Download Harlem Renaissance Stations

Station 1:
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, By Langston Hughes
One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, "I want to be a poet — not a
Negro poet," meaning, I believe, "I want to write like a white poet"; meaning, "I would like to be a
white poet"; meaning behind that, "I would like to be white." And I was sorry the young man said
that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself. And I doubted then that
1. What is
this boy would ever be a great poet. But this is the mountain standing in the way of any
the
true Negro art in America — this urge within the race toward whiteness.
“mountain”
that prevents
black artists
from
achieving
greatness?
But let us look at the immediate background of this young poet. His family is of what I
suppose one would call the Negro middle class. The father goes to work every morning.
The children go to a mixed school. In the home they read white papers and magazines.
And the mother often says, "Don't be like niggers" when the children are bad. A
frequent phrase from the father is, "Look how well a white man does things." And so
the word white comes to be unconsciously a symbol of all the virtues (virtues = good things). It
holds for the children beauty, morality, and money. The whisper of "I want to be white" runs silently
through their minds. […]
The Negro artist works against sharp criticism and misunderstanding from his own group
and unintentional bribes from the whites. "O, be respectable, write about nice people,
show how good we are," say the Negroes.
"Be stereotyped, don't go too far, don't shatter our illusions about you, don't amuse us too
seriously. We will pay you," say the whites.
Most of my own poems are racial in theme, derived from the life I know. In many of
them I try to grasp and hold some of the meanings and rhythms of jazz. I am sincere
as I know how to be in these poems and yet after every reading I answer questions like
these from my own people: Do you think Negroes should always write about Negroes?
I wish you wouldn't read some of your poems to white folks. Why do you write about
black people? You aren't black. What makes you do so many jazz poems? […]
I am ashamed for the black poet who says, "I want to be a poet, not a Negro poet," as
though his own racial world were not as interesting as any other world. I am ashamed,
too, for the colored artist who runs from the painting of Negro faces to the painting of
sunsets after the manner of the academicians because he fears the strange un-whiteness
of his own features. […]
2. Why do
black
children
want to be
white?
3. Why do you
think white
people want
black authors
to write
stereotypically
about their
race?
4. How might
poems with
jazz rhythms
be different
from
traditional
poetry?
If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We
know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom
laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their
displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong
as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.
5. Why do you
think Langston
Hughes wants to
show the ugliness,
as well as the
beauty, of African
Americans?
Station 2
Artwork by Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence grew up in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance. His parents were among the
first to migrate from the south, between 1916 and 1919. His own life in Harlem, and the struggle of
African Americans, inspired his earliest work.
“Builders”
“Dreams”
1. Do you think the people in “Builders” are wealthy, or poor? Are both classes represented in the
painting? How do you know?
2. How does “Builders” depict African American life in Harlem? Why is it important that a family
is shown, as well as laborers?
3. What do you think the bed in “Dreams” symbolizes? Why does it look like they are trapped
behind bars?
4. What do you think the people in “Dreams” are dreaming of?
5. What are the colors like in the paintings? What mood do these colors give the viewer?
Station 3
The Cotton Club
Opened in 1923, the Cotton Club on 142nd St & Lenox Ave — in the heart of Harlem, New York
— was operated by white New York gangster Owney Madden. Madden used the Cotton Club as an
outlet to sell his “#1 Beer” to the prohibition crowd (Teacher’s note: During the Prohibition,
1. Why could
alcohol was illegal, but sold secretly at certain bars and clubs). Although the club was briefly
the Cotton
closed several times in the 1920s for selling alcohol, the owners’ political connections
Club remain
allowed them to always reopen quickly.
open, even
though it
was known
for selling
alcohol?
The Club was decorated with the idea of
creating a “stylish plantation environment” for
its entirely white clientele. As with many New
York City clubs of the time period, that meant
the upper class of the city. The Cotton Club at first
excluded all but white patrons although the entertainers
and most of staff were African American. Exceptions to
this restriction were made in the case of prominent white
entertainment guest stars and the dancers. Dancers at the
Cotton Club were held to strict standards;
they had to be at least 5’6” tall, light skinned
2. Why is it
ironic that
with only a slight tan, and under twenty-one years of age.
the
entertainers
and dancers
were African
American at
the Cotton
Club?
