You're Dead to Me - The Harlem Renaissance

Episode Date: March 26, 2021

In the first of five special episodes on US history, Greg Jenner is joined by Prof Emily Bernard and Roy Wood Jr in 1920s New York as they take a look at the movers and shakers of the Harlem Renaissance. Walk through one of Harlem's infamous rent parties and meet the greatest icons and minds from music, politics and the literary world during a cultural revolution.Produced by Cornelius Mendez Script by Greg Jenner and Emma Nagouse Research by Harry Prance, Jess White, Tim GalsworthyA production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a BBC Radio 4 history podcast for everyone. For people who don't like history, do like history, or people who forgot to learn any at school. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. You may have heard my other podcast, Homeschool History,

but that one's mostly for the kids. This podcast is a bit different. It blends the swing time groove of historical facts with the improvised toot of the comedy horn. And for the last five episodes of Series 3, we're going to do things a little differently. I think you've all noticed there's been a bit of drama across the Atlantic Ocean these past few years, so we'll be exploring five big subjects from American history.

Next time out, we'll be looking at how the nation broke away from British rule, boo, and then tried to figure out what the hell it was to be American anyway. But today, we're going to be jumping back a century and bawling at a 1920s party to get to grips with the Harlem Renaissance. And joining me are two of the coolest cats on the block. In History Corner, she's a cultural historian and literary scholar with a PhD from Yale. And she's the author of Black is the Body, stories from my mother's time and mine, which won the 2020 LA Times Prize for autobiographical prose. She's also written an acclaimed book about the letters of Langston Hughes and Carl van Vechten.

We'll hear about more of them later. And she's written essays for the Oprah magazine, Harper's, New Republic and The New Yorker. It's Professor Emily Bernard. Hi, Emily. Thank you for joining us. Hi there. Thanks for inviting me. And in Comedy Corner, he's a comedian, a radio host, an actor, a writer, an all-round Renaissance man. He's a regular correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and he's hosted four seasons of Comedy Central's series This Is Not Happening. You may have seen him as an actor in Better Call Saul, Space Force, The Last OG,

as well as his acclaimed stand-up specials. And he's currently in production on his own sitcom. Holy moly, what a CV. It's Roy Wood Jr. Still not as esteemed as being a professor and doctor like Emily. One day I hope to reach those heights. But thank you for having me. I've never felt more underqualified in my life. I mean, to a certain extent, Roy, you are an expert because you live in Harlem, right? So you've got some local knowledge. Yeah, but I'm in the States. I'm from the South. So I do have extensive knowledge of racism. So if we want to get into that, I definitely talk about some of that Southern racism.

Wow. OK, so it does sound like we've got two experts then. I'm excited. So what do you know? Right. This leads us on to the first segment of the podcast. It's called So What Do You Know? This is the bit where I have a go at guessing what you at home might know about today's subject and certainly for the brits listening the irish listeners i mean you're going to know the name the highland renaissance you're going to know jazz of course you are you're going to know lewis armstrong you will definitely hopefully remember our episode about josephine baker one of the coolest most extraordinary women of the 20th century you may have remembered the gladys bentley section from the lgbtq history episode we

did you may have read the poetry of langston hugh. You may have read a book by Zora Neale Hurston. And if you like your sports, you might know the Harlem Globetrotters, founded in 1926. Netflix have done a film called Ma Rainey's Black Bottom with Viola Davis and the late, great Chadwick Boseman. But I suspect, like me, some of this subject is not stuff you're familiar with. So let's crack on. Professor Emily, the Harlem Renaissance is an explosion of art, music, poetry, dance, writing, culture, partying, politics with a big P and a small p. We situated in the early 1920s, maybe. But where does it draw its energy from? Tell us about the great migration. Well, around the turn of the century, excess of 2 million Black people left the South, heading to Detroit, Chicago, Pennsylvania. It was

a boom in American industry. And so there was a lot of work to be found. But what so many Black migrants didn't realize at the time, because they were being lied to, was that they were being brought north and points west and east to break strikes. And so you go to New York and you find out that you are scab. And so, you know, you have to make a decision. But for so many Black people, being in the northeast, being out west was better than staying in the south and, you know, facing the kinds of violence and political repression that made life intolerable for so many African Americans. After the First World War, we've seen African American soldiers fighting for their nation.

And this is now a movement of peoples into the cities, into the North, and also people coming in from the Caribbean too. Yes, absolutely. It was a kind of coincidence of so many opportunities. There was a growth of publishing at the early 20th century that made New York a really important place for someone like Langston Hughes to be. But there were push factors in the South that included the increasing degree of racist violence after the war, natural disasters, both a boll weevil infestation and a drought, and of course, the lack of opportunities. But the pull factors were really tremendous.

And not only the anticipation of a little bit more freedom, as like you said, you know, take the colder mistress of the North over the lazy laughing South with blood in its mouth. But there was so much excitement because of the patterns of migration that brought Black Americans in contact with Black Caribbeans and people coming from African countries. So there was just so much culture that was being made in the streets, in places where Black people met together. But all of that expression was about trying to figure out who this new Black figure was. So Roy, a lot of our listeners won't know about the Harlem Renaissance. Can you describe it for us? What's your understanding of the Renaissance? My understanding of the Harlem Renaissance, as it was explained to me, was a time period in the early to mid-1920s

where Black excellence creatively, politically, socially was growing for the first time. And this was a time basically where if you was Black and you could dance, you could sing, you were about politics, you were intelligent, this is the time to be that and the place to be. It was Harlem then basically what Atlanta turned into in the 90s. We're like, oh, what, Black people can be great and flourish? All right. Yeah, that's what the Harlem Renaissance was. It was the first time Black people was getting to flourish without a lot of drama.

