Home in Harlem: Poems of Everyday Harlem Renaissance Life

By Paul Evans

As well-known as The Harlem Renaissance has become in American Culture, with its bigger-than-life luminaries in literatures, music, art and theater, little is known about the ordinary, everyday Harlem folks and their lives - until now.

Perhaps, for the first time and in poetic format, the veil is pulled aside to reveal an indepth picture of what it meant to be in Harlem during the Renaissance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781663253323

Paul Evans

Paul S. Evans (PhD, University of St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto) is assistant professor of Old Testament at McMaster Divinity College.

Book preview

HOME IN HARLEM

POEMS OF EVERYDAY HARLEM RENAISSANCE LIFE

Copyright © 2023 Paul Fairfax Evans.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

844-349-9409

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

The author’s copyright is protected internationally under the terms of

the Geneva Convention as revised in Paris in 1971.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5333-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5334-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5332-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023909456

iUniverse rev. date: 12/04/2023

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

All poetic wordings, phrasings, expressions, and ideas contained herein are solely those of the author's imagination and thereby fictional. Reference to persons living or dead, beyond the author's family, is coincidental.

To the everyday, ordinary people

of Harlem who lived, worked, loved,

thrived, sang, and danced throughout the renaissance

who remain ever with us

To all of my renaissance academic colleagues

for their steadfast labors of love

in keeping the renaissance

alive and flourishing

To teachers, students, and lovers

of The Harlem Renaissance everywhere

The ordinary Negroes hadn’t heard of the Negro Renaissance.

And if they had, it hadn’t raised their wages any.

from The Big Sea by Langston Hughes

Yet I do marvel at this curious thing: to make a poet

black and bid him sing.

from Yet I Do Marvel by Countee Cullen

The Harlem Renaissance was as black as it was gay.

Henry Louis Gates

CONTENTS

Preface/Acknowledgments

Book One

‘We’s Finally Here’

‘I’m Harlem Bound, Papa’

‘I’m Just Up from Down Home’

‘Ma! Look! There’s Johnny!’

‘Tryin’ to Get My Foot in the Doe After the War’

‘Ain’t You New in Town?’

Dance for the 369th Infantry After Homecoming Parade

‘Let’s Take It from the Top’

Homesick Blues

Whose America?

Double Wedding in Harlem

‘You Know What I’m Sayin’?’

Suddenly the Head of the Family

Pulse of the Negro World Beats in Harlem

‘Don’t Go ’Round Blaming God’

A Separation Hard But Necessary

‘Put It All Down on Paper’

‘Give My Regards to Your Madam’

It’s Only for a While

Heart to Heart

‘I’se Ain’t Got Nary a Complaint’

‘There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding’

Trouble on the Job

‘Let’s Go Back to Being Colored’

Mama’s Determination

‘They Say He Took Steroids’

Different Issues, Different Times

Out of Step, Out of Sync

Harlem Whore Welcomin’ Her Returnin’ Soldier

Harlem Vets Planning Something Special for the Klan

Book Two

Caterer Late for A’Lelia Walker’s Party?

‘He’s Gwon Straight, You Say?’

Niggerati Manor

‘I Wonder If the Whites Know How We Feel’

‘They Can’t Move on Without Us’

‘That’s Her Pimp, Chile’

‘The New Negro’

Black Dock Workers Ponder Marcus Garvey

Studying the Negro Renaissance at Columbia University

Uptown Dance Friday Night

Draping His Loving Affections

Nigger Brown’s Comin’

Heavy Stuff Goin’ Down at ‘The Crisis’

‘I Heard A Voice from Heaven’

The 127th Street Revival

The 110th Street Song

Les Belles Femmes en Fourrure

‘I Don’t Need to Hear No Great Myration’

Ready for a Night Stompin’ at The Savoy?

Holding the Wake at Home

New-Furniture-Delivery Day

Payin’ the Undertaker’s Bill

‘Happy Monday Morning to You’

‘Remember What Bumpy Johnson Done Told You’

Madame Queen Laid Down the Law

Book Three

College Bound?

Meeting the New Negroes

Miss Holmes and Miss Watson

At a Perfume Counter

‘You Got to Demand It of Them’

Birds of a Feather

The Sunny Side of the Street

‘I Don’t Walk on No Colored Man’s Floors’

‘If I Don’t Let This Out’

‘Come on Up to Harlem, Chile’

The Gold-Rimmed Jalopy

‘You Never Know Who’s Jesus’

The Down-Home Blues in Harlem

Sailing down Broadway

Begin the Beguine

‘We Meetin’ Later at da Lodge’

‘Ain’t Never Seen Nothin’ Like It’

The Iceman Cometh

Never Been Anywhere…Never Done Anything

Savin’ the Madam’s Social Reputation

House Call

‘I’m Already Spoken For, Thank You’

Show Negro

‘Christian But Cruel’

Book Four

‘He’s One Fine-Looking Colored Man’

‘What You Gonna Do Now Dat You’s Home?’

