The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture, 1920-1930. - book reviews

"We know we are beautiful. And ugly too." This observation from Langston Hughes' 1926 essay "The Negro and the Racial Mountain" was a call to the black literati for artistic freedom, release from the ideals of white America, and a moral responsibility. In cultural historian Steven Watson's The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture 1920-1930 (Pantheon, 1995, $22), the emphasis is on the "and ugly too" part of that observation.

The Harlem Renaissance is one of the most celebrated African-American cultural eras in American history. In the minds of millions of undereducated high-school and miseducated college graduates, it is America's sole black cultural movement. They don't realize that at the turn of the century, Frances E.W. Harper (Iola Leroy and Minnie's Sacrifice) and others tilled the literary soil for the black liberation age. They forget that the black arts movement of the 1960s seethed with a non-Western aesthetic.

Because so little fiction or poetry had been published by blacks in the years immediately preceding the Harlem Renaissance, the appearance then of a dozen or more poets and novelists (not to mention musicians, singers, dancers) seemed so sudden, so magnificent. The renaissance stage was set with a vibrant cast of artists, supporters and hostesses. In the 1920s and '30s, Harlem overflowed with creative power - and with exotica. This latter characteristic is not overlooked by Watson (nor was it by such white patrons as Carl Van Vechten and Charlotte Mason), who concentrates on the sexual preferences and dalliances of the renaissance's genius children. A key element in his definition of the Harlem Renaissance is the "pursuit of hedonism." In the opening pages of the book, he sums up his description of 1928 Harlem with a quote: "As entertainer Jimmy Durante exclaimed, `You sort of go primitive up there."

In his section on love triangles, Watson relates that Alain Locke

"wrote in a homoerotic code that was meant to be cracked, but Hughes played dumb (Was Mr. Locke married? he asked), and retreated behind his mask of virginal innocence. ... Hughes experienced a biting loss - his relationship with Countee Cullen. Cullen wrote Locke that "tis a pity that a sincere and devoted friendship should be knifed merely to dissemble.' A few weeks later, Hughes similarly described a disquieting week `during which I lose my boyish faith in friendship and learn one of the peculiar prices a friend can ask for favors.' What dissembling? What peculiar price? It is a testament to the accomplished secrecy of both parties that, 70 years later, we know so little of what happened. The split between the two close friends may have resulted from frustrated sex, or from the prospect of competition between the two black wunderkinds, or perhaps behind the rupture lay Locke's fine Italian hand."

Whether as an aid to the reader or because of his own fascination, Watson devotes a page to an illustration with photographs detailing the personal relationships among the era's artists. He uses symbols to indicate which bonds were stronger than others, which were "unrequited romantic relationships" and who was "homosexual/bisexual."

While acknowledgment that many of the renaissance's luminaries led exciting, even eccentric, lives contributes to an accurate portrayal of the period, such a disturbing display of Watson's infatuation with their lifestyles overshadows his appreciation of their accomplishments. "In the homosexual iconography of the period," Watson writes, "the black male vied with the swarthy-Italian youth and the sailor in uniform as the iconic love object. Negroes were also regarded as sexually flexible. (A common pick-up line at that time among available blacks: `I'm a one-way man - now, which way would you like?')"

Is Watson's book merely lurid? No. In spite of his one-sided exploration, Watson is to be congratulated on his examination of the factors - racial, political, economic, sociological - that contributed to the opening and closing of the renaissance. He focuses on the warring internal intellectual factions and the impact of the stock market crash of 1929, which caused patrons to turn to more pressing financial matters and helped bring about the end of the Harlem Renaissance.

The inclusion of Winold Reiss' paintings of Countee Cullen and crew - "the New Negro pantheon" - is pure genius, simply because they're not included in other seminal works on the subject. The German painter was infatuated with black Americans, and in his pen-and-ink drawings, he portrayed their essences.

A reading of Watson's arresting but culturally exploitative The Harlem Renaissance may whet the appetite for more depth and substance. Turn to David Levering Lewis' When Harlem Was in Vogue, Arnold Rampersad's The Life of Langston Hughes, and even Faith Berry's Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond Harlem. These three scholars, who provided blurbs for Watson's book jacket, acknowledge Cullen's wannabe desires, Hughes' sexuality, and Wallace Thurman's abhorrence of his dark hue. But they reach beyond those curiosities to pursue the dignity, depth and legendary stature of the Harlem Renaissance and its participants.

Sandra West is a freelance writer in Savannah, Ga.

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