And we called it the Harlem Renaissance, but it wasn't really called that at the time. Lexie Hughes called it the Negro Renaissance, which I think is really important because it wasn't so much about a place or even about art explicitly, but it was really about remaking Black identity. But there is an obvious reason why people are doing this is because there are, I mean, there's films like Birth of a Nation. Roy, I'm assuming you've heard of it. I mean, that's a film that is a box office smash and it's about lynching. Now we're talking about the original Klan Birth of a Nation or the one

about the Nat Turner uprising? The original is 1915. Okay, original recipe, as I like to call it. Old school racism. The 1915 one is a huge hit. It's a white person's view of history with the Klan as heroic figures. Oscar Michaud is one of the first ever black filmmakers in America who responds to that. And he's fascinating, Emily. I mean, he grows up in South Dakota, runs a farmstead. He's not your classic guy growing up in a city. He was self-taught and he made dozens of films that were about trying to not only dramatize Black life outside of the depictions that were available, what was available, those images in Birth of a Nation. And Black artists were fighting against those images and also trying to make art. He's trying also to break into the mainstream because there's money there.

His films, I think, were made incredibly fast, incredibly cheap, to the point that quality of the camera work sometimes wasn't great and scenery would wobble a bit. But he was working with Black casts, telling Black stories, and then trying to show them to not only Black audiences, but also he was trying to get them into white cinemas as well. Sounds a lot like today. I do think that that's one thing that the pandemic created. Because there were no movie theaters, there was a bit of a leveling of black content getting the exposure that it deserved.

Like if you go on Netflix, like there's movies that were made in South Africa about South African stuff that I would have never watched on streaming. It literally just pops up next. I don't know how Netflix knows, but they just, you're Black. Would you like to see other Black people across the ocean? I go, yes, I would, Netflix. Which sounds absurd, but it has helped to expose people to other layers of Blackness. In 1951, he said, you know, the reason why we had so many pictures of coloured people in the crisis was because you didn't see black people sitting in a dining room, playing with their children, seeing black babies.

The images of black people that were available were those images fashioned by D.W. Griffith and Birth of a Nation, lynched bodies or ridiculous figures of caricature. Let's also talk about another visual artist, Aaron Douglas. He's done some murals in Harlem in the public library. They're Afro-futuristic. They're inspired by ancient Egyptian art, beautiful colors, pinkish and purplish hues and yellow hues. They're showing Africa and slavery and emancipation and jazz all in one image, Emily, isn't it? That's right. Sort of an origin story, you see. I mean, what he really tries to capture. Yeah. And maybe we can show you one now. Yeah. So there's like this guy in the center and he's clearly holding and playing a saxophone and there's large buildings towering behind him, but he's standing on like gears. And I guess coming up the gears are people, you know, they're holding briefcases. I'm not sure if they're headed to work.

There's a couple of steam pipes. So I guess that represents factories. And then also it's interesting in the way the colors are, where it's kind of like a sunrise. It seems like the sun is rising on this period of black greatness. I think that's a really wonderful art analysis. Emily, the Harlem Renaissance isn't just happening in Harlem. Why does it get the name? Lisa Hughes said he'd rather be a lamppost in Harlem

than a mayor of a small town in Georgia. There's just that enduring fascination with New York itself. Hughes again talked about coming up the subway and going to Harlem and putting down his bags and saying, I'm home. And it was a mecca, really, to arrive in Harlem. I think in some ways, ironically, And it was a mecca, really, to arrive in Harlem. I think in some ways, ironically, because it was so congested, you really couldn't escape all of the vitality

around you. It was just a sense of a constant flow of culture. You were living together, and that is an ironic consequence of racism itself. The black people are kind of stuffed at the two-mile tip of northern Manhattan, but look what they make of it. Roy, we're going to take you to a party 100 years ago in your neighborhood. This is the home of Madam C.J. Walker. She was the hair care millionaire. Hair care products, yes. She passed her money on to her daughter, and her daughter was called A'Lelia Walker. She was fun. And she hosted this big party in her townhouse in Harlem. It was nicknamed the Dark Tower. And everyone was at this party. So we're going to take you to the party. Emily, first things first, why would Roy, why would he want to go to this party other

than just having a good time? Something we have been denied in COVID, which is just novelty and spontaneity. Anything could happen. And everything did happen at these parties where you could order, you know, your sexual desire. And this was not uncommon. Other parties were happening in Harlem called rent parties, where people could pay the rent by charging an admission price. You come in, you have a great time, and that money goes towards paying the rent, hence the phrase rent party. But they're also important because so many public places, there's so few where black people could congregate as equals. No clubs, you know, you have Jim Crow seating. But at rent parties,

black people were literally running the show. And they were often private codes to get in. You paid a little bit of money, you could have a meal and you could become part of the scene. It was also a place to meet people. Black artists met each other at these events and they were considered really sacred spaces because, as Rudolf Fischer said about going to the Cotton Club, the more the Harlem Renaissance became famous, the more white people wanted to come and then they kind of just took over. And so Fischer said, you can't go to these clubs without being stared at like an animal in a zoo, but you can go to a rent party. You know, they're very democratic spaces. It's a networking party. If Roy's a talented young comedian coming up, he's looking

