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- [00:00]
Don Wildman
Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe to bring the Past Alive.
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Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
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Don Wildman
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Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
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Don Wildman
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Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
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Don Wildman
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Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
They share real tips and so I started connecting with all these people on
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Don Wildman
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Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
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Don Wildman
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Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
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Don Wildman
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Don Wildman
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- [02:10]
Dan Snow
You're on the banks of the Thames, it's 1666 and the city is a towering inferno. In front of you, the Great Fire rages through the Stuart Capital. If you're visiting London this summer, let me Dan Snow, historian and born and raised Londoner, be your personal guide in a brand new series of audio walking tours from history hit. I tell you the stories of where some of England's most explosive history happened. We'll follow the destructive path of the Great Fire of London and explore where and how King Charles the First met his grisly end. All you need is your smartphone and the voice map app. Using your location, it triggers the story automatically so you can keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes on the history as you Walk. Step into London's past. Download VoiceMap from your app store or go to VoiceMap MeHistoryHit. That's VoiceMap. MeHistoryHit.
- [03:16]
Don Wildman
We're in New York City at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. It is midnight, and the dance floor twirls and shimmies. It's laughter, sweat, perfume, and cigarettes all to the hot swing of Chick Webb's orchestra. Prohibition may still be the law in America, but in here, it's not hard to get a drink. As this party pushes towards dawn, this is the Harlem Renaissance in full bloom. A young Billie Holiday is rising in the clubs. Duke Ellington and Fats Waller are inventing new sounds, while tappers carve out rhythms all their own. Writers, artists, and intellectuals debate race and politics, laying a new foundation for black American culture. But down here at the Savoy, it's just movement and joy. The dance floor is even integrated, rare in Jim Crow's America. Tonight, here in Harlem, it feels as if the music will never stop. But within a month, a short matter of weeks, the stock market will crash and the American economy along with it. One day, decades later, the poet Langston Hughes would look back and write his most famous line of verse about being black in America. What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Welcome to American History hit. I'm Don Wildman. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, professor of Black Popular culture in the department of Black American Studies at Duke University. He is an author of numerous works, including most recently, Black Ephemera the Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive. He is the host of the Left of Black podcast and has joined me previously on episode 289, discussing the history of Juneteenth. But today, we discuss the Harlem Renaissance. Doctor Neal, thank you for joining us again.
- [05:30]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
I'm happy to be back.
- [05:31]
Don Wildman
We call it the the Harlem Renaissance. It is legend, a golden age. Why the word renaissance? Exactly what was being reborn at this time in Harlem?
- [05:41]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
It was a flowering of culture. It was a flowering of identity. For many black Americans who were in Harlem at the time, it was a restart or a reboot after having migrated from the deep South. The north represented opportunities, new living arrangements, new spaces, new racial politics to some extent. And with all this influx of energies coming from different places, I mean, just the demographic diversity of black folks who made it in Harlem and folks who were already in Harlem at that point in time. It created this flowering, this explosion, if you will, of black culture.
- [06:19]
Don Wildman
It has become such a popular cultural, you know, icon. Some people take it for granted at this point, when you dip back into it, as we are going to do today, it is amazing, amazing how the explosion and multifaceted nature of this era from every angle, this community was experimenting and pushing out and expanding and. And leaving a legacy that we are still living with today. As you mentioned, just now, connected to the great migration of black Americans from the Jim Crow south to northern urban areas, which we've also done an episode about an extraordinary migration, one of the biggest in human history, really, at least in American history. Certainly that led to huge immigrant populations. And in Harlem, especially of Southern African Americans, but also immigrants from the Caribbean. How much were people utilizing that new neighborhood in this way, or. I want to get to the very basics of how this sort of came to pass.
- [07:15]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
I mean, there are a few things. There was a labor shortage in the US and American cities. World War I created a context where many European immigrants returned to their home countries to fight in World War I, which created a labor shortage. So there was a need for labor, and black folks from the south serve that need, whether they were coming to New York, Detroit, Chicago, Midwest, and all these kinds of places. There's also a secondary migration that's happening in New York City. At the time, most black Americans are living below Central Park. What becomes Central park in areas like the Tenderloin and the Lower east side. And there was a housing boon in Harlem, but the subway train did not travel all the way to Harlem yet. You know, you would have to get off the train at like, 110th street and walk. So you had all this housing that wasn't being. That was being underutilized. And so you also have this migration of black folks leaving the Lower east side, the lower parts of Manhattan, to move into Harlem. There obviously are tensions because we're not just talking about Southern migrants, We are talking about Caribbean immigrants also. So there was a kind of feeling out period that I think ultimately creates the context for what we now understand as African American culture is really this combination of all these different forces and energies that take place in this time.
- [08:36]
Don Wildman
Yeah, and it was happening across the country because these migrations were happening in other cities as well, L.A. chicago, Cleveland, all these places, D.C. but why Harlem specifically? Why is it most famously Harlem?
