For Harlem, can a renaissance remembered also be revived?

Episode transcript

Ken Makin: The Harlem Renaissance, we largely talk about it just in terms of the arts. But it does the period a great disservice to not talk about the political, social, ideological ramifications.  

Clay Collins: That was the Monitor’s Ken Makin. The word “Harlem” might evoke 125th Street, the Apollo, jazz, [and] culinary evidence of the Great Migration. Harlem and its place in Black history are magnitudes deeper than all of that. There’s a lot distilled in that 45-block stretch of Upper Manhattan. A new exhibition on the Harlem Renaissance opens February 25th at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ken, now the Monitor’s culture commentator, last joined the show in August to talk about the opening of the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, down at the site of Gadsden’s Wharf. 

Earlier this month, he took a walking tour of Harlem, in advance of this new Met opening, and produced a story about it.

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Collins: This is “Why We Wrote This.” I’m Clay Collins. Ken joins us today. Ken, so good to have you back.  

Makin: Clay, glad to be back. Hope you are well. 

Collins: I want to say first, welcome to your new role as culture commentator. It looks like a great fit. 

Makin: Aw, thank you so much.  

Collins: So Ken, this exhibition you wrote about, you know, naturally has a retrospective feel to it. But in reporting about it, you were not only looking back, but also looking around. And we’ll get to the Met show in a bit, but first I want to ask about Harlem, and what you picked up there, in terms of sense of place and power of history. 

Makin: Oh man, Harlem is, I mean, it’s just an amazing place. I got off a shuttle bus and, feet touched 125th and I literally stepped into a parade. Um, it was just so fitting, you know. It is in the vein of a Black history parade. There were these floats that were going by, and the pageantry. You could see the marquee of the Apollo and the Victoria there, which is now the hotel. It was just a scene that was larger than life. 

You know, I have HBCU roots and I was wearing my Florida A&M jacket, walking into the hotel and somebody stopped me and they were like: “Wait, wait, wait, did you go to FAMU?” I’m like, well, actually, yes I did. And I took a picture with them and kind of laughed with them. So, to have that sense of community, like, within 10 or 15 minutes of being in this place where I had always wanted to get back to…. 

I was able to take Harlem in. And you can see very quickly just the cultural richness of Harlem. I just want to shout out my good friend Lawrence Henderson, who was the tour guide for the walking tour of Harlem. It’s the “Soul of Harlem” tour. One of the messages from Lawrence that really endured was that Harlem loves its heroes. And you can see that in murals and whom the streets are named after. It’s just this great appreciation for Black excellence, Black resistance, just this essence that despite gentrification or crime or whatever adversity that Harlem, you know, will experience, there’s just always this sense that the people there will not just, you know, survive, but thrive.

Collins: The walking tour like the museum show bridged past and present and encompassed so much activism, radicalism, as well as the arts. What did you see in others’ reactions to the tour that you did?

Makin: One of the unsung heroes of the tour, I talked about him a bit, but I could have written a separate piece about him: Divine Styles, who had the corner bookstore. The electricity between him and Lawrence was really cool to see. What was really neat about Divine was his appreciation for education. His mom was an English teacher, and that largely inspired his love for books. He also alluded to his family being from Jackson, Mississippi. And, you know, anytime you talk about Jackson, there’s this deep racial tensions and powerful legacy there of overcoming. 

And of course, this is a theme that came up with the Harlem piece was the Great Migration. It’s just amazing to see how does one get from Mississippi to New York. One of the beautiful things I saw was the mural pavilion at the Harlem Hospital. Because here again, we’re seeing an appreciation of tradition through travel, if we want to put it that way. And we should be clear about why that migration took place: It was because of some of the challenges that were faced in the South. But nevertheless, you know, um, folks persevered. And again, that just goes back to the spirit of Harlem and the spirit of its people. 

Collins: It struck me how small and interesting some of the touchstones were about the Great Migration. You referenced, uh, one of the stops, I think, was for red velvet cake, which I think, sounded like you relished.

Makin: I did. 

Collins: How many of the cultural cues were ones that, you know, someone who wasn’t on a tour of Harlem expressly about Black history might never have picked up on?

Makin: Hmm. That’s a good question. I do want to talk about The Cake Man, about Raven. Because he is very accomplished in his own right. So, Lawrence is like, you know: “You gotta try this cake, you gotta try this cake.” And I’m just like: “Look, man, I’m from the South, like, come on.” Like, you know.  But of course, The Cake Man, his people are from Florence, South Carolina, which, it’s about a couple hours away from me, but as soon as he said Florence, you know, I just lit up. I said: “Oh!” I said: “OK. OK.” So we….  I get it now. South Carolina is everywhere.