to make some friends. He's looking to make contacts. It's a good place to hang out, right? Yes. Careers are made at these parties. Collaborations were made and this is where it happened. So we're going to meet some very cool people in Harlem today at the party, but someone who is particularly cool. This is a guy called Hubert Fontleroy Julian. He was a Trinidadian. He was a flying ace, a pilot. He was nicknamed the Black Eagle. And on one particular occasion, he parachuted into Harlem whilst playing a gold plated saxophone. Literally the coolest way into a city. Roy roy if i asked you to make a big entrance into new york what would you go for there's a michael jackson superbowl video from 1994 where michael jackson clones appeared like ninja smoke poof it was so spot on it looked like michael jackson was

teleporting himself around the stadium and then he appeared on stage i need about nine more people that look exactly like me same bill so you need a whole gang of roywood juniors if not i could just grab a couple guys that kind of so i can get anthony anderson and wendell pierce from the wire and keep a tight enough formation you can't tell keenan thompson Kenan could pass for a Roy Wood Jr. It's okay to laugh at this. I'm the one saying that these black people all look alike. It's perfectly fine. So, Roy, we've rocked out at A'Lelia's townhouse.

We're coming through the front door. There's a man at the door who takes our hat. There's a cloakroom. We get in the elevator. We look down and we see there is a dude on the floor. His face is bleeding. He looks like he's been knocked out. Don't feel sorry for him because he has tried to grope one of the party guests tonight.

And she has defended herself by smashing him straight in the face. And her name is Zora Neale Hurston. Roy, do you know who she is? Oh, yes. What do you know about her? I know that her work has been seminal and inspiring, not just black people, but more importantly, black women. And we talk about that level of representation and running things and being a boss, as people like to say now. She was that at a time where there wasn't a lot of that happening for women, period.

But definitely, you know, not with regards to black women. Emily, Zora Neale Hurston is one of the most extraordinary characters in this movement. She is quite the big deal. She's a whole situation as well. Can you tell us more about her? Well, she was most famous by her novel, Their Eyes Watching God. It inspired so many Black women writers and people talk about the experience of passing the book around because it was out of print. This first Black American story about romance, a time when other Black writers were writing about urban issues. She took us back to the deep South, to Florida, and talked about this kind of inherent Black relationship to the land. It's a really fascinating novel. She was an anthropologist trained by Franz Boas. In fact, a project they were working on together, she would stand on a

street corner in Harlem and measure people's heads. The measuring heads to disprove eugenicists who said that Black people had smaller brains. So she was really always willing to put everything on the line for her work. She was trained by hoodoo masters. Very interestingly, she interviewed the last survivor of the last slave ship to America, and that was Cujo Lewis. She had her hand in everything, but she was also extremely funny. In all the biographies we've read of the Harlem Renaissance doing the research, she is the wit at the party. She's the live wire, the energy.

She runs away from the South with a Gilbert and Sullivan musical troupe. She arrives in New York with $1.50, no job, no friends, and a whole lot of hope, which is a quote. She's the only black student in her university class, but she trains under this great anthropologist called Franz Boasch. And she then travels the South doing anthropology, getting people to open up about their stories and to get them to trust her. She carries a pistol in case things get a bit dodgy. And she also tells them that she's a bootlegger on the run from the law so that people

open up to her. So she knew how to work her crowd as well. She drove around the South in a car. She called it Sassy Susie. Roy, have you ever nicknamed your car? So in 1998, I had a 1987 Dodge Aries that I called the shitmobile. It was a piece of shit. And for short, I called it the shitmo. It was the only curse word I was allowed to say around my mother because she knew the car was also a piece of shit. And for short, I called it the shit mow. It was the only curse word I was allowed to say around my mother because she knew the car was also a piece of shit.

Take the shit mow and go pick it. I said, yes, ma'am. No problem. We're hanging out at a ladies party, which is fancy as hell. And she is incredible. She's six foot tall, Roy. She's wearing a silk dress, ermine coat, sable muffs, and she's wearing a silver turban. She's known as the Joy Goddess of Harlem. It's a real look.

Well, it's important to say that Lily Walker was Madam C.J. Walker's daughter. And so Madam C.J. Walker, first Black millionaire, that was the thing, again, about all of these Black people being together, is that you could travel from the rent party to the dark tower. There was a sense of continuity because we were in it together, trying to survive in this culture and make our art and enjoy ourselves and outside of those white eyes that would have us be invisible. So there was so much celebration just simply about visibility. Even when you talk about dress, that was central.

I mean, think about Marcus Garvey and the costumes he would wear. It was about celebrating Blackness and being in public and revising that black self down to attire. Roy, we're going to basically take you around four different tables at a party, introducing different groups of people. So sat next to Zora Neale Hurston is Langston Hughes. 17 years old, he writes perhaps his most famous poem. how does he get to where he ends up well Lex News was a poet social activist a novelist a playwright and a columnist and he was born in Joplin Missouri he was one of the earliest innovators of the then new literary art form called jazz poetry and his poem the negro speaks of rivers I mean he has a kind of mythic history

that he's on this train to go see his father in Mexico with whom he had a very fractured relationship. And he was inspired to write this beautiful poem. It makes me now think of the Aaron Douglas mural and that it was trying to contain a whole history of Black experience through his own first person singular. He was a beautiful person. And I mean that in every sense of the word, easy on the eyes and apparently unfailingly kind. Langston Hughes had fallen out with his dad who wanted him to be an engineer. He'd gone to college. He ditched that. He went to Africa for a bit. He was working on a ship in Africa. He got a pet monkey, as we all do. And then he gets a job as a busboy, as a waiter, basically, in a fancy