Gone But Not Forgotten

Running for the Last Streetcar

They Went to War

My Cast-Iron Skillet

Rent-Party Blues

‘You Got to Uplift the Race, Boy’

Run Off with the Ragman?

‘What Am I Waiting For?’

‘Except for the Grace of God….’

A Poet Rising Black

‘You Lookin’ for a Ride?’

A Laundress Laments

Booty-Call Blues

High-Society Harlem Party

Sellin’ Summer Lemonade in Harlem

An Evening at Dark Tower

Oh So Happy to Be in Harlem

Settling down in the Evening Listening to the Radio

Gettin’ to the Speakeasy before Closing

Neighbor Checking on Children After School

‘I Want Something Special to Wear Sat’day Night’

‘Madame Ain’t Hirin’ No New Runners Just Now’

Faithful Harlem Milkman

A Black Dress for A’Lelia

If Only A’Lelia Had Lived

Ridin’ to the Cemetery After A’Lelia Walker’s Funeral

A Bouncer at a Well-Known Harlem Night Spot

‘I’ll Cut That Bitch’

‘I Need Me Some Black Dick’

Book Five

Tin-Can Dinner Blues

‘What in Da World Is You Runnin’ Foe?’

The Prisoner of 139th Street

‘I Just Got Out the Other Day’

Back-Alley Blues

‘I’se a Hard-Workin’ Peddlin’ Man’

Encounter on Lenox Avenue

‘Two Hundred Dollars Ain’t Nothin’ to Me’

‘You’re a Hustlin’ Brother’

‘That Was Back in the Day’

‘You Just Never Know’

‘Sen’ Foe Und’rtaker Kelson’

Still Strangers, Still Visitors?

Sat’day Night’s Big Doin’s

‘Git Yourself a Chair; Pull On Up to the Table’

Puttin’-Up Time

‘Blow Up the Motherfucker Right Now’

‘Heard They Crowded the Floor’

Workin’-People’s Blues

Paying the Undertaker

Boarding-House Blues

‘I’m Gettin’ Out of Here’

‘Zora, Wally’s Dead’

Book Six

Legacy to My People

A Candle on the Windowsill

Missed the Saturday Dance

‘Wasn’t That Just Like Papa?’

The Wisdom of a Fool

‘Come Out of That Vestibule’

A Real-Hip Hostess

All Colored Society Was Invited

‘She Always Signifyin’’

They Had No Reason…But They Did It Anyway

Satisfyin’ the Mizziz

‘Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!’

The Color-Struck Blues

‘When I Am Stretched Out Dead’

They Stayed Home

‘What the Fuck Did You Say?’

‘The Houmburg Society Meets Today’

The Dead Man’s Whore Swore Revenge

Beauty-Shop Blues

I Might As Well Write a Poem

The Hood Not from the Hood

‘It’s the Madam Walker Lady’

‘Thank We All Our God’

Drivin’ a Hearse for a Livin’

Book Seven

Marcus Garvey’s Fitting for a New Uniform

‘He’s Been Savin’ All His Lovin’ Affection for You’

‘Chile, She Gets It from the Hotman’

Reaction to first edition of ‘FIRE!!’ Magazine

Easter Day at a Church in Harlem

Christmas Eve in Harlem

Kitchen Mechanics’ Day Off

Sunday’s Secret Love, Sunday’s Secret Life

Langston and Zora Neale Hurston Discussing ‘Godmother’

Visitor from the South’s First-Time Visit to Harlem

‘Ain’t No More Room in Here’

Missed Errand to the Radio Repair Shop

Alain Locke’s ‘The New Negro’ Just Purchased

Visiting an Art Gallery for the First Time

Black Vets Making Post-War Plans at the Pool Hall

Father Warning Son about Marcus Garvey’s Allure

Carl Van Vechten’s Colored Male ‘Trick’

Negro Establishment’s Reaction to ‘Nigger Heaven’

Josephine Baker and Florence Mills’s Opening Night

Harlem’s Reaction to Cotton Club’s Opening

Debutante’s Coming-Out Party at the Bamboo Inn

Arrival of Duke Ellington’s Band in Harlem

Decoration Day

Dr. DuBois Warns Daughter about Countee Cullen

Book Eight

The Opening of The Savoy

‘Stompin’ at The Savoy’

