How did the literature of the Harlem Renaissance play a central role in conversations around Black identity in America and abroad? In this episode we’ll learn about publications like Opportunity, The Crisis, and Fire!! which each promoted a unique political and aesthetic perspective on Black life at the time. We’ll learn about Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston before they became household names and explore how collaboration and conversation between artists, writers, and scholars came to define the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance.
Learn more about the exhibition at metmuseum.org/HarlemRenaissance
Objects featured in this episode:
Laura Wheeler Waring’s covers of The Crisis, September 1924 and April 1923: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/9bc8c3c6-0cfc-d314-e040-e00a18062904https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b9f2b588-8fbe-d39b-e040-e00a180679bc
Winold Reiss, Cover of Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, February 1925: https://twitter.com/Lett_Arc/status/1309188902608015360?lang=en
Winold Reiss, Langston Hughes, 1925: https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.72.82
Aaron Douglas, Miss Zora Neale Hurston, 1926: https://customprints.metmuseum.org/detail/512160/douglas-miss-zora-neale-hurston
Guests:
Monica L. Miller, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of English and Africana Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University
John Keene, poet and novelist
For a transcript of this episode and more information, visit metmuseum.org/HarlemIsEverywhere
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