hotel back in D.C. And it's here that he pulls this really famous stunt. He spots that there's a very famous poet in the restaurant, in the hotel, called Vachel Lindsay or Vachel Lindsay. And he subtly comes out, hands him his dinner, and while he's doing it, pops down a few of his poems on the plate. So that when Vachel Lindsay looks down, he sees these poems and goes, whoa, hang on, what's this? And reads them. And Emily, he's good, right? So Rachel Lindsay is like, wow, we've discovered a talent. Who knew who was lingering here, washing the dishes, but this brilliant mind. And there's a photo ops and stories somewhat

apocryphal in that it was all staged. I mean, he had a brand before we used that term. And it was that he was self-taught, once again, like Michaud, and really in some ways invented a Black vernacular language that he committed to his poems, but also he wrote songs. He was incredibly versatile and he cared about literally the musicality of Black vernacular speech. I mean, he liked the way Black people talked and that's what he wanted to capture in his work. Have you ever done anything like that, Roy, in order to get a gig? When I graduated college from Florida A&M and I got back home to Birmingham, I needed a job. My degree is in broadcast journalism. I knew that they were looking for a sidekick on The Morning Show, and I thought that I could be a producer and work my way up into being the comedian.

The guy that hosts The Morning show would not consider me. But what I knew at the time was that because this was Black radio, this jock hosts the Friday night Black comedy night that happened at the local comedy club. And so that weekend it was D.O. Hughley. So I went to the comedy club and I said, hey, I just got hired at the radio station. They want me to open for D.O. Hughley. And then I went to the radio DJ and I said, hey, I'm opening for Dio Hugli Friday night. Watch me. If you think I'm funny, then I get to be your producer Monday morning. He said, you got to do. I had to do was keep the DJ separated from the comedy club owner so that no one knew that I was playing the other one. I got on stage, did five minutes, and that night started a 14-year career in radio. Wow. When you have nothing to lose, I don't really think it's taking a risk. I think it's just doing whatever you got to do. You're the Langston Hughes of comedy. You've got your

own busboy waiter story. But here we've got this lovely photo we just got up here. Roy, do you want to describe the photo for us? What's he wearing? We've got Langston Hughes in this nice little busboy hat and the full nice white outfit. And then he's got the tray up high, you know, because that's when it's a professional place when they hold the trays up above their shoulders. And, you know, all of the teapots and cups and silver and fine dining, definitely upscale all of the silver on the tray. This is his marketing brand, Emily. This is him getting the gig and then selling the gig as his way into the literati, right?

He had a story not unlike Roy's. He was really determined to make it as an author. And I remember he wrote a letter, I think in the 40s. He said, I am the first Black writer who's making a living by his writing. And I think this wrote a letter, I think in the 40s, he said, I am the first black writer who's making a living by his writing. And I think this is the beginning of that ambition. So Roy, you're a big deal. I've been watching you on TV for years. How do you enter a party? Do you come in with a t-shirt cannon in one hand, bubble machine in the other, kick the door in, high five everyone on the way in? No, I'm extremely unassuming,

especially in a situation like this where it's basically neighborhood VIP. That's what this sounds like. I'll give you a great example. So I'm friends with a couple of people over a Saturday night live and I walked into the SNL party. My first move, I'm here, I'm alone. I have to find someone I know. And then from that point, you conversation hop. The conversation takes you around the room and then you may break off to go get something from the bar and then strike up a conversation with someone there. But it's this understood jovialness that doesn't have the pretentiousness of a traditional nightclub. It all has the energy of the first day of school, the first day of

kindergarten. You see how these rent parties in harlem back in the day were just definitely i'm black you black what's up like i don't know if that's how you break the ice but you don't then get naked and have exciting sex in the corner i didn't that wasn't at the saturday night live party it might have been at another show so we've met zora neil hurston we've met Langston Hughes two of the sort of great talents they're young they're energetic they're attractive they've pulled themselves up by their shoelaces and then we're going to now meet quite a different set of people next table Roy we're over to go and meet the black intellectuals this is WB Du Bois this is Elaine

Locke and they are not playing dice in the streets. They're not out listening to jazz. They're talking about Voltaire and French philosophy. Their backgrounds are completely different, Emily, aren't they? They really are. Well, both Alain Locke and W.E.B. Du Bois were university professors. They were very politically active, but they worked in the boardrooms, really. Du Bois helped establish the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which we call the NAACP. And Locke edited the New Negro Anthology, which is sort of known as a cultural manifesto of the movement. Alain Locke, who grew up reading Latin, was a Harvard and Berlin educated philosopher.

He was the first African-American Rhodes Scholar. So the lives of people like Locke and Du Bois were miles away from the lives of the southern working class black people. Lane Locke had studied at Oxford where he'd faced racism, but he's an intellectual. He's grown up middle class. He had access to a library of classical Greek and Latin texts as a kid. And does that mean then, therefore, there is a little bit of tension in this party between the great intellectuals and then maybe some of the other people in the room.

One of the tensions gets located around music. Langston Hughes is talking about blues poetry and insisting that these African roots are to be celebrated. But people like Elaine Locke and W.E. Du Bois were ambivalent at best about vernacular culture. They really thought that Black progress could only be achieved if Black people demonstrated a kind of mastery over European art forms. I don't want to simplify it too much because their ideas were very complicated around it, but they worried about

this. They were thinking in terms of acceptance by white people where something like Bessie Smith didn't care about that. Do you think some of that was rooted in fear of erasure of Black culture for the sake of assimilation? I think that was the tension. You know, what do we do with that culture? What will assimilation cost? Can we be Black and incorporate these forms? And I think we're still asking this question, you know, what is Black art that's separate from whiteness? Another person walks over at the party, shakes W.E.B. Du Bois' hand. His name is County Cullen. He's a young talent, another African-American writer and poet. He's going to marry Du Bois' daughter, Yolanda. Big deal, dynastic wedding. But there's a slight question mark over his sexuality because we think potentially he was bisexual, maybe gay.