- [08:48]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
You know, because it was the place up north which really had so many black migrants come in. It is, you know, the cultural capital of the U.S. you know, some people would even argue at this point in time, it's still the political capital of the US it just was an ideal place to foment, for lack of a better way to describe it, a cultural movement. You know, when you think about just the number of daily newspapers that were in New York City in that period of time. Right. It's pretty astounding. Right. You know, dozens and dozens of these newspapers. It created opportunities for black Americans to be politically active to offering commentary on what was happening in the world and also to build their own smaller cultural movements.
- [09:31]
Don Wildman
Yeah. And we should specify. And I didn't. At the top of this conversation, we're talking about the 1920s up to 1930s. It's that 10 year period of the 1920s which is going side, side by side. The Jazz age and, and roaring twenties in, in New York, tremendous profits are being made by corporations. I mean, there's a, there's a tide that floats all boats in in some ways in New York, just business wise. But this is unique. This is completely unique to this cultural moment. 175,000 black Americans in Harlem in about three square miles. Obviously no such concentration ever existed in, in America before, like this north or South 1930 Census. 70% of Harlem residents are black. What informs this time so much of it is the jazz scene, the Harlem clubs, that spirit of jazz, which again we take for granted these days, was so new and exciting and dynamic for every good reason that it infused everything, didn't it?
- [10:29]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Oh, absolutely. I mean, the things you consider about the Harlem Renaissance, you know, beyond the sheer numbers of black folks who are there are who the black folks are. So you're talking about Duke Ellington trafficking back and forth from Washington D.C. to New York City, early stages of his career. You're talking about the great bandleader and arranger, Fletcher Henderson, that's there. You're talking about James Reese, Europe. Right. Who of course fights in World War I and comes back and creates this kind of musical moment that's coming out of the James Reese Europe Band. You know, the great work that Jason Moran has done to sonically capture what that moment was. And so you also had this experimental culture. You know, Armstrong for the most part leaves New Orleans and goes to Chicago. But there are obviously other forces that are taking folks to New York. The opportunity to be able to have these free spaces in Harlem where they could perform for black audiences. I think what's so critical about the development of jazz in this period of time is that these are black musicians playing largely for black Audiences. And it's an exchange back and forth in terms of the energies that they're getting from the audience that helps to inspire cultural innovation, musical innovation. It's never lost to me when you think about someone like Duke Ellington. Duke Ellington was essentially on the road performing 300 days out of the year. It was so important to him to always be in contact with the people that he didn't want to have to deal with the laws around segregation. So, of course, he had his own Pullman car, you know, that was attached on the back of a train so that, you know, they could travel in the way that they should, you know, as an independent and, you know, black man that didn't have to deal with some of the dynamics of racial segregation.
- [12:12]
Don Wildman
Yeah, exactly. My biggest takeaway today perhaps will be that what you said about the train, the fact that it did not reach up there, allowed that neighborhood to develop in a kind of. In its own organic fashion, didn't it? I didn't. I never thought about that.
- [12:25]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Absolutely. I mean, trains are actually such a critical part of thinking about this period of time, not just because of the subway system in New York City and the limits of where it went. You know, it's still not even going up to the Bronx, but the way that the train was so important for the migration process. And it's not just a matter of black folks who are going to traveling by train up north, but it's also the role of the Pullman Porters, you know, this group of men who are working the trains, largely working for whites and serving them. The great A. Philip Randolph, who, of course, was the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Really important critical figure there. But the Pullman Porters were important because they were traveling from all these different cities. They would bring black newspapers from New York to Chicago, Chicago newspapers to Detroit. It created what we understand now in terms of a viral movement, in terms of digital culture and social media. But the way that the Pullman Porters used information and shared information, because they were traveling all around the country, became an important component of making sure that there was a feed of information coming out of New York, going into New York, and et cetera. You know, there was this saying that if you were a black man in the 1920s, if you couldn't be a doctor, if you couldn't be a lawyer, the next best thing would have been to be a Pullman Porter, because the traveling allowed you some level of freedom.
- [13:46]
Don Wildman
My wife's grandfather was just that, and other family members as well. Very important. So Harlem becomes this cultural crucible of black American America. And it's fair to think about in those terms, just as sort of studying it, but seating it in this nice middle class world that was growing and operating quite normally is an important aspect of this. Describe what a street scene in Harlem would have been in this time 1922,
- [14:10]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
say, well, you just start with the cacophony of the streetcars and the traffic and the horns. And, you know, for many of these new migrants, you know, part of the initial challenge for them when they come to New York is just dealing with the noise and the traffic. You know, when we think about the sleepy south, right, particularly folks who weren't in big cities in the south, it, you know, just the sound of it created a different culture that they had to figure out a way to accommodate these really different circumstances. You know, there are a few black police officers in this period of time, but there is this class division that's very, very real. There were established black middle class folks who were in Harlem, who are in New York City, who belong to mainline churches. And as many of the writers have captured at the time, they did what they thought was important work in terms of preparing Southern migrants for these transitions. So what kind of clothes they wear, making sure their hair was cold. They had to present the best face of the Negro when they're out in public. And so very often they police these migrants in this way, you know, in terms of how you should come out the house, how you should carry yourself. And it did create some tensions in that regard.
