"Beyond the Veil of the Secret City: New Negro Representation in Washington, D.C., 1919-1935" examines Black Washingtonians' multiple, and often competing, articulations of the New Negro. In addition to addressing the New Negro as a cultural trope that reinforces ideas about black progress, my dissertation also analyzes the term's material manifestation in the nation's capital. My dissertation builds on recent New Negro era scholarship including Chicago's New Negroes (2007) by Davarian Baldwin and Prove It On Me (2012) by Erin Chapman. These studies have conceptually decentered Harlem as the primary site in which New Negro identity flourished. These studies have also foregrounded the significance of black consumerism and leisure to New Negro identity. My study situates Washington, D.C. within this discussion by demonstrating how Black Washington used New Negro ideology as a warrant for social policing, an impetus for remaking literary and theatrical representation; and an economic activist ideology. Utilizing a rich assemblage of archival sources, I examine Black Washington's negotiation of New Negro identity in a 1919 obscenity trial, Edward Christopher Williams' epistolary novel "Letters of Davy Carr" (now published as When Washington Was in Vogue), Georgia Douglas Johnson's play William and Ellen Craft (1935), and the New Negro Alliance's newspaper New Negro Opinion. "Beyond the Veil of the Secret City" ultimately presents the New Negro was more than a literary trope used to combat racist representations. It was the ideological imperative animating Black Washington's ongoing struggle to realize racial progress in the public sphere.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uiowa.edu/oai:ir.uiowa.edu:etd-8213 |
| Date | 01 January 2013 |
| Creators | Carter, Derrais Armarne |
| Contributors | Porter, Horace A., 1950- |
| Publisher | University of Iowa |
| Source Sets | University of Iowa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright © 2013 Derrais Armarne Carter |
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