Quote from Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts On File/Infobase Publishing): “The leaders and followers of the Harlem Renaissance were every bit as intent on using Black culture to help make the United States a more functional democracy as they were on employing Black culture to 'vindicate' Black people.” Aside from providing a platform on which to battle for the equality of African Americans, the Harlem Renaissance may also be viewed as an important experiment in diversity and multiculturalism. Whereas the principle authors of the movement were African Americans, most of them rose to national fame with the assistance of white publishers and some with the help of white patrons such as Charlotte Osgood Mason. The encyclopedia acknowledged this fact with profiles of a number of such figures, including entries on Mason, magazine publisher Max Eastman, and Carl Van Vechten. Recognition of individual sexual identity and emerging gay culture played an important role in the diverse nature of the Harlem Renaissance as well. In the article titled “Sexuality and the Harlem Renaissance,” this author observes the following: “The writers, artists, and musicians of the Harlem renaissance in their work and in their lives generally approached sexuality as an aspect of democratic freedom open to exploration and definition on one’s own terms.” (Aberjhani, Encyclopedia of HR, p. 302) Such as an observation matches very well the stated concerns and objectives of the gay marriage equality movement that has gained unprecedented momentum over the past few years. Along the same lines, ongoing debates (if they may be called such) over women’s rights to determine aspects of their physical well-being were noted in the same article: “…With American slavery less than 100 years in the past, one important message discerned from the writings of [Zora Neale] Hurston and other black women writers of the era was that their bodies now belonged to themselves rather than anyone else, white or black.” (Encyclopedia of HR, p. 302) That America still struggled with the implications of the above statement, even while the passage of controversial birth control laws demonstrated the truth of it, provided yet another reason why studies of the Harlem Renaissance continue to inform students’ understanding of issues impacting lives today. Widespread Impact The importance of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance since its initial publication has been documented in many different ways. Significant honors such as the Choice Academic Title Award, the New Jersey Notable Book of the Year Award, news magazine cover stories about it, and inclusion in ESSENCE Magazine’s Holiday Gift Guide have placed it among standard works in the field. It occupies shelves in more than a thousand libraries around the world, including the New York City’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The American University in Cairo, Egypt, Harvard Library at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and The National Library of Australia in Canberra. It has also been added to the Bloom’s Literary Reference Online and the Facts On File African-American History Online education databases. The two co-authors and the author of the foreword identified on the cover of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (which features classic art by Jacob Lawrence) were not the only ones to contribute to the title’s completion. Among those writers who contributed an article to the book, most have gone on to pen memorable works of their own or to distinguish themselves in other ways. They include the following:
The encyclopedia made its debut during celebrations of the centennial for the publication of W.E.B. Du Bois’s classic The Souls of Black Folks and in the same year as The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (Kensington Books, Philosophical Library Series). Aside from serving as an unprecedented documentation of a singular period in American and African-American history, the celebrated book represents a key touchstone document for the 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance Initiative. Aberjhani About AberjhaniHaving recently completed a book of creative nonfiction on his hometown of Savannah, Georgia (USA) Author-Poet Aberjhani s currently writing a full-length play about the implications of generational legacies as symbolized by efforts to rename the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge.
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The following is an updated version of a blog post originally presented in observation of the 10th anniversary of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. The year 2018 marks the 15th anniversary of that pivotal event. This revised re-post is shared in recognition of the important events which unfolded in 2013 and in honor of the late Dr. Price: “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 represented 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 the late Dr. Clement Alexander Price (1945-2014), 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 the book’s 10th anniversary, on August 29, 2013, then 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 on the subject–– most of the focus was on the literature, art, and music of the era. The encyclopedia expanded that focus by placing an equal degree of emphasis on the political and social aspects of the epoch, which blends seamlessly with the 1920s Jazz Age, modernism, and prohibition time-frame. In Honor of AncestorsAmong 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:
The Harlem Renaissance itself, as Dr. Price noted 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: “The coterie of talented blacks in the arts and culture, business, and intellectual life who helped to recast the image of black Americana was actually part of a larger stream of black urbanites whose lives were challenged by the legacies of slavery, its blunt realities found in the 20th-century, when many other ethnic groups in the nation moved forward,” Price notes. “Most blacks during the period lived on the margins of urban America, barred from the best employment, subject to daily racial slights and other manifestations of injustice and the society’s obsession with maintaining their social inferiority.” |
AberjhaniWinner of Choice Academic Title Award, Best History Book Award, and Notable Book of the Year Award for Encyclopedia of the Harlem Remaisssance. Archives
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