‘We Women Got the Vote Now’

Got Hurt Workin’ on the New Subway

‘She’s One of Them Harlem Belles’

Housing for Respectable Colored Families Only

Stoop-Sittin’ on a Warm Sunday Evening

Goin’ to Hear the Soapbox Speakin’

‘Even Got Cullum Police Officers’

The Piano Teacher’s Foyer

‘The Misplaced Dreambook’

‘Just a White Hepcat from Downtown’

A Harlem Social Worker’s Lament

‘Let Me Tell You Why Harlem’s So Special’

‘Up You Mighty Race’

‘I Killed It Last Night’

‘Sitting This Afternoon for Mr. Van Der Zee’

‘Cain’t Work There, Won’t Shop There’

Harlem’s Daily Slave Market

Striving Up to Strivers’ Row

Janitor at The Cotton Club

‘It’s the Same Ole Same Ole’

Reflections of a Harlem Cab Driver

‘Let Me Tell You What My Madam Told Me’

Manhattan Civic Club Dinner: March 21, 1924

‘You Ain’t Never Gonna Believe It’

Book Nine

Sharin’ a Bed and Gettin’ the Bugs

Goin’ to Heaven Right Y’here on Earth

‘You Heard the Latest?’

The Rent Done Went Up

The Deveraux Jacksons’ New Year’s Party

Cleaning Harlem Streets after a Big Snow Storm

Passes for White and Frequents Segregated Stores

Langston Ain’t Fooling No One

Preparin’ for Kin Comin’ from Da South

‘Better Be Near High Yaller’

Talkin’ Over Troubles with Dr. DuBois

White Man Loves Nightly Forays into Harlem

Stagedoor Lover

Langston Hughes’s Sad Chat with His Harlem Barber

Aaron Douglas and His Tailor Discuss His Art

Woman Denied Employment at Segregated Harlem Store

‘Man, Just Take Off Your Hat, Please’

Maid’s Day Off

Wedding of Countee Cullen to Yolande DuBois

Lamentations of a Harlem Whore

Rage Over Being Forced to Sit in Nigger Heaven

New Landlord Orders a Cat for Each Flat

High Culture at the Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge Hall

Book Ten

‘Quit Your Syndicatin’ and C’mon Chile’

Complaint about Harlem’s White Night Visitors

Furious about White Night Harlem Visitors

Did the End of Prohibition End the Renaissance?

A Kitchen Mechanic’s Day Off

‘Synifyin’ at DuBois-Cullen Wedding

An Autumn Saturday Night at the Apollo

The Harlem Rens Are in the House

At the Barbershop

Back Home After a Family Funeral

DuBois’s Reaction to the First Issue of FIRE!! Magazine

Front Desk Manager at The Hotel Olga

Palm Sunday at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church

‘For Respectable Colored Families Only’

‘No One to Talk To’

‘I’m a Damn Good Kitchen Mechanic Too’

The Telephone Party-Line Blues

Complaining about the Brothel Next Door

Negrotarians

Turned Out to be Nothing But a Mugman

The Numbers Runner

Things Will Never Be the Same

PREFACE/ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Over 100 years since its beginning, The Harlem Renaissance’s fame flourishes and suggests a heightened, perpetual popularity. Its 2019 centenary observance produced more books and uninterrupted interest in what is universally acknowledged as an unparalleled explosion of American black cultural expression—literature, art, and music—anchored in Harlem, New York but not exclusively lived out there. Recent outpouring of renaissance works by authors as geographically diverse as the University of Sydney in Australia and Swansea University in the United Kingdom is a testament to an unrelenting world-wide appeal. My interest began at Morgan State University when I was a student under, and senior year Teaching Assistant to, David Levering Lewis, the future renaissance scholar. Later, I was influenced by When Harlem Was in Vogue and The Harlem Renaissance Reader, two of his widely respected books. Adding greatly to my interest too was This Was Harlem by Jervis Anderson, a former writer for The New Yorker, with whom I spoke as I commenced my renaissance interest/writing in earnest.

I wonder if the well-known renaissance creators, those iconic figures lovingly cherished, fueled by The Great Migration—which pushed millions of black Southerners north and west—were aware they birthed a cultural juggernaut. My cherished desire to join the renaissance created Song of My Soul and now Home in Harlem, using poetry to narrate the lives of ordinary, everyday Harlemites. Though it has been lauded and esteemed for generations, there’s more to be discovered about the renaissance than has received the attention it deserves. Home in Harlem unveils, likely for the first time, the working-class people of Harlem who labored, sang, danced, and loved simultaneously with the better-known Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Bruce Nugent, Aaron Douglas, A’Lelia Walker, and Wallace Thurman, among others.