Some of the answers to the question you're asking is symbolized in what happened with County Cullen and Yolanda Du Bois, because there was actually a headline, groom sales with best man. He went on this honeymoon with the best man. I think that's a tell. Everyone kind of knew that Yolanda was sort of a beard. But this is, I think, about this movement being a movement, really, where gay men were helping each other. And what happens to women in this movement? When we talk about creating a new Black self, by default, that is about Black masculinity. And we know the historical roots of that because Black men were the targets of so much violence and fear that Black women felt we have to really

restore Black men. But Black women then take a step back. We'll kind of wait our turn. Unfortunately, the turn is, you know, we're still waiting. And Emily, what does it mean to be Caribbean or West Indian in this movement? West Indian immigration becomes a factor. There were writers like Erica Waldron, who was at the center of the social scene, well patronized and supported by white magazine editors. But he cared a lot about politics with both a big and small P. Marcus Garvey was an important figure that Waldron was really kind of consumed with and

wrote a lot about, and born in Jamaica. There's socialism in this movement too. There are people discussing the big, big class ideas, and then there's identity too. I mean, Roy, I guess these conversations are still happening on your side of the Atlantic right now. And is this something that's happening in the comedy scene? Yeah, to a degree. But I think that the difference between the Harlem Renaissance and now is that I feel like Black people benefited from there being a level of privacy to these inner clashes.

It wasn't happening out in the open in terms of I'm black and I disapprove of what you're doing as a black person. I don't think what you're doing is helping us as a culture where now that's probably the crux of most discussions is the public display of that disapproval. What used to be or what could have been a phone call or a conversation between two people now is a full blog or a Twitter thread or a Facebook post. Whether this guy should be cancelled or not and why is this comedy club booking this guy? Why are you working the club that books the guy that we don't like? A lot of that usually could be resolved with just having a conversation at a rent party instead of on Twitter. Let's get back to the party then. Let's top up our drinks.

We've got some gin. We've got some champagne. A'Lelia is going to provide all the fanciest of drinks. Let's just make sure you're up to speed with the slang of the era. So I'm going to give you three different phrases, and I'm going to ask you to translate them for us if you can. So the first is, what kind of fella is a Bo Diddley? What does he do?

Plays a string instrument. Not bad. He's a ladies' man. One too many girlfriends at the same time. Oh, a playa playa. A playa. He's a playa. What kind of place is a gut bucket?

That sounds like a very terrible restaurant. Greasy spoon. Yeah, you're not far off. It's a low-down dive bar. And who would be an O-Fay? O-F-A-Y. Oh, oh i don't know just a freaky woman that hangs out with a beau diddly now you're looking at one right now it's a white person basically an ofe was someone who came in um so yeah that's a little bit of slang for you from

the 1920s and then the next table we're going to take you to roy the people on this table are very pale they're very posh they're privileged. Let's meet the first of them. And I know you have a soft spot for this chap. This is Carl Van Vechten. He sort of leads safaris, like safari tours of Black Harlem for his white friends. Emily, what's his deal? Carl Van Vechten was a person of means. And he was a very popular novelist. He would open the New York Times and you would see a new book by Carl Van Vechten. And he was very interested in celebrity. That was important to him. And he became consumed with Black art around the turn of the century when he first heard Burt Williams perform The Minstrel Show. And a lot of his

interest in Black art began there. And it took him a long time to move his own imagination and to learn enough to understand there was more to Black art than that. But he kept growing, and he learned, and he became close to people like James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and took photographs that we still use. I mean, in fact, the photograph that you showed of Zora Neale Hurston was taken by Carvel and Vectin. I mean, in fact, the photograph that you showed of Zornal Hurston was taken by Carvel and Vektin. I mean, he was not an easy person to, I think, understand at that point. He was consumed with Black culture, with Black men. He was a gay man, married for 50 years to a Russian actress, but was prolific in his desires. So there was a part of it that was uncomfortable and strange.

And that was a part that W.E.B. Du Bois objected to. What is he doing interloping, coming to our parties? But for Black artists like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, they appreciated him because it was a moment when no one was talking about jazz and blues as meaningful art forms, much less American art forms. And Van Vechten was writing in Vanity Fair in the New York Times and saying,

these are the only authentic American art forms coming out of black people from the South. And they're black artists who really appreciated the fact that his excitement about black art was refreshing. He had British royalty on these tours. And he had William Faulkner who came and sat in a corner, could not believe all of what he was seeing. He's a problematic white ally. His heart's in the right place. He writes a novel in 1926 with the N word in the title, and it doesn't go down well with a lot of people at the party. Roy, is that a familiar problem of the person trying to do their best? Yeah, there's a lot of that now with allies that

take agency over the black issue and almost unseat black people at the head of the table. There's definitely still an element in black culture of the white ally who's going to do it their way and not our way. I mean, the interesting thing about Carl von Wexner is he really loves his friends, and he's really good to his friends, but he won't get his checkbook out for them. He doesn't want to cheapen his friendship by giving them money. But there are two women sat next to him who do get their checkbooks out. They're very wealthy, but there are strings attached. Can you tell us who they are and what are these strings?