- [15:23]
Don Wildman
How much was the wider nation and even New York City aware of what was happening in this regard as something unique and special to that time?
- [15:31]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
You know, scale is always a question when we think about these movements. It is historically significant, and we have done so much research on the period of time. It seems much more impactful than it actually was. I think Toni Morrison makes a point in her great novel Jazz that the majority of everyday black folks in Harlem had no idea there was a Harlem renaissance going on. You know, they were not necessarily reading new essays from Du Bois or Lane Locke or were not, you know, necessarily cued into the debates that were going back and forth between Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. They were just living their lives and trying to. To survive. And so to the extent that the average black American knew what was happening in Harlem, let alone white America or the rest of the country, I'm not sure there was a keen sense of what was happening there.
- [16:21]
Don Wildman
Interesting. And how much was segregation a part of this as well, and even in
- [16:25]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
New York, you know, there's still segregated spaces even in Harlem. Some of the clubs in Harlem, Cotton Club being a good example, were segregated, you know, where blacks and whites didn't necessarily sit together in some instances. And for many black Americans, it is still a challenge to leave Harlem to go to other parts of New York because it's segregated. Right. So, you know, New York has its own version of segregation. It's not the Deep South. Right. It's a very different kind of experience. But that doesn't mean there. There weren't clear color lines, you know, for where people could go and how they could act and what time they should be in certain neighborhoods. All that stuff was still in effect, to the most extent, even in some place like New York.
- [17:06]
Don Wildman
Let's take a break. When Mark and I come back, we'll talk about the ideas and politics associated with the Harlem Renaissance. It happens on all facets, as I explained, and we'll move through it piece by piece. This episode is brought to you by Best Western Hotels and Resorts. Summer is upon us, and you know what that means. Vacation. Whether you've been planning it for months or you're ready to pack a bag and go on a whim, having a place you can rely on makes every trip feel that much easier. That's where Best Western comes in. From scenic road trips to spontaneous adventures abroad, you'll find welcoming stays wherever you land. So you can focus on making memories, not managing the details. This summer, get 1,000 bonus points and a chance to win 250,000 bonus points. So wherever you're headed, make the stay part of the trip and make it count. With this limited time offer, life's a trip. Make the most of it@bestwestern.com no additional purchase necessary. For sweeps, see bonus points, terms and conditions and sweeps rules for details and visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions.
- [18:21]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
What makes a leader worth following?
- [18:23]
Don Wildman
What should you really care about in your job?
- [18:25]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
As technology is changing so quickly, is it just gonna be about machines talking to other machines? I mean, should you quit your job and start something on your own? What would that take?
- [18:34]
Don Wildman
What does success and risk look like when we're all at the starting gate together?
- [18:39]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
These are the questions we answer each week on Lead Human with Jack Myers and Tim Spengler.
- [18:43]
Don Wildman
Join us each week and subscribe at your favorite podcast platform and YouTube.
- [18:49]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
We'll tell stories, we'll hear from some of the best, and we'll try to figure this out together.
- [18:56]
Dan Snow
If you love a good story, why aren't you listening to Dan Snow's History Hit Podcast? It's a show where we tell you every amazing, crazy and important thing that's ever happened. Human history from the perilous voyages of the first Polynesians, the discoveries of Captain Cook, the deadly Viking raids on Britain and Ireland, the rise and fall of the great English kings and queens. We'll tell you how Waterloo was won, the Alamo was lost, and all the history in between. So make sure you check it out. Dan Snow's History Hit for the best true stories ever told. Wherever you get your podcast.
- [19:41]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Welcome back.
- [19:41]
Don Wildman
I'm speaking with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal of Duke University about the Harlem Renaissance. Mark, we've discussed the era as a flourishing of the arts, jazz especially, of course, but it's also flourishing in ideas and political thinking and confronting the challenges of segregated America. How so? How did political ideas weave into this cultural and artistic reality?