My original intent was to have Home in Harlem ready for the renaissance centenary when I began writing the poetry nine years ago. The renaissance did not exist in a vacuum. The unheralded ordinary Negroes, as Langston Hughes called them, were the backdrop to whatever success the renaissance was—not happening without the ordinary, everyday black and white people who spread renaissance gospel far and wide. Home in Harlem is 250 poems about everyday renaissance life—poetry imagined but based on specific and general facts.

With the focus for so long on renaissance stars, it is startling that so little is known about the working-class people of the era, people about whom it has been said were not aware they were within the midst of a cultural revolution. The Harlem Renaissance lasted from 1919 to about 1940, and to some extents continues, with not much known about average people. Scholars might use my book as a starting place, a launching pad if you will, to observe, by way of poetry, everyday folks’ existence during the renaissance, often called the birthplace of modern black America.

That we know so little of the lives of Harlem’s ordinary renaissance folk can be seen as regrettable and indicative of an unexplained oversight, thus far, by the scholarly community to offer a readable narrative of the unwitting, perhaps, supportive role non-starring blacks played that allowed the literature, music, dance, and art to parade in the high-step manner they did.

As much as I have learned about the Harlem Renaissance, I know little, for example, what it must have been like for ordinary people to live on the same block with, to walk the same streets with, to mingle at The Savoy with, or to sit next to luminaries on Saturday nights at The Apollo. At this point, the best I could do was to use poetry to imagine Harlemites’s daily existence based on what I have learned.

No matter how engaging the novelists, poets, entertainers, and artists were in their creative expressions, they needed people with the financial means to patronize their cultural outpourings. There must have been sufficient economic means within everyday Harlem in the 1920’s for the artistic explosion to have been born, emerged, and sustained until universal embrace. No matter how brilliant a cultural movement, there must be average people with sufficient money to support the swirling creativity.

•Is it true that without ordinary people, there would not have been a Harlem Renaissance since, no matter how engaging the poets or the novelists were in their literary expressions, someone needed the financial means to support their works?

•What conclusions might be drawn from Home in Harlem and its focus on the working-class renaissance people?

•Could the audience for the renaissance writers, artists, and performers have included busboys, maids, bellhops, street cleaners, numbers runners, saloon and club owners, janitors, beauticians and barbers as well their more affluent brethren?

•What was it like to live during the renaissance and only observe or hear about the glittering renaissance world?

•Were the black writers and artists aware of the common people of Harlem and their vital role in the support of the luminaries’ cultural expressions?

•Have scholars intentionally overlooked the everyday people, sending them to the academic wilderness on purpose?

Someone:

Had to visit the galleries to appreciate the paintings and the sculptures.

Had to buy the records, had to buy the theatre tickets, had to attend the shows, and had to dance the dances.

Had to buy the novels and poetry.

Had to attend the street-corner lectures.

Therefore, Home in Harlem—poems directed to the general interest reader, university renaissance teachers and students, and university and public libraries—might serve as a bridge between the long-known and the unknown until a sufficient narrative finally emerges to chronicle Harlem’s ordinary people during its renaissance.

My thanks to God for His providential care throughout the years I labored on this book. I am grateful to my Humanities department colleagues at Coppin State University, including Dr. Garey Hyatt, for their interest through the nine years I worked on Home in Harlem.

Paul Fairfax Evans

Baltimore

September 2023

‘We’s Finally Here’

Mama, don’t worry ’bout what we gonna have to eat

Now that we’re finally here up north after that drive

All the way from Georgia. Thank God being able to stay

With Cousin Phoebe in DC, finally landin’ us in Harlem

Where every day I declare gonna be like heaven on Earth.

Whew! Only the good Lord could have brought us out of

Them cotton fields into the bright lights and broad streets

Of what do the folks call it Black Capital of the World.

Yes indeed, something tells me we gonna do right well now.

Migratin’ up y’here was the best thing we ever did for sure.

Wifey, boys, Mama, and Sweet Jesus: We’s finally is here.

‘I’m Harlem Bound, Papa’

Papa, don’t care how long you plead and fuss.

My mind is made up, and I am goin’ on up north.

Got my bus ticket, my satchel’s stuffed and ready.

Leavin’ Monday morn 9:40 sharp on the Greyhound.

I don’t care how long that I might have to stand.

I’m goin’, cain’t take no mo’ livin’ here in Tupelo.

These is free times now, and them white Joneses you

Been slavin’ for all these years since Mama been gone

Need to accept that fact just like the other white folks

Here so upset ’bout all the colored leavin’ for Harlem.

