My Favourite Harlem Renaissance Writer/Text ELSA Online Meet 28 May 2023

 

My Favourite Harlem Renaissance Writer/Text

 

On the 28th of May 2023, ELSA members assembled online to discuss their favourite Harlem Renaissance writer. The meeting became an opportunity to delve into the works of the galaxy of writers, who had ushered a widespread change in the art and culture of African-Americans thereby leading to bigger political developments. Dr Nibir K Ghosh in his opening remarks talked about the events leading to the Harlem Renaissance. The movement had not grown in a vacuum.  The representation of the struggle against slavery in literature began with Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was four major constitutional amendments of the 1860s that led to piloting of transformation in the lives of the African-Americans.

Dr Pramila Chawla presented a comprehensive introduction of the Harlem Renaissance as an art movement and an iconic cultural period of African-American history initiated by the middle class. She highlighted how the movement influenced music, movies, theatre and other forms of arts along with poetry and novels and it paved the way for the people to gain political rights. She made a special reference to Claude McKay’s poem If we must Die. Saurabh Agarwal took up Nella Larsen’s novel Passing as his favourite work. Passing deals with the coloured women who have been able to 'Pass' as white due to their mixed blood and are seen as uncomfortable with their racial identities. Larsen uses her novel to comment on the economic situation of middle-class women who had the desire to better their circumstances.  

Dr. Seema Sinha talked of the major political and literary events that foreshadowed the Harlem Renaissance. With the end of World War I, the US was seen as the major power in the world. It was the time of the roaring 20s and new ways of expression of art sprung up. The Harlem Renaissance too was the outcome of these sweeping changes. Dr. Sinha also drew parallels with the Dalit movement in India. Dr Manju spoke on the poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes. The poem is aimed at rediscovering the great heritage that African Americans had before they were enslaved. It is an attempt to reclaim the past. Through the poem Hughes wants to highlight that the community has not been without a grand history as may have been commonly believed.

Dr G. L. Gautam too spoke about the importance of this literary period and the favourable impressions made by the speakers during the meeting. Dr Nibir Ghosh spoke about the importance of The New Negro by Alain Locke.

The meeting was also attended by Ms Shrabani Roychoudhury, Mr. Anil Sharma and Ms. Jessica Joel.     

-Report by Saurabh Agarwal 

Langston Hughes’s ‘The Negro Speaks of River’: A Window to the Ignored Class

 Manju

It takes togetherness, willpower and consistent perseverance for a revolution to occur.

The New Negro movement, in early 20th century, in the form of Harlem Renaissance served as the precursor to the civil rights movement that took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  "The Negro Speaks of River" startles the mind of its readers by announcing that black people have not only watched but they have also participated in the significant historical events; tracing back from the earliest stages of human civilization to American slavery.

The poem represents the struggle and persistence of black cultural roots throughout the centuries of unjustified hatred, discrimination and enslavement in America. It claims that people of African heritage have not only been throughout human history, rather they have paved a path for the formation of the civilization. 

The most important key word in this poem ‘The Negro Speaks of River’ is “speaks”, the concept of voice. A black man, who was forced into slavery talks about his history and claims his identity. The poem is an ode to the black tenacity. The speaker has "bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young" and "known rivers as old as the world." The Middle Eastern river known as the Euphrates is connected to the Cradle of Civilization, a region where human cultivation originally emerged. The speaker appears to have been existed at the very beginning of human history.

 Recalling his rich past experiences, proves that the experiences of the blacks are very old and strengthens the sense of belonging and connection among all the black people. 

The speaker often claims to have "known rivers... older than the flow of human blood in human veins," implying that black history predates the origin of humans as if it is as old as the rivers. The speaker feels himself as a part of nature because of this. Such a link can be viewed as problematic because of racist discourses which are frequently in contrast with "natural" or "uncivilised" black people with "civilised" white communities.

The connection, can be interpreted as asserting a sense of wisdom and tranquility (when the Congo "lull[s]",the speaker to sleep) in the life of slavery and oppression, which the poem refers to. 