- [20:03]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
It's the era of Du Bois. We have to talk about how important a figure he was as an intellectual, beginning with his study of the Philadelphia Negro in the late 1890s. He of course, publishes the Souls of Black Folks, which began as a collection of essays that appeared in the Atlantic. This idea that with the new century post Plessy versus Ferguson, that black folks would begin to not only use their physical and artistic tools, but the intellectual tools to think about a way out of the conditions that they were in. So Du Bois, the creation of the Niagara movement, which then creates the creation of the naacp. You also have the creation of the Urban League. So you have these civic and political organizations that are committed to change. And then you also have this flowering of intellectual thought. I mentioned the Boys and Souls of Black Folks. One of the figures who I think is really so critical to this period that we don't spend enough time talking about is James Weldon Johnson, who's most well known these days as the co author, co lyricist of Lift Every Voice and Sing, which he wrote with his brother, the Black National Anthem. But he publishes his first novel, the Autobiography of the excolored man, in 1912. And it really is, I think, the text that really stimulates this cross pollination between what was happening artistically and what was happening in intellectual circles. You know, his book Black Manhattan, which was published in 1930, is really one of the best books that captures what was happening across Harlem in this dynamic in this period of time. You know, so everyone has to come to, you know, the crisis, which is the magazine that comes out of NAACP Opportunity, which is coming out of the urban League. They all have offices in New York. You have all these great talents who are coming through. You know, famous Langston Hughes, of course, is in Harlem. In this period of time, there's so many different interesting figures and forces. Jesse Fauset, the novelist, is there. You know, Zora Neale Hurston, you know, is taking classes in Columbia. I mean, it gets you really excited. It's amazing to think about. Right. And it's about letters, it's about music, but it's also about visual art. So when you think about Aaron Douglas, right, who illustrates so many of the early books from artists who were coming out of this period of time. You know, I personally, as someone who looks back at the history of this period of time, you know, I can't imagine another moment where I think there are other moments where you've had these cultural forms, forces.
- [22:38]
Don Wildman
No, not like.
- [22:39]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
But because it was. But because it was so new, was impactful. Right. It creates the possibility for these other moments.
- [22:47]
Don Wildman
Well, it's so traceable, too. I mean, you're. You're starting with Du Bois. And, and I want to explain to folks who may not be familiar with that book is. Is printed in 1903. So that's 20 good years before the time we're talking about it.
- [23:00]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Exactly right.
- [23:01]
Don Wildman
And that's what's interesting, is that there's already been this intellectual, thanks to Du Bois, this intellectual groundwork framework put down in the Northeast. He's a Harvard guy, and it comes down to New York. There's, of course, Booker Washington has been doing this as well in his own way. And there's this schism of thinking about how, you know, this new time is going to happen for black America. There's a whole kind of already this conversation is happening, is my point. And Adam Du Bois, that was so interesting as I was reading about this, I just wrote down a quote. Double consciousness blacks would need to sharpen. Yes. So this double consciousness that W.E.B. du Bois talks about is a really fascinating thing. Can you explain that term? Am I talking about something you're familiar with?
- [23:45]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
You know what he later describes in the same book, A gift of second sight.
- [23:50]
Don Wildman
Yes. That's what he.
- [23:51]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
This ability to think about who you are in the world, but at the same time, you have to consider how the world views you on many levels. I would describe it as cultural schizophrenia, but it is something that is so hardwired into the experience, which is why Du Bois wrote about it and the reason why it continues to resonate so powerfully. In the same book, he talks about this idea of a talented 10%, you know, which in many ways he borrows from Anna Julia Cooper, you know, who, a decade before, the souls of black folks, makes the argument of lifting as we climb, as you talked about the experiences of black women in the South. But it was this idea that we now have created, this educated and financial class, if you economic class, that had an absolute responsibility, right, to serve or teach, depending on how you read, how you interpret what Du Bois is talking about, this connection to the other folks. The debate between Du Bois and Booker T. Was fascinating on many levels because Booker T. Is building a empire at Tuskegee with this idea that you just keep your head down, you do work, you generate economic income from serving white folks in the skills that you have. And you don't need to deal with the political realities because you're building these separate institutions. I don't think it was ever either or. I think most black folks, to the extent that they look at Du Bois and Booker T. They borrowed from both of their ideas. Booker T, of course, dies in 1915, so he doesn't even see a Harlem Renaissance. But his contribution to that period of time was the invitation that he made to Marcus Garvey to come from Jamaica to New York, you know, to the US To Harlem. And what's important about Garvey is that he really is the figure who creates a mass grassroots, working class, working poor movement in Harlem that in some ways is a counter to Du Bois and what Du Bois has talked about with the intellectual elites. Right. And I think to some extent, that chasm still exists. Definitely the 1960s, when you see intellectuals and then you're seeing folks who were coming up from the streets like a Malcolm X. Right. You see it again in the 1980s, 90s, when you start to have this generation of black intellectuals who are coming through all of these schools, Black public intellectuals and hip hop serves as a kind of counterpoint, as another intellectual tradition to that. So it's an ongoing process that begins really to ferment the way that it does in the Harlem Renaissance period.