The oppressive segregation of the Cotton Club was reinforced by its depiction of the
African American employees as exotic savages or plantation residents. The music was
often orchestrated to bring to mind a jungle atmosphere. By transforming the club into
this plantation atmosphere and bringing in celebrities, Owney Madden created a demand
for the Cotton Club and its exclusionary policies and also
helped perpetuate widely held stereotypes about African
Americans...
3. Why do you
think the music
was purposefully
made to mimic a
“jungle
atmosphere”?
Shows at the Cotton Club were musical reviews that
featured dancers, singers, comedians, and variety acts,
as well as a house band. Duke Ellington led that band
from 1927 to 1930, and sporadically throughout the
next eight years. The Cotton Club and Ellington’s
Orchestra gained national notoriety through weekly broadcasts on radio
station WHN some of which were recorded and released on albums. The
entertainers who played at the Cotton Club were some of the most
widely known blues and jazz performers of their time including Ethel
Waters, Cab Calloway, Ellington and many others.
4. Listen to the Louis Armstrong jazz
recordings played over the speakers. What
mood do they evoke? How do you think this
mood reflects (or potentially contradicts)
the lifestyles of blacks during the Harlem
Renaissance?
Station 4
Poetry by Claude McKay
In response to the gains made by African Americans, there was a wave of race riots consisting
mainly of white assaults on black neighborhoods in a dozen American cities in the summer of 1919
(the Red Summer). There were 25 major riots and at least 83 African Americans were lynched.
Jamaican-born writer and poet Claude McKay responded by writing this sonnet. It was published in
a magazine, the Liberator, for which he later became an editor.
If we must die
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
1. How does this poem relate to the Red Summer? What is McKay suggesting
African Americans do in the face of such violence? What does it say about the
spirit of the Harlem Renaissance?
2. What tone does this poem have? (If he were standing right in front of you, how
do you think McKay would be saying this?)
3. In lines 5 to 8, why does McKay say that even a doomed resistance is
worthwhile?
4. In line 5, the word “die” is used in the middle of the phrase and at the end. Do
you think this counts as internal rhyme? Why or why not?
5. In lines 1 to 4 and 13 to 14, what imagery does McKay create, using both similes
and metaphors? How does this add to the meaning of the poem?
6. What is this poem’s rhyme scheme?
Station 5
Poetry by Countee Cullen
Countee Cullen was raised by his grandmother, Mrs. Porter. People have claimed he was born in
Baltimore, but he insists he was born in New York. He attended New York University and
published his many poems as an undergraduate and while he pursued a graduate degree from
Harvard.
Thoughts in a Zoo
1. Who is
“they” and
1 They in their cruel traps, and we in ours,
who is “we”
2 Survey each other’s rage, and pass the hours
in line 1?
3 Commiserating each the other’s woe,
4 To mitigate his own pain’s fiery glow.
2. In lines 7 to 10, how are the
5 Man could but little proffer in exchange
lion and man alike?
6 Save that his cages have a larger range.
7 That lion with his lordly, untamed heart
8 Has in some man his human counterpart,
9 Some lofty soul in dreams and visions wrapped,
10 But in the stifling flesh securely trapped.
11 Gaunt eagle whose raw pinions stain the bars
12 That prison you, so men cry for the stars!
13 Some delve down like the mole far underground,
14 (Their nature is to burrow, not to bound),
15 Some, like the snake, with changeless slothful eye,
16 Stir not, but sleep and smolder where they lie.
17 Who is most wretched, these caged ones, or we,
18 Caught in a vastness beyond our sight to see?
3. What is this poem saying about the racism that existed in the Harlem
Renaissance?
4. If you were the subject of such treatment, would you “burrow” or “sleep and
smolder”? How would you handle this situation?
5. What is the tone of this poem? (What feeling is Cullen trying to evoke? If he were
standing right in front of you, how do you think he would be saying this?)
6. How does this rhyme scheme affect the message of the poem? (First, what is the
rhyme scheme? Second, what is the message of this poem? Third, how do the
two relate; do they support each other or contradict each other?)