THE BLACK AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, BAR

THE BLACK AMERICAN RENAISSANCE

Wilmot Max Ramsay Prof. Robert Johnson, Jr. Black Studies 100: “Introduction to Black Literature” (UMass/Boston) October 21, 1993                               The Black American Renaissance Ever since I read the quoted passage for this assignment, I keep returning to the French word “Renaissance” which translates into English to mean “re-birth.” In European history we have learned of an era called the Renaissance which existed immediately following the Middle Ages. This epoch, like the Black Renaissance of Harlem, was a time of rediscovery, a time of new beginnings and inventions. The period under review spans the decade of the 1920s in Black America. Scholars of history might want to associate, for example, the printing press, (which was invented in Germany and the Renaissance, in Italy) which facilitated the printing of literary materials, for distribution, by much easier means than the traditional method of handwritten work. Void of American and African cultures, Blacks in America sought to create a culture of their own. Like the European Renaissance, the period directly preceding the 1920s could be characterized as the Middle Ages and the period even prior to the latter, the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages corresponded to the barren days of institutionalized slavery followed by the Middle Passage which paralleled the Middle Ages. Having been forcibly taken from Africa, Blacks in the Americas were severed from their rich and glorious heritage, customs, rituals and traditions. This unwelcome intrusion caused a cultural break which resulted in the “disruption,” decline and demise of African values. The uprooting of African veins and subsequent transplant on American terrain contributed to a “destruction” of once fertile, tropical fruit which perished due to the chill of the climes. For the advancement of any people, it is important to comprehend the past which is their history, assess the present which is their contemporary society and set goals for the future which often times mirrors the past and the present. In like manner, European Renaissance captured the ‘golden’ era prior to the Dark Ages. The rediscovery of Greek civilization which remained buried among the ruins of Crete, Rhodes and Athens provided the artifact with which the Romans created their Renaissance. The reappearance of long lost literary works – Homer’s The Illiad (and The Odyssey) and Plato’s The Republic numbered among them – along with Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy and the likes of Boccaccio’s Decameron gave rise to the Renaissance which was enriched by the baroqueness of the period. In like manner, the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s examined the lush civilization of Africa, the fatherland, and in response to a dire craving and longing to bask in such glory, the Black artists, and intellectuals demonstrated greatness verbally on stage and in the written word on the page. Of the former, the Broadway musical Shuffle Along which premiered in 1921, Eugene O’Neill’s Emperor Jones and the center piece real life inimitable dramatic presentation of the Black Moses and political messiah himself, the nationalist and most eloquent Marcus Mosiah Garvey heralding the “Back to Africa” theme graced the Harlem stage. As for the page, in 1923 came Cane, Jean Toomer’s combination of drama, fiction and poetry and two years later the appearance of Alain Locke’s highly acclaimed The New Negro. Claude McKay’s The Tropics in New York, though highly reminiscent of his native Jamaica, could be used to describe the sentiments of the period. America was to bear witness of a revival throughout the decade of the 1920s – the dawning of a new aeon – and this indeed represents Harlem‘s baroque age. It must also be made clear that Blacks in the Americas had to re-write the European originated myths concocted about Africa, their new arrangement on the American continents. The tales of an inferior race were forcefully challenged and the hypothesis to the test, based on empirical means, proved untrue. “… The deepest challenge, in many respects, lay in the poisoned intellectual and cultural climate of ideas in the United States concerning the origins, abilities, and potential of people of African descent. Race, and the idea of white supremacy, enjoyed the lofty status of the science at the turn of the century and down into the 1920s.”[1] The disruption caused by the forced resettlement of Africans created a vacuum, hard to ever again be filled. With this scourge came “the destruction of African cultural traditions and institutions;” the dismemberment of families and associates; and the ravaging, pillaging and ravishing of the descendants of African ethnic groups. This travesty has been the legacy of politically sanctioned forced servitude. The European powers, through schemes likened unto pirates and thugs, forced themselves unto African property, looting her treasures in the process and smashing her enchanted mirrors, never again to be assembled into one whole. This fragmentation resulted in undue hardships at the expense of African culture, heritage and customs. Such was the greed of European gamblers that they gloated in the thought of purchasing human beings to satisfy their lust, separating them from their homeland and causing immeasurable anguish in the process. Despite, however, the irreparable wound and damage inflicted, it is remarkable to view the rebirth of the African spirit in the decade of the 1920s. The flowering of the arts and sciences set the stage for triumphs of the Civil Rights era which was to follow almost a half century later in the 1960s and thereafter. … Literature, in the form of Prose, with publishing being the medium, crowned and regaled the epoch of the Renaissance. Literature was not just for the eyes but an oral exp[ression as well]; and if I might add, a personal discovery of the Beauty of language – the conduit to true knowledge and understanding – the Light. For such a conversion, therefore, we are deeply indebted to such humanists as [Giovanni] Boccaccio, [Niccolò] Machiavelli, [Matteo] Bandello, [later William Shakespeare] and their forerunners and the innumerable lineage of disciples of the written [and in some cases, the spoken] word. Such imitations, which in temps passé have even sparked literary mêlées, … are for the general good of humanity. The Renaissance is alive and well! as I declared, more than three years ago, in a Paper entitled: The Flame And Spirit Of The Renaissance which I presented for the controversial, infamous, no-longer-taught and abandoned Honors 238 Class called Images Of Women In Italian Culture at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Like the mythical Greek Phoenix, today, Blacks in the Americas have arisen from the rubble of the ashes – 500 years later – and have been accorded the prizes, respect and even honors of noble repute, thanks to the Black American Renaissance, the BAR, the ornate foundation of current and contemporary successes. ***** [1] Locke, Alain. The New Negro, p. xv

 

Tags: Alain Locke, Claude McKay, Dante Alighieri, Eugene O'Neill, Giovanni Boccaccio, Homer, Jean Toomer, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Matteo Bandello, Niccolo Machiavelli, Plato, Robert Johnson Jr., UMass Boston, William Shakespear, Wilmot Max Ramsay