Universität Potsdam
Institut für Anglistik / Amerikanistik
Seminar: ‘The Harlem Renaissance: African American Literature,
Art and Music of the 1920s’

Art or Propaganda: What should be the Goal of
African American Art and Literature?

von: Romy Suckow

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. The Harlem Re naissance 1- 2

3. About W.E.B. DuBois – what did he want? 2 - 4

3.1. Why Propaganda ? 4 - 6

4. About Alain Locke – What did he want ? 6 - 8

4.1. Why art ? 8 - 10

5. What is it that DuBois and Locke have in common ? 10 - 11

6. Summary 11 - 12

1. Introduction

W.E.B. Dubois and Alain Locke were important contributors to the epoch called “Harlem Renaissance”. With their writings atrists wanted to do something against racism, they wanted to show that the African – Americans don’t have to feel inferior. Writing in the April, 1915, issue of Crisis, DuBois said: “In art and literature we should try to loose the tremendous emotional wealth of the Negro and the dramatic strength of his problems through writing … and other forms of art. We should resurrect forgotten ancient Negro art and history, and we should set the black man before the world as both a creative artist and a strong subject for artistic treatment.”
DuBois stated what were to be recurrent themes of the decade of the twenties: the Negro as a producer and a subject of art, and the Negro’s artistic output as indices of his contribution to American life. (Linnemann R.J. p 79) In essense, both Locke and DuBois agreed about what constituted good art. It was the function of art on which they did not agree. DuBois doubted if one could really have a disembodied art or beauty; but Locke was not seeking for the Negro writer a disembodied beauty. (Linnemann, R.J. p 92)
DuBois strongly disagreed with Locke’s view that “Beauty rather than Propaganda should be the object of Negro literature and art. ...If Mr. Locke’s thesis is insisted upon too much is going to turn the Negro Renaissance into decadence.” (Marable, M.. p 130)
First I will give some basical facts about the Harlem Renaissance. In the main part I will show the opinions of A. Locke, who preferred arts, and W.E.B. DuBois, who was for propaganda. In point three I will write about DuBois’s life. After that I will show what he wanted in general. The last part of point three I will show why he was for propaganda. Therefore I analysed several of his works, especially his paper “Criteria of Negro art”. In point four I will introduce Alain Locke with a short biography and then I will show what he wanted for the African – Americans. The second part of point four will show why he preferred art. My focus will be on his anthology “The New Negro” and his article “Art or Propaganda?”. Basically there were thoughts which DuBois and Locke shared. One example is the idea of education which will play a role in point five. In point six I will give a short summary.

2. The Harlem Renaissance

In the early 1900s, particularly in the 1920s, African-American literature, art, music, dance, and social commentary began to flourish in Harlem, a section of New York City. This African-American cultural movement became known as "The New Negro Movement" and later as the Harlem Renaissance. More than a literary movement, the Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. African-Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage. (Johnson, W.)
One of the factors contributing to the rise of the Harlem Renaissance was the great migration of African-Americans to northern cities (such as New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) between 1919 and 1926. In his influential book The New Negro (1925), Locke described the northward migration of blacks as "something like a spiritual emancipation." Black urban migration, combined with trends in American society as a whole toward experimentation during the 1920s, and the rise of radical black intellectuals — including Locke, Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and W. E. B. DuBois, editor of The Crisis magazine - all contributed to the particular styles and unprecedented success of black artists during the Harlem Renaissance period.
(http://encarta.msn.com)
More than a literary movement and more than a social revolt against racism, the Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. African-Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to become "The New Negro," a term coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke.

3. About W.E.B. DuBois – what did he want?

Pioneer in the struggle for Afro-American liberation and for African liberation, prolific black scholar, W.E.B. DuBois (1868 – 1963) was one of the giants of the twentieth century. (Foner, flap text)
DuBois’ mature vision was a reconcilation of the “sense of double consciousness” – the “two warring ideals” of being both black and American. He came to accept struggle and conflict as essential elements of life, but he continued to believe in the inevitable progress of the human race – that out of individual struggles against a divided self and political struggles of the oppressors, a broader and fuller human life would emerge that would benefit all of mankind (Kerry W.).
Dr. Dubois was awarded the first Spingarn Medal in 1920. This was awarded "to that Negro who achieved the highest in any human endeavor." He was an activist for global affairs, editor of the NAACP Crisis publication, and set up the meeting for the first Pan-African Congress. He was an individual of principle and conviction. The seeds he planted still nourish us today. (http://www.websn.com/Pride/Pride/w.htm) To reach racial equality he founded the Niagara Movement - a group of African-American leaders committed to an active struggle for racial equality. The Niagara Movement was founded in 1905, by a group of African-Americans, led by W. E. B. Du Bois, John Hope, and William Monroe Trotter, who called for full civil liberties, an end to racial discrimination, and recognition of human brotherhood. (http://en.wikipedia.org)
W.E.B. DuBois saw that racism and prejudices are a problem. Therefore he wrote: “Once upon a time in my younger years and in the dawn of this century I wrote: ‘The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.’ It was a pert and singing phrase which I then liked and which since I have often rehearsed to my soul and asked:—how far is this prophecy or speculation? Today in the last years of the century′s first quarter, let us examine the matter again, especially in the memory of that great event of these great years, the World War. Fruit of the bitter rivalries of economic imperialism, the roots of the catastrophe were in Africa, deeply entwined at bottom with the problems of the color line. And of the legacy left, the problems the world inherits hold the same fatal seed; world dissension and catastrophe still lurk in the unsolved problems of race relations. What then is the world view that the consideration of this question offers?.(DuBois, W.E.B. "The Negro Mind Reaches Out") DuBois wanted to encourage African – American people. In his essay “On Being Ashamed Of Oneself” from 1933 he described the feeling of inferiority. At the same time he encouraged the people to feel confident

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