David and Art - Looking at the Harlem Renaissance

One of the most enjoyable things I do in my career as an academic is take part in something called the Lifelong Learning Program hosted by Baylor University’s Mayborn Museum. It’s a program that offers academic classes to senior citizens on any number of topics. The classes are usually four sessions long—one 90-minute meeting per week over the course of four weeks. Over the past 15 years or so I’ve offered various classes like “Four Military Presidents,” “Four Lesser-Known Presidents,” “The History of the Medal of Honor,” “Lesser Known Figures from the American Revolution,” “The Historical Roots of Current Contentions,” and many more that I can’t call to mind right now.

Last Thursday, I started a four-part series on the Harlem Renaissance. That was a cultural movement that began in New York City in the 1920s and, for my money at least, is the most coherent and consequential artistic movement in the 20th century. Most people, it turns out, are not really familiar with the Harlem Renaissance even though they might know a name or two from it. And they may recognize some of its music.

As a movement it’s rooted deeply in the particulars of history of the time it emerged. The writers, poets, journalists, musicians, dancers, and painters who made it up were all shaped by that history. And they all had one or more ties to the neighborhood of Harlem, that, by 1920, was becoming the center of African-American life in the United States.

Because it’s a movement rooted in history, the history comes first. The history creates the energy, and the energy creates the flowering of culture. That’s how that works.

The immediate precursors of the Harlem Renaissance were, first of all, the segregation and racism that was permeated much of the country. Secondly, there was the experience of World War I. And thirdly, a movement called the Great Migration. These were the formative historical ingredients. Many African Americans living in the South—which is where most of them lived at the beginning of the 20th century—sought to flee the quite literally life-threatening conditions in the region by any means they could. As years went by, increasing numbers of them wound up in New York City. Tens of thousands of men, women, and children went to Harlem over the first two decades of the 20th century.

The Harlem Renaissance is a perfect example of how history and art intersect, and how both help us to understand the other more fully. Let’s spend a little bit of time talking about this next time.

RECENT EPISODES OF DAVID AND ART

David and Art - Small Museums like the Taft

On today’s episode of David and Art, David Smith looks past some of the bigger, more famous museums to the smaller ones that can be easy to miss. He examines what makes these smaller museums so interesting, and why we shouldn't overlook them.

David and Art - Art & Tradition

We tend to have certain expectations about art, especially when it looks familiar. We think we know what it's trying to tell us. But sometimes there's quite a bit more going on than we realize. On today's David and Art, host David Smith looks at an artist whose work may be more complicated than his reputation suggests.

David and Art - The Art of Remembering

A memorial can tell us a lot about the person it honors, but it can also tell us something about ourselves. What do we want to remember? And how do we turn that memory into something lasting? On today’s David and Art, host David Smith considers those questions through a place many of us here in Waco will recognize.

David and Art - What of Creativity?

When we think about creativity, we usually think about the person who comes up with the idea in the first place. But what about the person who takes that idea and then brings it to life? On today's episode of David and Art, host David Smith asks where creativity comes in when art is being performed rather than created.

David and Art - A Timeless Artist

There are some artists whose careers become so much a part of our lives that we stop noticing just how much they have accomplished. On today’s David and Art, host David Smith takes a look at one of those artists, and at a career that began in a very different place and time.

David and Art - A World Largely Disappeared

Every once in a while, you run across a piece of broadcasting history that makes you realize just how different radio used to be. On today’s David and Art, host David Smith takes us back to one of those moments, when the relationship between radio and music looked very different from what we know today.

David and Art - The Geezinslaws

This week on David and art, a trip back in time - to the Austin music scene of the '70s and '80s, and a few musical characters who were part of it. Here's David Smith.

David and Art - A Family Affair

Sometimes a piece of art becomes important for reasons that have very little to do with the art itself. Here's David Smith with this week's edition of David and Art.

David and Art - The Varieties of Modernist Experience

On today’s David and Art, host David Smith looks at some of the very different paths Modernist artists took.

David and Art - Thinking about Modernism

Every once in a while, I think it's probably worth our time to talk through Modernism, both as an idea and as an art form that's a manifestation of that idea.