- [26:32]
Don Wildman
It's such an exciting idea of how this whole, really, the 20th century of black America was built very deliberately and brilliantly. And most people today do not recognize this, many of my own peers, because we're so used to things that have happened as a result of all of this. But at the time, such careful things were being done. But it's. It's that seed that. That Du Bois especially plants that I want to account for because it talks about the autonomy of black people within the reality of segregation. And, and within that autonomy, you can be yourself, you know, or you can create. And, and that's really the story of the renaissance and, and that particular moment in, in Harlem. Beyond that, I want to just circle back to a few things you've already mentioned, but again, people might not be aware of this. NAACP is founded in 1909. National Urban League, founded in 1911, led to boycotts of businesses that wouldn't hire black workers. The beginning, beginnings of really organized resistance. Buchanan vs. Worley, 1917. That legal case is settled. No longer legal to restrict where African Americans could live. There's there' the whole thing is budging forward a little bit. A lot of this involves World War I and that time period just before. And a lot of, you know, the Harlem hell fighters go off. There's big stories about this going on in the news for people. And I'm just sort of running through a few of these things to sort of refresh people's memories about what was going on at the time just before. As we're moving into this newspaper pamphlets like the messenger, founded in 1917, examples of black news and networks that publish works of black writers and thinkers reporting on news outside mainstream media, black newspapers, a huge deal. And of course, the crisis, which actually starts in 1910. All of this is happening at the same time as the, the stuff we're going to talk about in a moment. But it's an extraordinary explosion of media. I mean, honestly, the same sorts of things were happening downtown in New York with the bursting off of radio and all the rest of it, but it's an extraordinary time all over the place. This is the backdrop for this whole situation. I'm going to take another break, Mark, and we'll come back and talk about a few of these individuals we've already mentioned in a little more detail.
- [28:51]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
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Don Wildman
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Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
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Don Wildman
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Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
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Dan Snow
Acast.com if you love a good story, why aren't you listening to Dan Snow's History Hit Podcast? It's a show where we tell you every amazing, crazy, and important thing that's ever happened in human history. From the perilous voyages of the first Polynesians, the discoveries of captivity, the deadly Viking raids on Britain and Ireland, the rise and fall of the great English kings and queens. We'll tell you how Waterloo was won, the Alamo was lost, and all the history in between. So make sure you check it out. Dine Snow's History hit for the best true stories ever told. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:23]
Don Wildman
Okay, we're back. We're talking about the Harlem Renaissance and specific individuals, particularly one we've already mentioned, James Weldon Johnson. This man, if you don't know about him, 1871 to 1938. An absolute genius. Mark, can you tell me about how this man made the impact he did?
- [30:38]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
He was someone who understood how to build relationships. He saw himself as a writer and not just of fiction in the case or nonfiction with Black Manhattan. You know, I mentioned before, you know, the Lift every voice and sing the Negro national anthem. He's a member, one of the early members, of an organization called Phi Beta Sigma, one of the divine nine organizations, which aren't nine yet. You know, when he joins it. The best way to describe James Weldon Johnson, and I think this actually fits even more than Du Bois, is that he was a race man. Right. He was someone who was committed to doing anything that was going to better the race. He took on positions within the NAACP that allowed him to do that. He wrote books that allowed him to do that. And, you know, he wasn't someone who was out front. I think that's one of the reasons why, you know, we don't pay as much attention to him, you know, Du Bois, for the great intellectual he was. He was also a fascinating self promoter. Marcus Garvey was a fascinating self promoter. I don't think that's necessary, necessarily. Was something that was part of James Weldon Johnson's personality at the time.
- [31:47]
Don Wildman
Yeah. Social activist, writer, poet, executive secretary, naacp Tin Pan Alley songwriter.
- [31:55]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Right.
- [31:56]
Don Wildman
A Renaissance man. Never mind the Harlem Renaissance. He's his own renaissance. Wrote the book the Autobiography of an Ex Colored man, published in 1912. Of course, the song we've talked about, Lift Every voice and sing 1900, which becomes a mainstay for the NAACP and remains the black national anthem. Every super bowl, you hear it sung about five minutes before the national anthem. It's amazing.
- [32:17]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
And I have to say about, you know, the Orbar Vic's Colored man, which I still teach fairly regularly. You know, it's about someone who's able to cross the color line, who's someone who's able to pass, but also has these great cultural gifts that are connected to black America. And he's caught between this idea, whether or not to pass into white culture or to continue to connect to the greatness of this flowering of black art. He makes his choice to live within white America because of the violence that's associated with being black. But it's this great line at the very end of the book where I feel as though I've given up my heritage for a mess of pottage. Pottage at the time was this idea of canned meat, which made you an elite, you know, that period of time. And that's always resonated with me. And I think it is such a great metaphor for how black folks think about black art. Right. You know, what is the price of crossing over in fame, you know, if you actually have to give up this cultural heritage that was so important to the art that you create in the first place?