In addition to this extensive historical knowledge, the poet is found to be present for more contemporary events, like "the singing of Mississippi," a river in the United States that is located thousands of miles away from Euphrates. This sentence makes a reference to the well-known journey Lincoln made down Mississippi when he was a young man, leading to his exposure to the world of slavery. 

The poet uses many instances to illustrate the diversity of black experience, which include both the joyful, triumphant periods, when the Pyramids were built, and rough, struggling periods, such as slavery and the Civil War.  The experiences of black people have shaped history to such a diverse extent that without it even today the humans would be struggling to attain the basic rights to live.

The poem connects all these far-off, unrelated incidents to conclude that all these moments are combined to create a continuous experience like that of a river. Rivers are the symbol of continuity because they cannot be separated. The narrator's experience is "deep" as an ocean, implying permanence, tenacity, and inner fortitude. Black community when persisted under the most challenging circumstances exposed its nobility and perseverance. The black population in America needs to feel pride on their community as they were separated from their homes, traditions, families, and ultimately, their history by the slave trade yet this cutting-off could not stop continuity. The poem therefore presents a new narrative, one that recognizes black history—by showing the speaker's knowledge flourishing across continents and historical eras.

According to the author, black identity and achievements are so potent that they may bridge the gorge of slavery that divides people and help everyone to rediscover themselves. The poem proudly illustrates the depth of black historical experiences by various historical events, including Harlem Renaissance.

Dr Manju is Professor, Chandigarh University, Punjab

                                                                                                           

My Favourite Harlem Renaissance Writer/Text: Passing by Nella Larsen

 

Saurabh Agarwal

 

Passing appeared at the zenith of the Harlem Renaissance in 1929. Commercial success this novel met was tepid when compared to her earlier work Quicksand. Yet it has gained importance in recent times as it encompasses the broader issues pertaining the lives of middle class African-American women. Her women are “tragic-mulatoos”. Through them Larsen is examining deep rooted issues of racism and sexism.

Passing deals with two middle class women, Irene and Clare, and their quest for identity. As they navigate the racial and cultural polarities, Larsen’s protagonists attempt to fashion a sense of self, free of both suffocating restrictions of ladyhood and fantasies of the exotic female Other. They fail. The tragedy of these biracial people is the impossibility of self-definition. 

Clare has chosen to marry a white man who hates black. She hides her racial identity from him. Her deep desire to get assimilated by the empowered section of the society and to move upward on the economic ladder makes her drift away from the confines of her community. It is her chance encounter with Irene in a restaurant that she seeks to re-establish the bonds with her “own people” but at the risk of her true identity may get discovered by her husband. Clare is passing as white and Irene uses passing only to gain access to some social places like restaurants. Irene has realized that she and Clare are “strangers in their ways and means of living. Strangers in their desires and ambitions. Strangers even in their racial consciousness. Between them the barrier was just as high, just as broad, and just as firm as if in Clare did not run that strain of black blood.”

 A series of events and Clare’s meetings with Irene create fluctuations in the inner life of the latter. Her already fragile married life is threatened. In an ideal situation Clare and Irene should be a picture of black camaraderie but in reality, it has Irene wishing “that Clare would be sailing, out of her life and Brian’s. “   

Irene is shown as a mother with a deep desire to insulate her children from the “racial problem” present all around for she wants “their childhood to be happy and free from the knowledge of these things as possibly it can be” while her husband, Brian, wants them to be aware of the reality that they eventually will face. Brian believes “the earlier they learn, the better prepared they will be.”

The story ends tragically for Clare and her elimination gives a sense of repressed relief to Irene as she “struggled against the sob of relief of thankfulness that rose in her throat”.

In a moment, need of marital stability superseds racial bonding for Clare’s threat to takeaway Brian has been removed. The question of financial stability and surviving in the society that gains importance for Nella Larsen. Passing demonstrates Larsen’s ability to explore the psychology of her characters. She exposes the sham that is middle-class security, especially for women whose total dependence is morally debilitating. They are uncomfortable with the restrictions that come with their class and colour identity and given a chance they will like to escape to 'Other' even if it means death of some.

