Go There To Know There

    Ralph Ellison 1914-1994 Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1914, Ralph Ellison was still just a young child when the Harlem Renaissance began to emerge on the national scene, and a teenager when the era had begun to dwindle; however, he was a Renaissance Man in quite another sense--as Gates points out. While still a child he became interested in music, learning to play the trumpet among other instruments. Ellison's artistic interests expanded at Tuskegee Institute, where he discovered a love of literature and applied art. However, his time at Tuskegee was cut short, Gates adds, due to funding, and the fact that Ellison became disillusioned by Tuskegee and found it "anti-intellectual and overly accommodationist." He soon found new horizons in New York, where he was introduced to author Richard Wright. The two writers became friends immediately, and several of Ellison's work was published with Wright's encouragement" (Gates, et al. 1535). Though E...

During Spring Break, 2017, from March 5th until March 12th, I had the rare privilege of visiting Havana, Cuba. Through the International Studies program at Southwest Tennessee Community College and that of the University of Memphis, I accompanied my five students and a colleague to the little island in the Caribbean, where, depending where you look, time has virtually stopped. Only recently, in the last few years of Fidel Castro's reign, were educators, doctors, and politicians from the United States permitted to visit there. The island of Cuba is gradually opening itself up to commercial tourism with a wary eye. Perhaps one of the most fascinating and memorable experiences I had on this week-long odyssey was my introduction to Santeria, Cuba's national religion. Santeria, like other syncretic religions (Obeah, Pokemania, Myal, and Vodu) synthesizes Catholic elements with those of primarily West Afric...

This site, my course, this section, would be remiss without sharing with my students the music of the Harlem Renaissance. Music so powerfully identifies a generation, an age, and to hear the sounds of Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, one is instantly swept back in time to the days of the Cotton Club.  "Juke Joints" and nightclubs began to spring up throughout Harlem during the early days of the Renaissance and immediately became the haven for Harlem notables and nightlife. There a space was created to ignite the imaginations of Langston Hughes ("Dream Boogie," "Weary Blues,") and Claude McKay ("The Harlem Dancer") among many, many others eager to capture the zeitgeist of the day. Not surprisingly, the nightclubs and musical performers of Harlem would draw revelers from all around, including white folks eager to soak up the culture of African American jazz and blues. Individuals like Carl Van Vechten would frequen...

The Smithsonian Institute's website on the National Museum of African American History & Culture best summarizes the aims and circumstances of the African American Women's Literary Renaissance when it observes:                   (Source). The Black Arts Movement, the creative companion to the Black Power Movement and Black Panther Party, began to dwindle alongside its ancillaries by the year 1974. In that time, the violence of the day, along with increased vilification by the U.S. government (COINTELPRO), led to the end of Black militancy for a time. Many of the movements most prominent figures--Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and Stokely Carmichael had either departed the U.S., or seemed to have disappeared altogether for a time.  The nation had given sway to a calm--some might say of resignation, but perhaps more of a shift--to a quieter rebellion. Many women of the movement, like Angela Davis, had become notable sch...

  In 2017, the world lost one of the most important and influential writers, poets, and essayists of African American--and American Literature. Maya Angelou passed away today in her Winston-Salem home at the age of eighty-six. Marguerite Johnson was born in 1928, and "before she and her brother [Bailey] were old enough to start school, her parents divorced. Angelou and her brother grew up in Stamps, Arkansas," and were cared for by "their grandmother, Annie Henderson." In the autobiographical text that has been recognized as Angelou's finest,  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , the author recounts the events of her first seventeen years, and the methods of surviving the Jim Crow South taught to her by her benevolent and resilient grandmother. However, a traumatic event she endured at age ten drove her into a state of silence that was broken only by her love of literature (Hill). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings could easily be located in a feminist genre, ins...