Text and Meaning in Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (part 1 of 3) - National African-American Art | Examiner.com

 
(10th Anniversary digital graphic for Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance by Postered Poetics based on original cover design by Facts on File with art by Jacob Lawrence.)

“The story of African Americans was crafted anew into a poignant commentary on individual and group progress under great pressure, a story that over time became one of the most compelling of American narratives.” ––Dr. Clement Alexander Price

September 2013 represents the landmark 10th anniversary of the publication of the groundbreaking Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File, 2003) co-authored by educator Sandra L. West and featuring a foreword by Dr. Clement Alexander Price, founder and director of the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience at Rutgers University, Newark Campus, New Jersey. Almost seemingly as if in honor of that event, on August 29 President Barack Obama announced his intent to appoint Dr. Price to the position of Vice Chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

While the Harlem Renaissance has long been one of the most studied periods in African-American history, until the publication of Facts on File’s encyclopedia––the first such volume the subject–– most of the focus was on the literature, art, and music of the period. The encyclopedia expanded that focus by placing an equal degree of emphasis on the political and social aspects of the era, which blends seamlessly with the jazz age, modernism, and prohibition time-frame.
In Honor of Ancestors
Among the authors’ achievements with the title was the fact that it allowed them to pay tribute to a number of Harlem Renaissance icons who were still living when it was first published, but who have since passed on. These included the following:
  • Elizabeth Catlett (1915 - 2012) sculptor
  • Ernest Crichlow (1914- 2005) painter
  • Allan Rohan Crite (1910 - 2007) painter
  • Katherine Dunham (Kaye Dunn) (1909- 2006) dancer
  • Lena Horne (1917 - 2010) actress, singer
  • Fayard Nicholas (1914- 2006) dancer

The Harlem Renaissance itself, as Dr. Price notes in his foreword to Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, marked an extraordinary period of transformation (not wholly unlike that created by the current digital age) fueled largely by the sweeping forces of American and world history, as well as by what the great educator W.E.B. Du Bois referred to as “the talented tenth.” Like the current epoch, it incorporated society-changing technological innovations, major demographic shifts, and a number of political initiatives that tested the definition and application of democracy in the world:

 To read the full article by Aberjhani please click this link:
Text and Meaning in Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (part 1 of 3) - National African-American Art | Examiner.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Year of James Baldwin Now in Full Classic Literary Swing (part 1) - by Aberjhani

Image
Author James Baldwin in St. Paul de Vence, France, 1976. (photo by Dmitri Kasterine) “It has always been much easier (because it has always seemed much safer) to give a name to the evil without than to locate the terror within. And yet, the terror within is far truer and far more powerful than any of our labels: the labels change, the terror is constant.” –James Baldwin, from  the essay Nothing Personal Members of New York City’s cultural arts community made a rare kind of decision earlier this year and the results of that decision continue to generate exceptional events and responses. They–– as in Columbia University School of the Arts, Harlem Stage, and New York Live Arts–– elected to observe The Year of James Baldwin from April 2014 until June 2015 in honor of the late iconoclastic African-American author’s 90th birthday August 2, 2014. Long before he died on December 1, 1987, millions came to recognize the indelible mark of Baldwin’s impact on, and the incredible depth
Read more

THE EXTRAORDINARY TALENT OF BEAUFORD DELANEY

Image
    This 1941 portrait of celebrated author James Baldwin, entitled “Dark Rapture,” is one of numerous masterworks created by the equally celebrated Harlem Renaissance artist Beauford Delaney (1902-1979). Delaney (whose brother Joseph, 1904-1991, was also an accomplished artist) enjoyed a remarkable career that spanned some five decades. That he was a visual artist whose creative aesthetics profoundly influenced the work of a major literary artist like James Baldwin is one indicator of how powerfully charged the creative energy of the Harlem Renaissance truly was. Aberjhani Co-author of ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE And the author of I MADE MY BOY OUT OF POETRY
Read more

Facing the Challenge of the Unfathomable: #BringBackOurGirls

Image
                     Nigeria and Mother's Day illustration by John Cole for The Times-Tribune . When confronted by something too painful, incredulous, or monstrous to believe, a person will sometimes say, “I  couldn't  even wrap my head around that!” Such was probably one of the main reasons the international community took so long to respond in any meaningful way to the abduction of the almost 300 Chibok school girls in Nigeria. The emotional impact was, and is, not completely unlike that of seeing for the first time a film clip of the aircraft exploding against the Twin Towers on 9/11. It was an image unprecedented in one’s mental model of what reality is supposed to be and therefore an image one was not able to immediately process.   Who could believe that an army of armed adult men would attack and abduct nearly 300 school girls in the middle of the night? Moreover, in retrospect, why were the girls left in such a vulnerable position in the first place?  F
Read more