of a faraway homeland, where black people were dignified and powerful. Removing themselves intellectually from white standards and norms meant conceiving of a place where whites did not exist. And that place was Africa.
Without a tie back to Africa, everything in black culture is just a byproduct of captivity and protest. In other words, everything in black culture was created, indirectly or directly, by whites. There’s psychological healing and power in the knowledge that your traditions and customs come from a place where no one was ever called a “nigger”.
Your history textbook’s definiton of the Harlem Renaissance isn’t very good. Begin training your “untrained eye.” Start with Wikipedia, if you must.
African-American culture as a whole was re-examined. African roots & African influences in other countries were also studied. Consider reading some of the works listed in the article.
In it, the author (a white Yale professor) examines African & African-American culture. He also shows how much of what we consider “American” culture has African roots. If you get a chance to hear him speak–sieze it!
I just want to point out that jazz was both African and European in equal parts, in conception. In New Orleans, blacks would go to the town square and have public displays of musicians, the call and response and so forth described above, while at the same time the music coming out of Europe was primarily marches. So take some of the town-centre musicianship, throw in instruments from European marches, and you have jazz - rudimentary, but it was a start.