- [33:20]
Don Wildman
It's. It really gets me excited, you know, it's the autonomy. It's the creation of this. It's turning away from assimilation towards autonomy and creating this within itself. And. And that becomes actually the story of America in its bigger sense. And. And that's what's really exciting about it to the general population, is we've all benefited from all of this. Langston Hughes, anecdotally, I will just say, you know, typical white kid in America, from a white town. I go to school. I. I land at Cheney State University on a. On an. On an average afternoon doing some research down the road from the school I was going to, and I run into this book by a guy named Langston Hughes. I had never heard of him, because why would I? I mean, I wasn't exposed to it in my town, to him. And I am so moved by these poems. And it suddenly speaks to me of all people, like, why. Why am I moved by. This has nothing to do with me. But that's the beauty of this man, Langston Hughes. Let's talk about him for a bit.
- [34:18]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
I, too, sing of America. I mean, you know, Hughes is such a large cultural figure, largely because of his poetry, you know, which, if you were fortunate enough, depending on where you went to school, you got introduced to it in school. I was introduced to Langston Hughes's poetry. Growing up in New York City, it seemed as though New York, you know, Langston Hughes was all over the place. And I still remember picking up my copy of the Black Poets, which is a book that was edited by Dudley Randall, which. And when I bought that book, I was about 15 years old. The first thing I went to was to look for the Langston Hughes poem. But it was so. He was so much more than that, you know, the group of artists that he works with, you know, because this is a younger generation, and they look at Du Bois and they look at some of these other figures, and they want to culturally push the envelope a little bit in ways that the mainstream of black life wasn't necessarily comfortable with. Lexi Hughes, of course, is a queer man. Nobody really knows that. That's not attached to his legacy at the time. And he's working with other queer artists. They create this incredible magazine called Fire, which just has a one print run before the place burns down, ironically. But it was really them pushing the envelope. And he would continue to push that envelope throughout his career. He dies in 1967. Right when we're in this midst of the Black power movement. And he was one of the artists that many of the Black Arts movement people, when you think about Barack and those kind of folks, they still had a great respect for Langston hughes in the 1960s in ways that they didn't necessarily respect some of the other artists, because he was always about pushing the culture forward politically as he pushed it forward artistically.
- [36:07]
Don Wildman
Yeah. Poet, writer, cultural critic, wrote extensively in every regard. Poetry in general in those days was a much bigger thing than it is, you know, commonly today, coming out of Walt Whitman, very popularly among white people. Langston Hughes takes that. Takes up that mantle and. And some compare him to him in some ways because of the. The use of language in. In a very particular way. He was sometimes criticized by intellectuals that he was showing black Americans in a. In an unflattering light to white readers. Makes no sense to me.
- [36:41]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
I mean, because, you know, many of the leading intellectuals, I mean, they were conflicted about jazz music.
- [36:45]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [36:45]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
You know, they. They really wanted to see a flowering of black art in a kind of Western music tradition which existed. You know, they saw jazz as profane. Right. It was a place where sex and drugs happened. I mean, kind of the same things we would hear about rock and roll, you know, 50 years later. And Langston Hughes wrote jazz poetry. Right. He embraced that cultural movement, and he pushed against this kind of conservative notions. When we talk about black respectability, which is an important framing of how we think about the talented 10th in this period of time. Lexington Hughes had no Interest in black respectability. He wanted to tell the stories of the Everyman. His character, Jesse B. Simple, was a character that would be serialized in the black press. You know, just be simple. This basic working class guy who provided these incredible insights to what was happening in the world. Even though, quote, unquote, he wasn't a learned intellectual.
- [37:44]
Don Wildman
He wasn't interested in portraying the ordeal. That's kind of the thing. He had an essay called the Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain. And Hughes writes in that if white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful and ugly too, in so many ways. This will pass down as James Brown, right? Black is beautiful. It kind of gets passed in that regard.
- [38:06]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
And what's important about this moment, we do tend to celebrate this moment because it was this great flowering, you know, but racial violence was still real and there was still the need for economic support. It's not surprising that the Harlem Renaissance essentially dies on the vine with the financial crash of 1929. One of the reasons why the Harlem Renaissance happens, at least artistically, is because there's also this influx of white money that's coming into Harlem to support the arts, to support this cross pollination in terms of black folks and white folks listening to the same music. The beginning of the race music, music industry occurs in the 1920s because there are record companies that are willing to spend money to record black artists. Right. You know, all of this is happening in this moment. And there is a certain amount of retrenchment that occurs with the financial collapse. Right. And if not for the wpa, the wherewithal to create this mechanism that allowed the arts to be supported on some level. Right. We don't necessarily get that transition period between the Harlem Renaissance to the black arts movement, you know, without important institutions like the wpa.
- [39:18]
Don Wildman
Right. And that is the dream deferred. When it happens, that that ends and we end up in the 20th century. Tough years come to follow. I like this phrase that I read somewhere prepping this conversation. Du Bois lays the foundation. James Weldon Johnson builds the house. Langston Hughes fills it with music. You think that's fair?
- [39:35]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
I think that is. It's important though, you know, because we tend to gender these intellectual and artistic movements. Right. We tend to only talk about the men.
