Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Dept. of History, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Buffalo, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [225]-235).

Cette thèse porte sur l’émergence de Harlem comme métropole noire dans les années 20, sur son déclin progressif dans les années 30 et sur les répercussions sur la communauté qui y réside, qui le transforme et le pratique à travers des actions et des discours. Durant ces deux décennies, le quartier subit des mutations importantes dans sa structure et par conséquent dans ses représentations. Harlem se transforme en quartier noir à population éclectique, et en métropole culturelle, artistique et intellectuelle qui génère aussi bien succès et fierté identitaire que débats et dissensions. Harlem devient aussi un ghetto aux conditions de vie fortement dégradées mais qui déclenchent la mobilisation politique des Harlémites qui s’expriment et affirment leur volonté de peser sur la scène nationale malgré leurs divisons. Lieu de paradoxes, lieu hétérogène aux multiples facettes, en proie aux tensions intracommunautaires et intercommunautaires, Harlem garde malgré tout une certaine unité et se construit autour de ses contradictions comme un lieu emblématique de la communauté afro-américaine.A travers une approche pluridisciplinaire et à travers un examen approfondi de sources primaires comme la presse, noire et blanche, locale et nationale, ainsi qu’un travail sur les productions artistiques, notamment celles de la Harlem Renaissance, et des ouvrages sociologiques et historiques de l’époque, cette thèse cherche à rendre compte des transformations de Harlem, espace géographique et espace-imagé, et à analyser la naissance, la renaissance et les représentations de cet espace urbain si particulier. / This Ph.D. dissertation deals with the rising of Harlem as a Black Metropolis in the 1920s, its progressive decline in the 1930s and the consequences regarding the inhabitants practicing this urban space through their actions and discourses. During these two decades, the neighborhood underwent profound changes in its structure as well as in its representations. Harlem became a black neighborhood with a heterogeneous population, and a cultural, artistic and intellectual metropolis which fostered success and identity pride as well as debates and dissent. Harlem turned also into a ghetto where living conditions deteriorated drastically; nevertheless Harlemites continued to express themselves and asserted their will to gain as a group on the national scene despite strong divisions. A heterogeneous neighborhood with multiple facets, rife with intra- and interracial tensions, Harlem nevertheless kept some unity and built itself around its contradictions.This Ph.D. dissertation adopts a multidisciplinary approach privileging a thorough examination of primary sources, in particular the Black and White press, both local and national. It also engages in a detailed study of artistic productions of the time, among them those of the Harlem Renaissance, as well as historical and sociological studies of that period. This study attempts to analyze the transformations of Harlem, the geographical and the imaginary space, and to follow the birth, the renaissance and the representations of this unique urban space.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2006. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 333-345).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2006. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 333-345).

Harlem is an emblematic neighborhood in New York City, historically perceived both as the center of African American culture and a black ghetto. This thesis explores the African American urban culture at its birth and analyzes it through the portrayals of Harlem in black literature, music, and visual art of the period. The era of the 1920s through the 1940s illustrates most distinctly the dual identity of Harlem as a cultural capital versus a ghetto as the 1920s marked a period of unprecedented cultural flowering embodied by the Harlem Renaissance, whereas the 1930s and 1940s were characterized by the Great Depression and its aftermath. During these years the living conditions in Harlem significantly deteriorated. The aim of this work is to critically analyze the period of African American cultural boom of the Harlem Renaissance years and discuss its relevance for the period in comparison to the artistic reactions to the experience of life in the ghetto. The proposed argument is that the way Harlem was depicted in African American culture and the artistic reflection of its duality characterized African American urban experience and culture in the period of 1920s through the 1940s, concentrating on the problem of urban reality in contrast with urban fantasy.

