Prior to 1920, Harlem saw waves of African American migration as many fled the post-Civil War South. By 1920, over 150,000 black people lived in New York City, with Harlem becoming the center of black life and culture. Segregation and discrimination were still rampant, and tensions arose between recent southern migrants and Caribbean immigrants who had been in Harlem longer. The 1920s saw the flourishing of black arts and intellectual life in Harlem as residents celebrated their heritage and agitated for social change and equality.

2. Prior to 1920
0 Post-Civil War: waves of South-to-North immigration
0 especially after Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
0 The Great Migration
0 African Americans were already living in NYC:
0 Mid-1800s: SoHo area
0 Late 1800s: Greenwich Village
0 1890s: West 20s and 30s
0 1900s: West 50s, begin move into Harlem
0 Harlem in 1900:
0 Overzealous housing development (for white workers)
0 Subway hasn’t fully arrived, especially on the east side
0 African-American migration begins on the east side, moves west
0 From 1900-1920, the number of blacks living in Harlem doubles

3. Harlem in 1920
0 Demographics:
0 1920: 152,467 people of African
descent living in NYC. 39,233 born
in NY State, 30,436 from outside
US (primarily Caribbean), and
78,242 from other states (mostly
Southern).
0 1920-1925: approx. 50,000 more
arrive from the South
0 Quickly overcrowded: up to 3x as
many people in the same space
when compared to just a few
decades prior
0 “a race capital”: “Black Mecca”
0 A space for…
0 new opportunity and
improvement
0 intellectual and aesthetic
expansion
0 cultural solidification

4. Segregation in 1920s Harlem
0 “Irrational distinctions” in terms of
employment
0 one-drop rule
0 “Passing” is a general cultural A Negro worker may not be a street or subway
phenomenon—so is the rejection conductor because of the possibility of public
thereof objection to contact but he may be a ticket
chopper. He may not be a money changer in a
0 “color lines within the color line”
subway station because honesty is required yet
0 As whites discriminate against blacks he may be entrusted, as a messenger, with
by being unable to see them as real thousands of dollars daily. He may not sell
(can only see stereotypes), the same
thing happens between lighter- goods over a counter but he may deliver the
skinned and darker-skinned African goods after they have been sold. He may be a
Americans porter in charge of a sleeping car without a
conductor, but never a conductor; he may be a
0 Women are doubly discriminated
policeman but not a fireman; a linotyper, but
against: not a motion picture operator; a glass annealer,
0 no positive healthy images in popular but not a glass blower; a deck hand, but not a
culture—not considered society’s sailor.
ideal of beauty
0 still seen as sexually indiscriminate
(the legacy of slavery)
0 women of mixed heritage still seen as
particularly sexually exotic (legacy of
the “tragic mulatto” character of the
1800s)

5. The “city within a city”
0 safe haven Harlem is a modern ghetto. True,
0 “voluntary segregation” that is a contradiction in terms,
but prejudice has ringed this
group around with invisible lines
and bars. Within the bars you will
find a small city, self-sufficient,
complete in itself a riot of color
and personality, a medley of song
and tears, a canvas of browns and
golds and flaming reds. And yet
bound. --Eunice Hunton

6. Talking About Race in the 1920s
0 Race as a global idea
0 West Indians had historically played a big role in
cultural development
0 Cultural divide between Southern migrants and
Caribbean immigrants
0 The question of Africa: how to relate to that land and its
peoples
0 Reestablishing an African-American past
0 Schomburg: “reclaimed background”
0 Art, Music, Performance: a means of agitating for
equality, progress (ex: Paul Robeson)

7. How can we fix the social and
economic damages of slavery?
0 “Each one teach one”
0 Being a breakthrough person, a “first,” doesn’t guarantee a
sustained future for others (will there be a “second”?)
0 Booker T. Washington—industrial education/skills
development
0 W.E.B. DuBois—“Talented Tenth”: (essay, 1903) 1 in 10
black men may become leaders. Should have a classical
(not industrial) education in order to ensure that they do.
0 Marcus Garvey, “Back to Africa” movement. Reunite all
people of African ancestry into one community with one
absolute government

8. Countee Cullen, “Heritage”
0 Published in landmark
edition of “Survey
Graphic”
0 Printed next to pieces of
African art—why?
0 W. E. B. DuBois: “double
consciousness” (divided
identity): “this sense of
always looking at one’s
self through the eyes of
others”

9. 1920s Harlem On The Web
Digital Harlem
Survey Graphic
0 What does each site
tell us?
0 What seems like it
might be missing
from each project?
0 What are the
strengths and
limitations of each
project’s sources?

10. Jazz
0 Divisive new sound
0 as culturally disruptive as Modernism was
0 musically fragmented, draws upon primitivism
0 Prohibition + segregation results in some very strange
combinations:
0 Cotton Club: African-American performers, white patrons
0 Going to jazz clubs in Harlem was the “hip” thing to do—“edgy”
0 1st unique American musical sound for export
0 Roots in African-American folk culture, Creole culture of New
Orleans, city sounds
0 Risqué, explicitly sexual
0 Rogers: Musically jazz has a great future. It is rapidly being
sublimated.

11. Theorizing Jazz
Jazz is a good barometer of
The jazz spirit, being primitive,
freedom. In its beginnings, the
demands more frankness and
United States spawned certain
sincerity. Just as it already has
ideals of freedom and independence
done in art and music, so
through which, eventually, jazz was
eventually in human relations
evolved, and the music is so free
and social manners, it will no
that many people say it is the only
doubt have the effect of putting
unhampered, unhindered
more reality in life by taking
expression of complete freedom yet
some of the needless artificiality
produced in this country. —
out. —Rogers
Ellington
Duke Ellington and His Cotton Club
Orchestra, 1928: “The Mooche”