AFRICAN VOICES' CLASSIC HARLEM RENAISSANCE STYLE


Magazines that prominently featured the works of poets, visual artists, historians, sociologists, dramatists, and fiction writers were a principle mainstay of the original Harlem Renaissance. Those famous writers and thinkers of the movement whose names today for many are commonplace––i.e., poet Countee Cullen, sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, artist Aaron Douglas––first gained widespread exposure in magazines like The Crisis, Opportunity, The Messenger, and The Negro World. In addition to providing contributors with prestige and bankable prize monies, these early twentieth century magazines also took and recorded frequent measures of the state of black culture.
Many contemporary magazines in 2005 retain elements of the classic Harlem Renaissance periodicals but few embody the tradition so fully in spirit and substance as AFRICAN VOICES Magazine. Founded in 1992, African Voices entered the new century as a premier publisher of works by both emerging and established cultural workers. As part of a nonprofit organization, the magazine’s publication is sometimes irregular. Nevertheless, its contents unfailingly reflect exemplary excellence in its presentation of literary and visual works.
The pages of African Voices have been host to dazzling parade of talent. Among its many memorable guests have been the following: Harlem Renaissance author Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem Renaissance artist Jacob Lawrence, photographer and composer Gordon Parks, anthologist Herb Boyd, author Junot Diaz, editor and short fiction writer Sheree R. Thomas, novelist Toni Cade Bambara, poet Asha Bandele, performance poet Jessica Care Moore, artist Sheila Prevost, playwright Ntozake Shange, author-poet Quincy Troupe, and the celebrated poet-activist Sonia Sanchez, plus as noted, many many more.
Particularly relevant to its extension of the Harlem Renaissance tradition was an with the authors of ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE RENAISSANCE, Sandra L. West and Aberjhani, presented in the spring edition of the magazine. The interview was conducted by ESSENCE Magazine poetry editor Angela Kinamore, who described the encyclopedia as “one of the most comprehensive scholarly documents ever to be published on this significant era.”
West, a lecturer at Rutgers University, noted in the interview that with the new Harlem Renaissance, “Our historians and intellectuals are producing more: anthologies of Black literature, trilogies about eh state of love in the Black community––bell hooks, Cornel West, Dr. Skip Gates and company––for which we always be grateful. There is so much new Black literature––and it has been coming strong since the 1970s and especially strong since the 1990s.”
African Voices brilliant editorial team in early 2005 included publisher Carolyn A. Butts, poetry editor Layding Kaliba, managing editor Maitefa Angaza, associate editor Melissa Fraser, book review editor Debbie Officer, and art director Derick Cross. For more information on African Voices, please visit www.africanvoices.com.

by Aberjhani
co-author of ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE
and author/editor of THE WISDOM OF W.E.B. DU BOIS

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