Florence is one of those hubs of reconstruction that largely has gone unknown. There were folks who left Charleston, freedmen who um, established a way of life in Florence. So here again, we have descendants of some of the freedmen and the champions, who fought during the Civil War, who continue to fight. This is where migration takes you. It takes you in some cases from Charleston to Florence to New York, to establishing this bakery. 

You talked about cues and this is what happens a lot with history, it’s just, it’s hidden in plain sight. But whenever you’re able to uncover it, it’s just so beautiful. And you know, I talk a lot about racism being baked in. But there’s also resistance baked in sometimes, you know, in red velvet cake. How about that?

Collins: Huh. Well, something else you wrote about struck me, and that was how the 1925 era represented a period of renewal, of self-respect, and of self-dependence among Black people. And it struck me that you were picking up on ways that that sort of agency was showing itself today. Even micro things like the participatory zeal around community paint day, you know, back in November. How did your Harlem visit resonate with all of the other explorations of Black progress you’ve made? 

Makin: The Harlem Renaissance, we largely talk about it just in terms of the arts, you know, from paintings, from murals. But it does the period a great disservice to not talk about the political, social, ideological ramifications. I think it’s evident in just who some of, you know, just general heroes of the Renaissance are. And of course Langston Hughes should be celebrated in that context. But a lot of people don’t know who Alain Locke is, who is the father of the Harlem Renaissance. 

When you look at the community paint day, and the community paint day was uh, to facilitate a mural, the name of the mural being “By Any Means Necessary,” which of course is a callback to Malcolm X. And of course Malcolm is at the center of this mural. I think it’s a reminder of an urgency and a radical sense of politics. When you look at the life of Malcolm and his roots, there has to be a certain appreciation for his parents, you know, them being Garveyites, speaking of Marcus Garvey. Malcolm was birthed with this sense of Black self determination and self reliance. It’s very difficult to talk about Harlem without talking about the brilliance of Malcolm X, certainly. 

Collins: You talk about a timeline that runs obviously to today. And in describing Harlem today, you referenced, as you put it, “another R word: Restoration.” And you described in your piece how with housing and employment issues, “Harlem is hanging on for dear life.” But, you know, creativity was the focus of your piece, and that’s an outcome of agency. And so I’m assuming there were some things that you saw that made you pretty hopeful. 

Makin: Most certainly, and I do want to go back to the vendors. Harlem was, for a lot of years, farmland, and so Harlem had to be tilled. And in my discussions of Harlem, I’ve talked about those vendors being those modern day tillers. In the case of Divine Styles, Divine, you know, setting up on the corner there. That was the second, the third kind of location he had, because it was being basically pushed down the street because of, you know, construction and, and different things like that. But  what made me hopeful is that he was still out there with those books. And so it’s just this continuing sense of purpose with Harlem.

There’s still a very strong sense of community in Harlem. Just going on the walking tour with Lawrence and seeing the way that he engaged people. And you may be introduced to him as a stranger, but he’ll be your friend by the end of that tour. You can’t help it, you know what I mean? 

Collins: Yeah. Well, it sounds like a remarkable tour, a wonderful place, and [that was] a really nice story that you did about it. Thanks so much for coming back on to talk about it. 

Makin: Most certainly, man. Always glad to come on.

Collins: And you know, there’s one last thing, since we’re getting close to the Oscars and since you’ve twice been on this show to talk about Black Hollywood, I just wonder, you know, without being predictive, what’s your level of optimism on representation at the Academy Awards this year? 

Makin: Probably about in the same place. With that said, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention, rather, “American Fiction” and “Origin” and the success that those movies have had in terms of, you know, Jeffrey Wright being recognized, Sterling Brown being recognized. 

“American Fiction” is a great movie in that it really highlights the dignity and the power of working class Black people, and just the joy that comes out of service and sacrifice. Um, Jeffrey Wright and his family in that movie, you can kind of tell they’re upper middle class. They have a maid who works through the house. To me, she’s one of the stars of the movie. Just the dignity in which she carries herself. But also, you know, she finds her way. I’ll say that without spoiling too much. Though that’s not exactly what you asked for. 

Collins: Peaks and valleys, I think is how you described it. And it sounds like it’s, uh, there’s still peaks and valleys toward eventual progress on representation in Hollywood. Thanks again for being on.

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Collins: Thanks for listening. You can find our show notes with links to Ken’s other appearances and to all of his columns and stories at CSMonitor.com/WhyWeWroteThis. This episode was hosted by me, Clay Collins, and produced by Jingnan Peng, with Mackenzie Farkus. Our sound engineers were Tim Malone and Alyssa Britton, with original music by Noel Flatt. Produced by The Christian Science Monitor. Copyright 2024.