Well, there's Amy Spengarn and Charlotte Mason. Charlotte Mason was very controlling. So she had a big checkbook, but she made sure that she had complete control over what the artist she supported produced. For instance, Zora Neale Hurston. She kept Hurston down to the penny, and it really did stymie Hurston creatively. But she's giving out a huge amount of money, isn't she? It's like $750,000, we think? That's right. Charlotte Mason said that Zora Neale Hurston wasn't allowed to write fiction. She could only write her anthropological works. And she claims all of that as her property. You know, it was a real problem for Hurston in her creative life. Charlotte Mason fell in love with Native Americans. And, you know And she was sort of a white American

who was looking for some soul and looking for some meaning. And so she started with Native American people, and then she went to Black people. And they had a relationship, but Hershey would spend all her time trying to manage her racism, basically Charlotte Mason's very narrow expectations. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's like, hey, I'm here to help, but here's how the help will be administered. And this is the only way the help will happen. Don't you feel helped? Zora's like, nah. So Zora, who we know is the funniest woman in Harlem, she nicknamed rich white people who consumed black culture with a pretty interesting line. Roy, do you want to guess what the word was she coined?

Culture vultures. Oh, that interesting line. Roy, do you want to guess what the word was she coined? Culture vultures. Oh, that's good. Emily, it was a bit more problematic than that now. The word she used, they were negrotarians. Roy's clapping. Not a vegetarian, a negrotarian. Let's go over to the music table. Let's go to the jazz and the blues. Let's go meet some of the superstars. First person we're meeting is Bessie Smith. Should we call her Her Imperial Majesty, Emily? I mean, she's known as the Empress of the Blues. Miss Bessie. She was a famously proud musician who demanded respect,

drank her gin straight, no martini. She was a protege of Ma Rainey and became the most played black recording artist of the 1920s. She literally saved Columbia Records from bankruptcy. She sells a million records. She's come from a difficult background, but she is loaded. She's big time. To know that she was the number one streamed artist in the 1920s. Let's hear a little bit of Bessie singing. This is the St. Louis Blues.

My man's got a heart like a rocket in the sea. My man's got a heart like a rocket in the sea. Roy, what's your thought on that? Staring something in the soul? Yes, but it's also a testament to just how far audio recordings have come, you know, in this time. Because presumably we're pulling that off of a phonograph. I think we're spoiled by that Dolby 5.1 sound.

You know, it's still just a wonderful sound, a wonderful voice. And I think it was very influential on other singers who came after her. When she tours the country, she does it in luxury. Roy, you're a comedian. I guess in the early days you were driving all over the States, in a station wagon or whatever. Did you ever splash out when you got your first paycheck? The only large purchase I made as a comedian was a $500 Seiko Kinetic watch.

It was the one thing I identified when I was broke. I go, I'm going to get that. It's solar powered and it's just a wonderful piece of equipment. And then I get to the daily show and I start seeing real watches. Like you think you own a watch. And then you see one of them Hassan Minaj, one of them Trevor Noah joints. You're like, okay, And then you see one of them Hasan Minhaj, one of them Trevor Noah joints. You're like, okay, I am wearing a station wagon. This is not as nice as I thought. Well, Bessie, when she was touring her show Midnight Steppers,

she and her husband went down to the railroad yard in Atlanta, Georgia, and they bought a private 72-foot railroad car, fitted it out nice and luxurious, and took it around America in her own train. Equivalent of a private plane, basically. So the jazz musicians, Emily, are making serious money. It's kind of interesting because there's a sort of snobbery coming off of maybe Alain Locke a little bit, maybe a little bit of, maybe Du Bois is a bit unsure about jazz and the blues. But ironically, it's the people who started with nothing who are the ones actually earning big. And so there is some sort of tension in the room to do with the finances as well, isn't there? Elaine Locke and Du Bois had a lot of reservations about jazz and blues musicians, but the reverse is true too.

The musicians thought the black political figures were really ineffectual. They were in the world of ideas, but they weren't really living with the people. We now move from Bessie Smith to a young musician who sat on her table. You're probably going to know who he is, Roy. He's been in the backup band for both Ma Rainey and Bessie. Mostly, he's been working out of Chicago. He's a guy called Louis Armstrong. He is kind of a comedian as well. He's a horn player, but he's an entertainer. He's got the gift of the gab. He's funny. He's likable. Again, there's a little bit of tension in that, Emily, because he, to a certain extent, is playing to white audiences, white crowds. And time in juvie between 1913, 1914, and that's where he learned to play his instrument. He made his name in Chicago, but he played New York often.

From the late 1920s until his death in the 70s, he was almost permanently on tour in America and around the world. He was incredibly popular in New York in the 1920s. He was a rec on tour, he was a jokester, a singer, and a really accomplished musician. But there were definitely those who felt he played up to an Uncle Tom stereotype, big grin all the time, in order to conform to white expectations. He becomes a huge American international star. And in the 1960s, he knocks the Beatles off number one. One of the sort of areas that we have to talk about now is a bit of dance. Roy, the Lindy Hop, which is super popular at this point in history, number one one of the sort of areas that we have to talk about now is a bit of dance roy the lindy

hop which is super popular at this point in history and it's basically jazz for your legs improvised it's exciting oh that's the super calisthenic i watch a lot of that old stuff like when they talk about a sock hop i'm like oh they were actually hopping okay whirling women around your hip you have to be very confident in your health care plan to dance like that but i mean that one of the things that is sad in in many ways is that this vibrant music scene this vibrant cultural scene the clientele is white there's a color bar on people allowed in and even for some of the performers so let's go to the cotton club which is the iconic club in harlem there's something called the paper bag, which is the iconic club in Harlem.

