Harlem Renaissance Day V Lesson: The Beginning and the End

Part I: New Beginnings

Quiet as it's kepta number of the brightest lights of the

Harlem Renaissance fell somewhere along the LGBT (lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender) rainbow spectrum. It actually
isn't that quiet. Claude McKay, Wallace Thurman, Countee
Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, Angelina Weld Grimk, Alice
Dunbar-Nelson and Langston Hughes, all luminaries of the
New Negro literary movement, have been identified as anywhere
from openly gay (Nugent) to sexually ambiguous or mysterious
(Hughes). In a 1993 essay, The Black Man's Burden, Henry
Louis Gates Jr., The Root's editor-in-chief, notes that the
Renaissance was surely as gay as it was black, not that it was
exclusively either of these. LINDA VILLAROSA

The Harlem Renaissance broke barriers by introducing many non-African Americans to

African American culture for the first time, but it also broke barriers through creating
opportunities for previously unheard voices within the African American community.

Nowhere is this seen better than in the magazine Fire!!, which was released in 1926; this
magazine only lasted one issue (it didnt sell well and ironically its headquarters burned
down), but it elevated openly LGBTQ and female voices by putting them in print next
to titans of the Harlem Renaissance.

Most of the most prominent LGBTQ voices of the Harlem Renaissance were not open
about their sexuality, but that doesnt mean that they didnt incorporate it into their
work. Today, we will start by looking at two titans of the Harlem Renaissance, both
widely accepted now as likely gay or bisexual, Countee Cullen and Claude Mckay, and
analyze their work from three different lens: from a universal lens, which means
looking at what it is saying about being human; through a racial lens, which means
looking at what it says about being black; and through a LGBTQ lens, which means
looking at what it says about being LGBTQ.
Poem #1: Baptism by Claude McKay

Into the furnace let me go alone;

Stay you without in terror of the heat.
I will go naked in--for thus ''tis sweet--
Into the weird depths of the hottest zone.
I will not quiver in the frailest bone,
You will not note a flicker of defeat;
My heart shall tremble not its fate to meet,
My mouth give utterance to any moan.
The yawning oven spits forth fiery spears;
Red aspish tongues shout wordlessly my name.
Desire destroys, consumes my mortal fears,
Transforming me into a shape of flame.
I will come out, back to your world of tears,
A stronger soul within a finer frame.

Please write a short explication (explanation of the poem) of the poem is saying about being human.

Please write a short explication (explanation of the poem) of the poem is saying about being black.

Please write a short explication (explanation of the poem) of the poem is saying about being LGBTQ.
Poem #2: Tableau by Countee Cullen

Locked arm in arm they cross the way

The black boy and the white,
The golden splendor of the day
The sable pride of night.
From lowered blinds the dark folk stare
And here the fair folk talk,
Indignant that these two should dare
In unison to walk.
Oblivious to look and word
They pass, and see no wonder
That lightning brilliant as a sword
Should blaze the path of thunder.

Please write a short explication (explanation of the poem) of the poem is saying about being
human.

Please write a short explication (explanation of the poem) of the poem is saying about being
black.

Please write a short explication (explanation of the poem) of the poem is saying about being
LGBTQ.
Part II: The End

The end of the Harlem Renaissance is often marked at the start of the Great Depression,
the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Depression slowed the art of Harlem for two
reasons:
Wealthy patrons (both white and African American) who funded much of the art
could no longer contribute to art.
Americans of all races and levels of wealth had to tighten their belts and stop buying
as many records, magazines, photos, and pieces of art.

But in another way The Harlem Renaissance never ended. While the neighborhood of
Harlem was no longer the center of an artistic renaissance in the 1930s and 40s, many of
the artists of the Harlem Renaissance Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ella
Fitzgerald, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Aaron Douglass created their
most famous works during that period. Further, the doors they opened and the
influence they had cannot be taken away.

To look at the end, please read the Langston Hughes essay, When the Negro Was in
Vogue and answer the following questions. As you read, I encourage you to annotate
(and maybe find the heartbeat line for) it. Remember that annotations help us to piece
together complex arguments and are notes to us in the future when we are studying for
the test.

1. List at least three positives that Hughes saw in The Harlem Renaissance.

2. List at least three negatives that Hughes saw in The Harlem Renaissance

3. After finishing questions one and two, answer the following question: How did
Langston Hughes feel about the Harlem Renaissance? Did he think it was a good time?
A bad time? An important era in history? Or was it overrated? Additionally, please
answer why you think he had those feelings.