(photo of Dr. Deborah Mack by Luther Vann) Serious explorers of culture such as the dancers Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus, and author Zora Neale Hurston, employed the science of anthropology as an important tool in their art during the first Harlem Renaissance of the early 1900s. They not only used anthropology to identify and preserve the legacies and values of the African Diaspora, but to further validate within the United States the growing demands for equality that eventually developed into the civil rights movement. As the present Harlem Renaissance of the New Millennium continues to progress, anthropology remains a significant tool for the identification, retrieval, and preservation of stories that define the experiences of African Americans and others who are part of the greater African Diaspora. Groups such as the Association of Black Anthropologists labor to further discover, document, and interpret the realities of black and world history. Among the leaders in this growin...

VISIONS OF A SKYLARK DRESSED IN BLACK, written by American author Aberjhani and slated for an Ocober 2006 publication by Great Britain's Black Poetry Society, exemplifies the international spirit of the first Harlem Renaissance. Aside from periodicals devoted to the exploration of African-American culture, one of the key elements to the success of the first Harlem Renaissance, from the 1920s to the 1940s, was the establishment numerous literary clubs and organizations described as salons. Modern-day equivalents to, and extensions of, the salons of yesteryear can often be found in the form of online Internet literary communities, of which the BLACK POETRY SOCIETY is one thriving example. The Black Poetry Society started in London in 2003 when four avid readers and aspiring writers began meeting to discuss the works of favorite poets as well as share their own original writings. The initial pioneers of the organization were the poet known as Jayci, who would launch the group’s web s...

The award-winning Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, by the author-poet Aberjhani and Rutgers University instructor Sandra L. West, has been listed in the January/February 2006 seventh anniversary edition of BLACK ISSUES BOOK REVIEW as one its recommended “Essentials, selections for the well-stocked library.” In a two-page article titled “Just the Facts,” Brooklyn writer and editor, Zakia Carter notes that such works as the Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, the first on the subject, “are foundations of a good home library.” “When you think of all the thousands of books published every year,” said Aberjhani, “it’s pretty mind-boggling to learn that your work has been included on a very short list of titles––about a dozen I believe––that also contains Kwame Anthony Appiah’s and Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s phenomenal Africana, which recently was re-released as a five-volume set. It makes me think of Sandra’s and my book as ‘the little encyclopedia that could.’ This is definitely a ...