There's something called the paper bag test. Roy, have you ever heard of this? Oh, absolutely. Where if you're darker than a paper bag, then you cannot get in. Colorism, basically. Old school colorism. It's spot on. And this is being used back in the 20s, Emily. And even if black artists are allowed to perform as musicians,

they're not allowed to dance. They're not allowed to enjoy the music as customers, unless they're really famous. Langston Hughes, I think, is allowed in. Does that get us back into that sort of cultural white tourism again, Emily? Definitely. The owners of the Cotton Club, they want a little taste of blackness, just a little splash, not too much. And that's somehow less intimidating, I guess, for white spectators who come. At the Cotton Club, there's really an understanding. You're serving up primitivism, really, which is the language of modernism. So you want the music.

You have Duke Ellington at the piano and dancers surrounding him in skirts made of bananas like Josephine Baker's famous skirt. But they have to look very near white in order to get employment at this club. And, you know, it just exacerbates tensions that are already in the Black community. And of course, gives the lie in some ways that white people are interested in actual Blackness at this moment in time. They just want something that looks a little bit foreign to them, but not too foreign to actually expand their imaginations.

Roy, Drew Kellington is a name I'm assuming you know. That one for sure we know. So I took a jazz history class in college, and that's where I really started learning a little bit about the Harlem Renaissance, but really learning about jazz because I equate comedy to music in the sense that it's acoustic manipulation of feelings. Like trumpets, just the da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da, which is why I can completely understand why louis armstrong

is considered a funny guy because the horn is considered comedic even in its sound the brits you all did it first like that's that's all british sounding stuff yeah and what's interesting about duke ellington emily is that he's playing piano, which gets him back into European high arts. So it's allowed. And he's the first black artist to get major national radio play. Sticking with music a little bit, let's move back towards the sexuality stuff. We talked about it before the fact there's a lot of closeted gay men in the Harlem Renaissance. There are gay women too. To some extent, they're a bit more open about their sexuality. It's in their song lyrics. I'm talking here about Ma Rainey and Gladys Bentley. Some of the song lyrics are pretty provocative.

They sang about all kinds of sex. And Ma Rainey was famous. She had a blues song, Prove It On Me Blues. Actually, the advertising for the record was her and her very thin girlfriend, you know, look at as a police officer on the corner, white police officer, you got to prove it on me. And so, you know, they were very raunchy and singing about their sexual desires. It was all comic, but it was definitely around sexuality, which makes these blues performers feminists because they were all about autonomy and sexuality and pursuing pleasure and making music out of it and not participating in American culture of shame, but really celebrating and

refusing to be kept down. In fact, Ma Rainey was arrested in 1925 for an apparent lesbian orgy at her house and was bailed out by Bessie Smith. An apparent? Apparent! Apparent, not an orgy. This appears to be orgification happening. The Harlem dancer called Mabel Hampton, who is a lesbian activist, she recalled at a party

hosted by A'Lelia Walker, where we're currently enjoying our gin. The quote is, There were men and women, straight and gay. There were kinds of orgies. Some people had their clothes on. Some didn't. People would hug and kiss on pillows and do anything they wanted to. You could watch if you wanted to. Some came to watch. Some came to play.

That's fairly obvious what's happening there, isn't it? A'Lelia, to a certain extent, is starting to lose a bit of her cash by the late 1920s. And then we get 1929, which, Roy, I'm assuming you know that date. The crash. The Wall Street crash of 1929. And Emily, I don't think it's fair to say that that's the end of the Harlem Renaissance, because these artists carry on creating and Aaron Douglas does his art in 1934, but it does change things a bit, doesn't it?

It does. I mean, there's just people don't have disposable income to spend on going to the Cotton Club or, you know, buying art or supporting Black artists. So it really changes the landscape of Harlem. But it's also true that Black artists like Langston Hughes and so many artists who had believed that art could actually lead to political liberation are seeing that it really is money that had been really the engine that making the movement go. turned on by communism. You know, this idea that capitalism failed us. Lakeson Hughes starts to write more political poetry, much to the disappointment of his patron, Charlotte Mason, and she cuts him off. But he spends the rest of his life really attending more toward class issues.

It doesn't mean he's not, race is not front and center, but his poetry really does change shape after the Great Depression. The Nuance Window! That brings us then to The Nuance Window. This is where Roy and I take a little sip of our gin, a little sit down for two minutes, and we allow our experts to tell us something we need to know. So without much further ado, Emily, The Nuance Window, please. The most exciting thing about the Harlem Renaissance is how current it is.

100 years later, and we are still debating some of the same issues, such as our art and politics always intertwined. Are black artists responsible for the political progress of black people? And what is authentic black identity? Who gets to decide? W.E.B. Du Bois believed in a leadership model he called the Talented Tenth, the idea being that the most advanced and accomplished among both Blacks and Whites would lead the unwashed masses to political and social liberation. He went so far as to say, I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. But some artists at the time and critics from

subsequent cultural movements believe that Du Bois' ambitions were too caught up in the politics of social respectability, the idea that Black progress was somehow embedded in making Black people acceptable in the eyes of white people. In his essay, The Negro Artists in the Racial Mountain, Langston Hughes wrote, We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter.

