With the Seemingly overnight popularity of black authors during the 1990s, many speculated that African America was well on its way toward a second Harlem Renaissance. In fact, the boom in modern computer and media technology allowed writers like Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Terry McMillan to enjoy a level of “crossover” appeal that far surpassed that of any Harlem Renaissance authors. Also in the 1990s, the popular author E. Lynn Harris launched his phenomenally successful career and helped pioneer the current trend in self-publishing by doing exactly that. His self-published first novel, Invisible Life , set the stage for a whole series of Harris’ novels that featured the same characters, a form known in literary geekology as a roman-fleuve. The publication of books by black authors during the Harlem Renaissance made history because until that time major publishing houses had been largely closed to black authors and African Americans were generally not encouraged t

“Even in its weakest form—that of emotional infatuation—love was something superior to both art and culture. In the face of a world where economic hardships often ground the best of the human spirit into the worst, love provided a pathway into hidden chambers of the spirit where nobility and compassion might be salvaged, resurrected, and made stronger. Before the thunderous clamor of political debate or war set loose in the world, love insisted on its promise for the possibility of human unity: between men and women, between blacks and whites, northerners and southerners, haves and have-have-nots, self and self. Its power and its value and its terror lay in its ability to dominate with joy all other aspects of reality. It was the one thing for which all else—political conviction, art, culture, self-respect, even power—might justifiably be sacrificed because it was the one thing capable of transforming chaos into hope.” --Aberjhani, from THE WISDOM OF W.E.B. DU BOIS (Citadel Press)

Jazz Harlem Renaissance Babydoll does the music mold your face like a mask of mink desires and rainbow butterfly wings or does your face shield the heated heart of the music when your lips diddly-be-bop-sweet like Ella Fitzgerald swing-singing back-up and up-front, catching God’s Coltranic future love supreme as if making it up yourself? Jazz Harlem Renaissance Babydoll I saw your favorite saxophone strip you naked. And what was love gonna do except beg to lick those crazy solos straight off your throat. I saw you twirl A-flats like swords on the tip of the tongue of your tears until E refused to equal Mc squared and Einstein’s gorgeous silver afro crackled “Blow your soul-horn Jazz Babydoll and don’t you take jive for no answer! Said swing that horn and take not jive for thine answer!” Jazz Harlem Renaissance Babydoll you inhaled seven known planets and out of your creation came four billion heavens. Each time you exhale a star I recall a previous life and I comprehend flawlessly the

The PBS-TV drama ZORA IS MY NAME made its debut in 1989 and was released for sale to the general public on VHS in 2003. The televised play stands as a prime example of how the Harlem Renaissance’s potent creative energies both defined its own era and still transcends it to inform the art and culture of modern times. ZORA IS MY NAME was written by and stars Ruby Dee, a veteran actress of stage, screen, and decades of social activism. The teleplay captures in all its blazing wit, humor, and genius, the extraordinary personality of Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). By tracing the growth and development of that singular personality from its early days in the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, to its maturation in Washington, D.C., and New York City, the film presents a glittering collage of folklore, history, music, dance, fashion, and high literary culture. With friends like the poet Langston Hughes, artist Aaron Douglas, novelist Jessie Redmon Fauset, writer and artist Richard Bru