- [39:47]
Don Wildman
We haven't even talked about Zora Neale Hurston.
- [39:50]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
But one of the most important novels that's written in that period of time is Nella Larson's passing. Jesse Fausett, who works with Du Bois at the crisis is a financial benefactor to Du Bois. Right. There's so many ways in which there are so many important women who are critical to this moment that often get obscured in our celebratory remembrance of Du Bois and Johnson and Lakes and Hughes and others.
- [40:21]
Don Wildman
And we're going to finish up, just to reassure you, with a story of a woman everybody knows. But before that, I just want these last two subjects. I want to talk about Duke Ellington, as you mentioned before, how much he takes this outside of Harlem. I mean, the man's a brilliant businessman besides musician. And again, he lasts on. I watched him on Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson as a kid. You know, he came from D.C. to New York, where he started playing piano with different bands and orchestras, eventually becoming a mainstay at the Cotton Club. He comes famous for his jazz compositions, for breaking these racial barriers and performing in white spaces. But he was a synthesizer, wasn't he? He was the guy that took a lot of ideas and brought them together.
- [41:04]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
There's no question about that. You think about all the stuff that he's hearing that he incorporates in his music. When you hear things like the Black and Tan Fantasy as one example of this, you know, he creates a kind of lushness around the idea of Harlem, but it is still accessible to everyday black folks, you know, which is why when he records the album he does with Coltrane in 63, I mean, it's so important because Coltrane is representing this whole kind of cutting edge thing that seems to be moving away from the people. But Duke Ellington was so invested in the people that he knew that it was important to be in conversation with someone like Coltrane. But again, the great songs that he writes in the 40s and the 50s with Billy Strayhorn, like Take the A Train, you know, Lush Life and things of that nature, you know, he was a collaborator in the best sense of the world. He had this huge band. He gave folks opportunities to shine their light within their bands. He was someone who, I think, who understood that the success of black arts, the success of black music, was not Duke Ellentown's success. It was the success of everybody, right? So his band reflected that sensibility even as he is a leader, even as he's the face of it, right? When you think about the Johnny Hodges and all these kinds of folks, he gave them all a platform, right, to be able to express what they were within this idea of the group.
- [42:29]
Don Wildman
Billy Strayhorn gets so little credit. I mean, he gets so little attention, I should say. And he was an openly gay man back Then. Which took a lot.
- [42:37]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Which speaks also a great deal to Duke Ellington's politics at the time.
- [42:40]
Don Wildman
Exactly. Yeah. Lastly, I want to talk about Billie Holiday, and I want to do that because I want to end with talking about her most famous song, Billie Holiday. I was introduced to her through Diana Ross. That was my picture of her, you know, playing the character in the big movie. Then you begin to understand how complex her story really is. As you understand it better. She's originally from Philadelphia, comes to Harlem, part of this whole migration world going along. Began singing in the Harlem nightclubs as a teenager, eventually signs a record deal, becoming a household name. She worked, interestingly, with John Hammond on recording sessions. I mean, Hammond works with everybody. That's a whole episode unto itself.
- [43:18]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Including Aretha 30 years later.
- [43:20]
Don Wildman
I know, right? And Dylan and Springsteen along the way. Anyway, Billie Holiday is a genius for her voice and improvisational skills. She's picked up by. By Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw. She shares a Billy Bill with Louis Armstrong. She tours and tours and. And works in records for. For decades. But it was Strange Fruit that defines her to this day. Tragically, in some ways. It was recorded and sung by Billie Holiday in 1939. So we're after the fact, but. But it was really. It's still sort of considered part of this whole story. Talk to me about Strange Fruit and why it was her song. How did she land with that song?
- [43:56]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Well, you start with the composition. Even though it tells the story of violence in the south, it's a New York song. The lyrics written by a Jewish New York City school teacher who wanted to give language to the violence that he was seeing. And, you know, first. You know, part of it is the timing of the song for Billie Holiday. There's something. There's a certain quality to her voice. You know, Billie Holiday was not someone that you would think about as a singer, was technically skilled. Right. You know, she wasn't a great singer in that way. She was an amazing instrumentalist, and she used her voice like an instrument. Right. So if you were looking for, you know, I think about someone like Ella Fitzgerald.
- [44:47]
Dan Snow
Right.