We know we are beautiful and ugly too. It's not a coincidence that in the Black Power and Black Art movement of 1960s, there was an interest in carving out a separate sphere entirely, literally creating Black cultural spaces outside of the curious eyes of white America. I believe that the racial and political crises over the spring and summer suggest that we are in yet another moment of Black identity formation. And the same questions are fueling this moment that inspired the Harlem Renaissance. And again, we can look to art for answers. Thank you so much.

I agree with all of that because I'm tired of arguing with Black people about the same stuff. And I wish we would come to some level of a solution. Just speaking as a Black entertainer here present day, the one thing the Harlem Renaissance does, no matter what type of performer you are today, you were represented in some capacity during that time. There were a ton of people doing what was considered taboo. You're talking people being openly gay in the 20s. That's not the norm. That period should, if nothing else, serve as affirmation for the need of representation. So what do you know now? serve as affirmation for the need of representations.

So what do you know now? Okay, it's time now for the quiz. This is where we see how much knowledge has gone into Roy's head. Ten questions. How are you feeling, Roy? Not good. You know, I don't do good with pop quizzes because you're going to ask something weird like what color was the hat that Langston Hughes had on what brand sneaker did he prefer while playing jazz Louis Armstrong I don't know it's gonna be

fine don't worry I'm sure a lot of this stuff has gone in and some of this you already knew here we go 60 seconds question one what was the name of the great influx of African-Americans from the South into the North? Great migration. Let's go. Absolutely is. Question two. According to Zora Neale Hurston, the remarkable author and anthropologist, she arrived in New York City with how much money in her pocket? Ah, no, I do not remember. Three dollars. One dollar fifty. Question three. Hubert Fontleroy Julian, great name, parachuted into Harlem with a gold-plated what? Saxophone. It was a saxophone.

Question four. Taking its name from Alain Locke's anthology and also Langston Hughes, what did people at the time call the Harlem Renaissance? The Negro Renaissance. It was. Question five. What stunt did Langston Hughes pull to become known as the busboy poet? He would put the poems on the table of people that he was, the tables he was bussing.

Absolutely. And it was a famous poet called Vachelle Lindsay or Rachel Lindsay who went, hey, this kid's talented. Let's hire him. Question six. Which renowned singer is known as the Empress of the Blues? I don't remember the name. I remember the song. I got the song. That was terrible. That almost felt racist, even from a black person. Like that was right on the line. I'm going to give you a point because I don't think we've ever had someone sing on the quiz before.

It's Bessie Smith. Question seven. What extravagant purchase did Bessie Smith pay for in hard cash so she could travel America? A 72-foot custom railroad car. Hey, look at you with the footage. That's bang on. Absolutely. Question eight.

Which horn player and entertainer knocked the Beatles off the number one spot in 1964? Oh, Louis Armstrong. That is Louis Armstrong. Question nine. Which Harlem club used the racist paper bag rule? I'm just going to guess Cotton Club, but I don't remember. It is the Cotton Club. And question ten. What financial event had a huge impact on the Harlem Renaissance in 1929?

That would be the stock market crash of 1929. Absolutely. I'm giving you nine out of ten because you sang a song so beautifully. I'd still take eight out of ten. Eight out of ten solid. Black card retained. Yeah, I'm being a little generous with the nine, but I love the singing. So incredible stuff. Listeners, if after this episode you want to transition from an indoor revolution to an outdoor one, why not check out our episode on the Notting Hill Carnival with Dr Melissa Ono-George and Nathan Caton? Or if you want more Harlem dramatics,

we'll obviously go head over to the Josephine Baker episode, one of our funniest, Dr Michelle Cressfield and Desiree Birch having an absolute blast. And remember, if you've had a laugh, if you've learned some stuff, please do share the podcast with your friends or leave a review online. And make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode.

A huge thank you again to our guests in History Corner, the eminently excellent Professor Emily Bernard. Thank you, Emily. Thank you so much. It's been so much fun. I really appreciate it. And in Comedy Corner, the resplendent Roy Wood Jr. Thank you, Roy. I have learned a lot, Dr Bernard. Thank you for keeping these stories alive and relevant in today's times.

And to you, lovely listener, join me next time on another Lindy Hop Through History with another pair of dazzling dance partners. But for now, I'm off to parachute into my dining room while playing a gold-plated penny whistle. Glamorous. Bye! You're Dead to Me was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4. The research was by Harry Prance, Jess White, Tim Goldsworthy, Emma Neguse and me. The script was by Emma Neguse, Harry Prance and me.

The project manager was Isla Matthews and the edit producer was Cornelius Mendes. Hang on, just before you close down the app and start mindlessly scrolling Instagram, this is another Greg here. Not Jenna, but James from the Teach Me a Lesson podcast. Teach Me a Lesson is a podcast which I host with Bella Mackey, who is amazing and also my wife.

And we get teachers on to teach us a lesson, their favourite lesson. We're celebrating them and we're also reminding everybody that it's a great thing to learn even when you're an adult. You can find it now on BBC Sounds. Just search for Teach Me A Lesson. All right, now on with your day. Hi, Russell Cain here. I just want to tell you about Evil Genius.

It's the show where we take legends and icons from history. Everyone from Henry VIII to Gandhi, Richard Pryor, Mary Stokes, Dr Seuss. And I have a panel of funny people who are gathered around my desk and are subjected to horrific fact bombs which reveal things about their heroes they don't want to hear.

At the end of the lively mind tennis, they must vote evil or genius. Cancel Mother Teresa or keep her. By the way, listen to that episode. She was absolutely vile. Subscribe to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.