Customer Reviews

The New Negro : Voices of the Harlem Renaissance

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This anthology contains works by many of the most important contributers to the Harlem Renaissance. The best parts of the volume are the poetry selections by poets such as Hughes, Cullen, and McKay as well as the essays by Alain Locke. The works by Hurston and Toomer are also quite good. The essays by Locke (especially the New Negro) feature insight into many of the ideas and developments that took place in order to bring about this important historical and cultural movement. This book is a definite must read.

Alain LeRoy Locke (1885-1954) was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. He is regarded as the "Father of the Harlem Renaissance."

Locke wrote in the Foreword to this 1995 book, "This volume aims to document the New Negro culturally and socially---to register the transformations of the inner and outer life of the Negro in America that have so significantly taken place in the last few years. There is ample evidence of a New Negro in the latest phases of social change and progress, but still more in the internal world of the Negro mind and spirit."

Here are some quotations from the book:

(Alain Locke) "As with the Jew, persecution is making the Negro international." (Pg. 14)
(Jessie Fauset) "For years the Caucasian in America has persisted in dragging to the limelight merely one aspect of Negro characteristics, by which the whole race has been glimpsed, through which it has been judged." (Pg. 161)
(J.A. Rogers) "The Negroes who invented it called their songs the 'Blues,' and they weren't capable of satire of deception. Jazz was their explosive attempt to cast off the blues and be happy, carefree happy, even in the midst of sordidness and sorrow. And that is why it has been such a balm for modern ennui, and has become a safety valve for modern machine-ridden and convention-bound society. It is the revolt of the emotions against repression." (Pg. 217)
(Charles S. Johnson) "A new type of Negro is evolving---a city Negro." (Pg. 285)
(James Weldon Johnson) "To my mind, Harlem is more than a Negro community, it is a large scale laboratory experiment in the race problem." (Pg. 310)
(Kelly Miller) "It was said that the Negro could not be educated. The missionaries refuted the charge by educating him... Nowhere in all history has education so fully vindicated its claim as the process of unlocking and releasing the higher powers and faculties of human nature." (Pg. 314)
(Walter White) "The constant hammering of three hundred years of oppression has resulted in a race consciousness among the Negroes of the United States which is amazing to those who know how powerful it is." (Pg. 366)

My problem with this book is that it is wrongly titled by the reprint publisher (it was originally published in 1925) something that the current editor must have gone along with. The correct title is The New Negro: An Interpretation. This is important for two reasons. All sorts of sloppy readers are citing the book as The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance (1925) when no such book exists. Second, the writer of the introduction criticizes the book for not covering a variety of aspects of the Harlem Renaissance when that was not the book's intent. It was "an interpretation!" It allows for other interpretations. Nevertheless, it remains one of the best interpretations because it covers more areas of literary and social interpretation of 1925 than any other. Unfortunately, the stunning color illustrations by Winold Reiss that made the book a hot seller in the 1920s are not reproduced in this slick money maker edition.

I saw a co-worker reading this one day, and decided to purchase it. I was pleasantly surprised to find the history that this book was filled with. It was wonderfully written and I'm sorry I didn't read it years ago.

This book is a remarkable example of the time period. Before reading this, one must understand the logic and the use of words during the renaissance. Understanding this is imperative in order to avoid becoming upset with the literature.

This book is incredible, along with the two other books I ordered from the same sender: a collection of poems by Langston Hughes and one by Maya Angelou; however, whoever sent me these books piled them onto a single layer of cardboard and wrapped the texts in plastic wrap--yes, plastic wrap!! The books got to my door all smashed. Even though they were hardcover books, they are all ruined. Luckily, the pages are still readable. I STRONGLY recommend that other book lovers like myself avoid this seller!!!!