- [44:47]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
If you're looking for this kind of pristine, clear singing voice, that was never Billie Holiday. Right. She used her voice as an instrument, and that instrument brought in all of these conflicting emotions about what she was singing about, whether that was love, loss, or the violence of the South. So I think there's something unique about her voice that makes the song its song. Right. Why, even her ability to sing different versions of it before her death. But when folks think about this Song, they think about her. It's also a song that's occurring, that's released in a moment where there are so many things happening globally. This is a moment of Nazi Germany. World War II has begun, though the US is not necessarily drawn into it yet. I think there was a real concern about the escalation of violence. And I think with Strange Fruit, she took that escalation of global violence and made it personal, made it something that was so much more intimate. And we really had not seen, with conception to say, someone like Ida B. Wells, we had never artistically seen that kind of pushback to what anti black violence looked like in the United States. And of course, she's penalized for it. You know, she's not penalized, she's punished for it. Right. You know, the loss of her cabaret card, you know, and a lot of that, of course, had to deal with her addictions, but also the fact that she essentially was surveilled by the FBI for the remaining 20 years of her life. I always remind my youngest students, you know, that when you hear Mississippi goddamn in the mid-60s, when you hear Public Enemy saying, fight the power in 1989, they could do so with a level of freedom that in many ways Billie Holiday wasn't allowed when she sang Strange Fruit.
- [46:38]
Don Wildman
Yeah, Exactly. I mentioned 1939 when this came out. And then, of course, Langston Hughes, that poem wasn't necessarily written about the end of the Harlem Renaissance. But how much melancholy was there as far as a Look back so soon after, do you think? Were people aware of it ending just as were they aware of it ever being in many cases, I suppose, you
- [46:57]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
know, my colleague I, Augustus Dorm, would argue that melancholy is hardwired into the black experience. Right. I think they were always achingly looking back at lost possibilities in the art
- [47:12]
Don Wildman
because the idea had been, we can fix this if we just think it through and operate together and express this can be fixed. This whole Jim Crow reality is going to go away, and then it didn't for decades.
- [47:28]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
And Du Bois is a great measure of this. Du Bois becomes increasingly radicalized in terms of socialist thinking and what is happening globally because he's recognizing what's happening here in the US Is not moving the needle. When we talk about A Philip Randolph we talked about in the context of the Pullman pointers earlier, but when he organizes what was going to be the first March on Washington in 1941, it was in response to the fact that America was not delivering on this idea of democracy, at least as it represented racial politics. And to a certain extent, economic freedoms for many folks that they were going to march on Washington until FDR stepped in to kind of close that down. Until, of course, it re emerges in 1963 with the March on Washington that we know about. You know, the fact that Du Bois has brought up in front of the House UN American Committee, right. In the early 1950s, because he's willing to say that this is not working and was willing to be in conversations again, Paul Robeson, who's someone who we don't talk about necessarily in terms of the Harlem Renaissance, but he is a figure that's there. Right. He begins his career there. And his through line in terms of his relationship with the Communist Party and all those kinds of things spoke to a general disaffection that many black Americans had with the pace of, quote, unquote, liberation and freedom as it related to race politics in the U.S. right.
- [48:49]
Don Wildman
You can basically draw a line from the fading of the Renaissance straight through to the civil rights movement, of course, and all that which happens in the 60s. And then it still goes on, really. I mean, we're talking about in specific periods, but it really is still a part of an organic passage that we're still within. Our guest today has been Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of Black American Studies at Duke University. He is the author of numerous works, including most recently, Black the Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive. What's that book about? I haven't read that.
- [49:22]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Yeah, it's a book that looks at the ways that, you know, the difficulty of archiving black music and how it's both a challenge. Right. You know, in terms of recognizing all these kinds of moments where black culture and black music kind of moved us forward and how we're losing access to that archive, you know, so it's a bit of a crisis, but it's also a challenge to do the kind of work that allows us to recapture, you know, all the things that have kind of gone out into the world.
- [49:50]
Don Wildman
Sounds like a gift for my wife. Thank you so much, Mark. Nice to see you. I hope we do again. Thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes, dropping Mondays and Thursdays from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, please share with a friend. American History hit. With me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Thanks so much.
- [50:35]
Dan Snow
Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls
- [50:40]
Don Wildman
podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.
- [50:43]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy.
- [50:47]
Dan Snow
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn.
- [50:51]
Don Wildman
But here's the catch.
- [50:53]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Steven here has not read Mistborn before. That's right. Hey. Hey. So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [51:01]
Dan Snow
And along the way, we'll do character
- [51:02]
Don Wildman
deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will
- [51:05]
Dan Snow
even try to guess what's next.
- [51:06]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Spoiler alert.
- [51:07]
Don Wildman
He'll be wrong.
- [51:08]
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
News flash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts.
- [51:16]
Dan Snow
You're on the banks of the Thames. It's 1666 and the city is a towering inferno. In front of you, the great fire rages through the Stuart Capital. If you're visiting London this summer, let me Dan Snow, historian and born and raised Londoner, be your personal guide. In a brand new series of audio walking tours from history hit, I tell you the stories of where some of England's most explosive history happened. We'll follow the destructive path of the Great Fire of London and explore where and how King Charles I met his grisly end. All you need is your smartphone and the voice map app. Using your location, it triggers the story automatically. So you can keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes on the history as you walk. Step into London's past. Download VoiceMap from your app store or go to VoiceMap Mehi Historyhit. That's VoiceMap MeHistoryhit.