Harlem Renaissance

“It is a rare and intriguing moment when a people decided that they are the instruments of history-making and race-building. It is common enough to think of oneself as part of some grand design. But to presume to be an actor and creator in the special occurrence of a people’s birth (or rebirth) requires a singular self-consciousness. In the opening decades of the Great Depression, black intellectuals in Harlem had just such a self-concept.”[1]

The Harlem Renaissance is a period that led a greater appreciation of African American culture by both black and white Americans. This period witnessed an outburst of social, cultural, political, and artistic movements from African Americans in Harlem, New York. The literary movement that took place during the Harlem Renaissance is a traditional but limited view of the period. The Harlem Renaissance encompasses so much more. It is a moment in American history that marks the first genuine effort by African Americans to define their cultural identity. Cary Wintz offers, “The Harlem Renaissance is increasingly viewed through a broader lens that recognizes it as a national movement with connections to international developments in art and culture that places increasing emphasis on the non-literary aspects of the movement.”[2]

The individuals involved with the movement were concerned in many areas of African American culture. A primary goal was the rediscovery of African American culture through folk materials (e.g., spirituals) to document and celebrate their cultural heritage.[3] These folk materials served as sources of inspiration in music, art, and literature. The Harlem Renaissance was “an effort to secure economic, social, and cultural equality with white citizens, and the arts were to be used as a means of achieving that goal.”[4] This perspective is featured in the literary writing of the significant leaders of the movement and supported in their philosophy.

The significant leaders that appear during the Harlem Renaissance contributed in social change and advocated for music. The most prominent leaders were: Jessie Redmond Fauset (1882-1961), Charles S. Johnson (1893-1956), James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), and Alain Locke (1885-1954). Each leader was devoted to music and musicians throughout their involvement in the movement. Jessie Fauset, a celebrated female literary figure, gave a voice to emerging African American musicians as editor of The Crisis—official publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Charles Johnson, first black president of Fisk University, led among the leaders that promoted spirituals and other folk materials in higher arts.

James Weldon Johnson is a towering figure to music in the early years of the Harlem Renaissance. His lasting contribution appears in collected anthologies of African American folk material: The Book of Negro Spirituals (1925), The Second Book of Negro Spirituals (1926), and The Book of American Negro Poetry (1931). Included in his anthologies of spirituals are musical arrangements by his brother J. (John) Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954). James Weldon Johnson established a reputation as a precursor to the field of ethnomusicology—an early example of the potential of this field. Included in the preface of each of his three anthologies (two music and one poetry), are essays on performance practice, musical characteristics, and historical information of spirituals. These essays are significant sources for the study of spirituals.

Perhaps the most dominant figure at the height of the Harlem Renaissance is Alain Locke. For scholars and critics, Locke’s book The New Negro (1925) coincides with the emergence of the Harlem Renaissance on a national level. The New Negro is a definitive text of movements and events taking place in African American communities around the United States. Presented in a series of essays, Locke’s analysis and commentary speaks to the growing cultural revolution and African American sensibility. The profound impact of the book led many to refer to him simply as the “Dean” of “Father” of the Harlem Renaissance. Locke’s own opinion of the movement is summarized in the foreword of his book, “Negro life is not only establishing new contact and founding new centers, it is finding a new soul. There is a fresh spiritual and cultural focusing. We have, as the heralding sign, and unusual outburst of creative expression.”[6]

The influence of Alain Locke on composers of concert spirituals is equally profound. Locke advocated for a return to the choral form and that “it must be realized more and more that the proper idiom of Negro folk song calls for choral treatment.”[7] Locke’s statement was in response to the increasing number of solo settings of spirituals that were popularized during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This statement expresses a return to origins of the songs which existed in communal not solo singing. Locke praises composers like Dett and Dawson for their compositions that “are turning back gradually to the choral form.”[8]

Locke was also concerned with the realm of concert music that promoted spirituals in classical forms. In 1925, he challenged American composers to elevate spirituals in classical forms:

Indeed one wonders why something vitally new has not already been contributed by Negro folk song to modern choral and orchestral musical development. And if it be objected that it is too far a cry from the simple folk spiritual to the larger forms and idioms of modern music, let us recall the folk song origins of the very tradition which is now classic in European music. Up to the present, the resources of Negro music have been tentatively exploited in only one direction at a time—melodically here, rhythmically there, harmonically in a third direction. A genius that would organize its distinctive elements in a formal way would be the musical giant of his age.[9]

The optimism for young composers such as Dett and Dawson is outlined within these words and in similar words spoken by other leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. These remarks reflect the central concern for the future of African American composers and music of the United States. The foundations of the beliefs of Dett and Dawson are instilled within these ideals of the Harlem Renaissance.

[1] Nathan Hugins, Harlem Renaissance (New York: Oxford Press, 1971), 3.

[2] Cary D. Wintz, “The Harlem Renaissance: What Was It, and Why Does It Matter?” Humanities Texas http://www.humanitiestexas.org/news/articles/harlem-renaissance-what-was-it-and-why-does-it-matter

[3] Hugins, Harlem Renaissance, 72-80.

[4] Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., “Music in the Harlem Renaissance: An Overview,” in Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance: A Collection of Essays, ed. Samuel Floyd, Jr. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1990), 2.

[5] Robert Nathaniel Dett, “The Development of the Negro Spiritual,” in The Dett Collection of Negro Spirituals: Fourth Group (Chicago: Hall and McCreary, 1936), 4.

[6] Alain Locke, The New Negro (New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1925), xxvii.

[7] Ibid., 208.

[8] Locke mentions the name of Dett among other composers returning to the choral form, however Dawson is not mentioned as his career is just beginning. My statement reflects the future efforts by Dawson.

[9] Locke, The New Negro, 209.