The study critically investigated the concept of ―Double Consciousness‖ in selected African-American autobiographies. In view of the latter, W.E.B. Du Bois defined double consciousness as a condition of being both black and American which he perceived as the reason black people were/are being discriminated in America. The study demonstrated that creative works such as Harriet Jacobs‘ Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl: Told by Herself, Frederick Douglass‘ The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois‘ The Souls of Black Folk, Booker T. Washington‘s Up from Slavery, Langston Hughes‘ The Big Sea, Zora Neale Hurston Dust Tracks on a Road, Malcolm X‘s The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Maya Angelou‘s All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes, Cornel West‘s Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud and bell hooks‘ Bone Black affirm double consciousness as well as critiqued the concept, revealing new layers of identities and contested sites of struggle in African-American society. The study used a qualitative method to analyse and argue that there are ideological shifts that manifest in the creative representation of the idea of double consciousness since slavery. Some relevant critical voices were used to support, complicate and question the notion of double consciousness as represented in selected autobiographies. The study argued that there are many identities in the African-American communities which need attention equal to that of race. The study further argued that double consciousness has been modified and by virtue of this, authors suggested multiple forms of consciousness. / English Studies

Many of the Harlem Renaissance anthologies and histories of the movement marginalize and omit women writers who played a significant role in it. They neglect to include them because these women worked outside of socially determined domestic roles and wrote texts that portrayed women as main characters rather than as muses for men or supporting characters. The distorted representation of women of the Renaissance will become clearer through the exploration of the following texts: Jessie Fauset’s Plum Bun, Caroline Bond Day’s “Pink Hat,” Dorothy West’s “Mammy,” Angelina Grimke’s Rachel and “Goldie,” and Georgia Douglas Johnson’s A Sunday Morning in the South. In these texts, the themes of passing, motherhood, and lynching are narrated from the consciousness of women, a consciousness that was largely neglected by male writers.

“For we've done so much, with so little, for so long, that now we can do anything, with nothing at all.” This popular phrase at the independent tuition-free school called Harlem Prep in many ways reflected Central Harlem itself in the late-1960s. On one hand, decades of racial discrimination and unfulfilled promises had defined schooling in the neighborhood. There were no public high schools in the area, and talented youth were being pushed out of formal education. Conversely, there was a resilience and continued, centuries-long desire for educational equity. As a result—and buoyed by the dynamic political environment—a handful of leaders in Harlem decided to create a school, similar to other efforts in U.S. cities. However, unlike other emerging Black alternative schools, it would be different than its peers: it would be a multicultural school, and it would be for students who had been pushed out of education and onto the streets. “Liberation, Learning, and Love” explores the unknown history of this school, Harlem Prep. Although firmly rooted in this era’s civil rights activism, Harlem Prep’s educational philosophy—its radical multiculturalism—was also distinct and innovative compared to other ideologies. The school’s leaders, teachers, and students were able to re-imagine education on a community-wide, institutional, and classroom level. Through its “unity in diversity” approach, Harlem Prep not only graduated and sent to college over 750 students, most of them previously out of school, but galvanized the notable Black community of Harlem. This project introduces multicultural education to the lexicon of Black alternative schools in the 1960s and 1970s, and reshapes how historians conceptualize equity, emancipatory education, and beyond. Harlem Prep imagined a more loving, pluralistic world for its young people. Perhaps its story can inspire those of us who strive to create a similar future for our youth today.

<p>The aim of the study is to investigate how double-consciousness operates through contrastive color imagery in Nella Larsen’s novel Quicksand. A focal point of the analysis is to show how Larsen thematizes the ability to benefit from bright colors and how color choice determines the quality and level of freedom in life.</p><p>Together with W. E. B. Du Bois’s theory of double-consciousness, a few other literary works by writers of the Harlem Renaissance have been considered in order to further support my arguments. I link these other writers’ perspectives to Quicksand and to the novel’s theme of color as a path to freedom.</p><p>In Quicksand, a broader path of colors, more bright than dull, leads to freedom, as is made evident through the novel’s connection of bright colors with Harlem’s freedom of expression. Furthermore, a narrow path of colors is contrastively figured as the course towards tragedy, which is clearly seen in the novel through the example of the protagonist Helga’s “sinking” due to an absence of color.</p>