They ain’t no better than anyone else that God’s made.

And, I ain’t got no intention of goin’ to say goodbye.

Me tell them goodbye? Shucks, I ain’t tellin’ nothin’.

Papa, please don’t keep goin’ over and over ’bout me

Survivin’ up north; I’ll survive; you know me I will.

Cousin Bill Manning say he been lookin’ out for me.

Got a letter from him the other day sent special deliv’ry.

He’s holdin’ a porter’s job for me at Saks Fifth Avenue

And a room at da boarding house where he been livin’.

Says it’s clean and comfy, good hot food twice daily.

He says Harlem like bein’ in heaven compared to life

In the South, place even got some colored policemen.

Got lots to do all the time in Harlem and in what they’s

Call downtown Manhattan where the white folks live.

Cousin Bill say plenty good-looking colored men and

Pretty stylish belles dependin’ on a person’s attraction.

Sure does like sound like heav’n, a swell place where

I can spread my wings and soar, be myself for once and

For all, live life to the fullest with a stylish colored gent.

Never thought I’d get a chance to be there, but it’s here.

Ain’t nothing gwon hold me back this time, no sirreh.

Been promising myself that I’d make a change after all

The wonderful things I’ve heard from Cousin Bill and

Everyone who’s fled Mississippi for the greener pastures

In the North, calling Harlem the colored people’s Eden.

Now that John’s back from the war, he can take charge

Of the fields and look out for you Papa and the other

Kin until I get settled down good in my Harlem work.

Soon as I get established and start to get a regular check,

I’ll start sending money for y’all to come north too.

Shucks, you don’t know I cain’t wait to get to Harlem.

More excitement up there. More opportunities up there.

Less prejudice up there. Better sex, booze, love up there.

Man, cain’t wait until I get there. Hankerin’ for up there.

I’m Harlem bound to float the streets and finally be free.

‘I’m Just Up from Down Home’

I will write, write, write, write, and write,

Writing, writing, writing, writing until

I can’t write any more, not one bit more.

Jesus! Blessed Saviour! Hep me please!

After what I done seen on a day last year,

A day when the kin was expected to leave

The South for Harlem, finally once and for all.

It was the last scene that was stuck in my mind.

Ain’t never gonna forget it ever again. Never.

What I saw hangin’ from dat oak over yonder

In Hempstone Valley was enough to put willies

In anyone, enough to make the dead rise from

The grave or turn over many a thousands times.

How could such atrocities be allowed nowadays

Anywhere in America, no matter north or south?

How could anyone do such evil to a fellowman?

Writin’ ’bout it is all I know to do to remember

And to keep me from sinkin’ into a pit of grief,

Despair, and despondency, barely able to keep

From slippin’ to da river and drownin’ myself.

In times lak dese, Granny always told me to turn

To da Good Book in an hour of need and trouble.

Now I am in the North, I’m sur da Lawd wants me

To write ’bout what I saw in the South just ’fore

The family left for good; write so it will never be

Forgotten by those who left and to inform those

In the North ’bout what’s goin’ on down home.

Yeah, I know that people from da South living in

Harlem thinkin’ they’s enter paradise on Earth,

Seein’ colored policemen and all, but what I’ma

Sayin’ is don’t forget from whence they’ve come.

That’s all I tryin’ to say to all the new folks done

Migrated from the South up north to dis Harlem:

Never, ever ever forget from where you’ve come.

That’s what I want to write: forget not your roots.

‘Ma! Look! There’s Johnny!’

Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo! Johnny! Johnny! My Lord! Yoo-hoo! Johnny!

Look Ma! He’s there. Over in the far right column just on the end.

His row’s just passing in front of dem gawking dressed-up whites.

You see him there, in the second row, the proud-steppin’ grinnin’

Soldier on the right with that big ole rifle on his good shoulder.

Chile, where? Where? I don’t see him. Certain he said right sure

He’d have a ribbon attached to his rifle, so we’d sure know him.

Lord knows this crowd is packed more like sardines in my pantry

Than anyone here might have thought. Lotta of white folks too.

Gasp! There, I do see yo’ brother honey bun. See him over dere

In that far column as you said, just to the right of that tall officer.

And my Lawd, I sure nuff see that white ribbon, couldn’ t miss it.

Never seen Fifth Avenue full of colored and white at the same time.

He’s jest like his daddy that boy is, the spittin’ image, and mind you

A credit to all our fine kin and numerous Grant and Dunstan relations

And our connections on both sides of my Mama’s and Pappy’s families.

The boy’s back be ramrod straight, stiff as a board