 

Common Sharers Of Grief: A Peep into the Pain-saga of

Octavia Butler and Frederick Douglass by Nibir K. Ghosh

Deepa Chaturvedi

“The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest,  there he whipped longest…and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin” (Douglass 51). Douglass recounts the whipping of a lame young woman on her naked shoulders by Captain Thomas Auld who would justify his bloody deeds in these words from the Scripture: “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” (98-99)

Similarly, in a heart wrenching interview with Dr Nibir Ghosh, Octavia opened her heart up saying that “Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyze yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustration in public, and get paid for it” (Ghosh Multicultural America 74).

These words from Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written By Himself and the words spoken by Octavia bring to any literature enthusiast the memories of those times in human history which will only serve as a  blemish, where a retardation of human ethics, an impairment of human actions, a deformity of human mind and the unspeakable deceleration of human spirit in the name of slavery, make us weep tears of blood and bring us to the relevance of Harlem Renaissance in the history of African American literature.

Yes, those were the hard times chronicled by the likes of Douglass, Octavia and numberless others for whom the color of their skin was their doom and which would have taken and will still take oceans of ink to be put in proper deliberation. It was largely the efforts of the writers of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s which, in a lucid and powerful way, introduced the world to the African American art, literature, music, dance, and scholarship where the world saw the Blacks in a new light. And it was owing to these men and women of letters who wrote about that misery with their pens dipped in blood that the roll of the cosmic dice was cast which changed their lot, if not in entirety, to a great extent (we still find traces of the Slavish mentality in the cases such as Rodney King’s). The journey has been long and arduous on for our black brethren-the writers of the Harlem Renaissance who made the world aware of the bane slavery was!

Times changed and the likes of Chinua Achebe, Tony Morrison, Chinmamanda Ngozi Adichie in literature, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin in music, Oprah Winfrey in Entertainment, Halle Berry, Angela Bassett in Hollywood, the William sisters in Tennis to name a few, made an indelible mark on the sands of time. No wonder with 71.8 percent of NBA players as Africans, the blacks have amassed unprecedented wealth in the past decades in the U.S. And off course the crowning glory has been the election of President Obama, the first black President of the U.S.

Here one should not forget the contribution made by scholars like Dr Nibir Ghosh too whose articles on Frederick Douglass, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Octavia Butler, Charles Johnson, August Wilson, Stanley Crouch, Ethelbert Miller among others have furthered the cause of the sufferers at the hands of slavery for generations. Dr. Ghosh shows a singular sensitivity and empathy towards the African American Writers in general and Harlem Renaissance writers in particular as he navigates his way through stories and narratives of pain, suffering and hope to reflect their indomitable will in overcoming the inherent dangers of racial minefields spread over centuries. In a sincere effort to familiarize the uninitiated to the Harlem Renaissance, Dr Ghosh’s effort is an apogee -- the crest of his varied, colorful literary corpus when he writes extremely soulfully about the memoirs of the slave Douglass or of August Wilson, the giant of American theatre.  

Equally heart winning is the interview with Octavia where, when asked by Dr Ghosh for a recipe for racial integration, she answered “sounds like a question with a nineteen-volume answer.” In the same interview she ends with a prophetic statement, “I don’t believe that in the long run it will make a lot of difference.” And fortunately, Octavia was wrong in her estimation of the future.  It has made a lot of difference. Her efforts have borne fruit in not only changing the lot of her brothers and sisters, but has also perpetuated scholars like Dr Ghosh to lend an extended hand to propagate the gospel of love and fraternity beginning with the slave narratives and moving through the Black Power movement right up to the Black Lives Matter movement in the current time.

Yes, today the Blacks, Whites, Browns and Yellow  are in tune to sing “to make the world a better place for you and me.”

Dr. Deepa Chaturvedi is HOD English, Govt. PG College, Kota.