Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
Contents
1.
LANGSTON HUGHES
2
Life (1902 – 1967)
A Selected Bibliography
Selected Poems
2.
SIMPLY HEAVENLY
10
Langston Hughes and Jesse B Semple
'That Word Black'
Simple Goes to Broadway
Black Theatre in Harlem and on Broadway
3.
HARLEM AND THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
17
African American Timeline
Black British Timeline
A Short History of Harlem
The Harlem Renaissance
Jive Talk: Harlem Slang
4.
AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSIC IN THE 1950S
49
Langston Hughes and the Blues
Harlem Dance - The Lindy Hop
5.
INTERVIEWS WITH MEMBERS OF THE CREATIVE TEAM
51
6.
RESOURCES
58
If you have any questions or comments about this Resource Pack please contact us:
The Young Vic, 66 The Cut, London, SE1 8LZ
t: 020 7922 8400
f: 020 7922 8401
e: tpr@youngvic.org
Written by Kate Wild
Edited by Sue Emmas with contributions from Rae McKen
© Young Vic 2002
First performed at the Young Vic on 7 March 2002
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
1.
LANGSTON HUGHES
Life (1902-1967)
The ‘Poet Laureate of Harlem’ was born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri.
He was the great-great-grand nephew of John Mercer Langston, the first African American to be elected to
public office in 1855. His maternal grandmother's first husband had died at Harpers Ferry as a member of
John Brown, a famous abolitionist's, band. Her second husband (Hughes's grandfather) had also been a
militant abolitionist. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. Raised
by his grandmother until he was thirteen, Hughes was a lonely child who was driven, as he once said, 'to
books, and the wonderful world in books.'
He then moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, eventually settling in Cleveland,
Ohio. Hughes attended Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio, where he began writing poetry in the eighth
grade, and was selected as Class Poet. His father didn't think he would be able to make a living as at writing,
and encouraged him to pursue a more practical career, paying his tuition to Columbia University on the
condition he study engineering. After a short time, Langston dropped out of the program with a B+ average,
and meanwhile he continued writing poetry. His first published poem was also one of his most famous, 'The
Negro Speaks of Rivers', and it appeared in Brownie's Book, the youth magazine of the NAACP's (National
Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) publication Crisis.
In 1923, Hughes worked abroad a freighter, travelling to the Senegal, Nigeria, the Cameroons, Belgium
Congo, Angola, and Guinea in Africa, and later to Italy and France, Russia and Spain. He returned to Harlem,
in 1924, the period known as the Harlem Renaissance. During this period, his work was frequently published
and his writing flourished. His major early influences were Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, as well as the Black
poets Paul Laurence Dunbar, a master of both dialect and standard verse, and Claude McKay, a radical
socialist who also wrote accomplished lyric poetry. One of his favourite pastimes whether abroad, in
Washington, DC. or Harlem, New York was sitting in the clubs listening to blues, jazz and writing poetry.
Through these experiences a new rhythm emerged in his writing, and a series of poems such as 'The Weary
Blues' were penned.
In 1926, in the Nation, a liberal weekly magazine, he skillfully argued the need for both race pride and artistic
independence in his most memorable essay, 'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain':
"We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If
white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren't, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly
too... If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We
build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top of the mountain, free
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
within ourselves."
By this time, Hughes had enrolled at the historically Black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, from which he
would graduate in 1929. In 1927 he began one of the most important relationships of his life, with his patron
Mrs Charlotte Mason, or ‘Godmother’, who generously supported him for two years. She supervised the
writing of his first novel, Not Without Laughter (1930) about a sensitive, Black midwestern boy and his
struggling family. However, their relationship collapsed about the time the novel appeared, and Hughes sank
into a period of intense personal unhappiness and disillusionment. One result was his firm turn to the far left in
politics. During a year (1932-1933) spent in the Soviet Union, he wrote his most radical verse. A year in
Carmel, California, led to a collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folks (1934). This volume is marked
by pessimism about race relations, as well as a sardonic realism.
In the mid-thirties, Hughes turned to the stage and wrote several plays, the most notable success being his
play Mulatto, on the twinned themes of mixed-race children and parental rejection, which was a hit on
Broadway in 1935. In 1938 he founded the Harlem Suitcase Theater, which staged his agitprop drama Don't
You Want to Be Free? The play, employing several of his poems, vigorously blended Black nationalism, the
blues, and socialist exhortation. The same year, a socialist organisation published a pamphlet of his radical
verse, 'A New Song.'
With World War II, Hughes became disillusioned with communism and moved more to the centre politically,
releasing his first volume of autobiography, The Big Sea (1940) and a book of verse Shakespeare in Harlem
(1942), where he once returned to the blues form for inspiration. This collection, as well as another, his Jim
Crow's Last Stand (1943), continued to strongly attack racial segregation. Perhaps his finest literary
achievement during the war was the creation of the character Jesse B. Semple, or Simple, who would later go
on to be the subject of five collections edited by Hughes, starting in 1950 with Simple Speaks His Mind. (See
the section on Langston Hughes and Jesse B Semple on page 10) In the late forties Kurt Weill and Elmer Rice
chose Hughes as the lyricist for their Street Scene (1947). This production was hailed as a breakthrough in the
development of American opera; for Hughes, the apparently endless cycle of poverty into which he had been
locked came to an end. He bought a home in Harlem.
After the war, in Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951) Hughes broke new ground with verse accented by the
discordant nature of the new bebop jazz that reflected a growing desperation in the Black urban communities
of the North. The collection included his poem 'Harlem' (see page 9 for the full poem) in which Lorraine
Hansberry would find the inspiration and the title for her play A Raisin in the Sun. In 1953 Hughes was forced
by Senator Joseph McCarthy to testify officially about his politics. He denied that he had ever been a
communist party member but conceded that some of his radical verse had been ill-advised. Within a short
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
time, however, McCarthy himself was discredited and Hughes was free to write at length about his years in the
Soviet Union in I Wonder as I Wander (1956), his much-admired second volume of autobiography.
In the 1950s he looked to the musical stage for success: his musical Simply Heavenly (1957) was transferred
to Broadway for a respectable run. However, Hughes' Tambourines to Glory (1963), a gospel musical play
satirising corruption in a Black storefront church, failed badly, with some critics accusing him of creating
caricatures of Black life.
The 1960s saw Hughes as productive as ever. In 1962 his ambitious book-length poem Ask Your Mama,
dense with allusions to Black culture and music, appeared. However, the reviews were dismissive. Hughes's
work was not as universally acclaimed as before in the Black community. Although he was hailed in 1966 as a
historic artistic figure at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, he also found himself
increasingly rejected by young Black militants at home as the civil rights movement lurched toward Black
Power. His last book was the volume of verse, posthumously published, The Panther and the Lash (1967),
mainly about civil rights. Langston Hughes died of cancer on May 22, 1967. His residence at 20 East 127th
Street in Harlem, New York has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission.
His block of East 127th Street was renamed ‘Langston Hughes Place’.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
A Selected Bibiography
Hughes' body of work was both large and richly varied and includes several collaborations. He wrote many
works for children including the successful Popo and Fifina (1932), a tale set in Haiti and written with Arna
Bontemps, and several books on subjects such as jazz, Africa, and the West Indies. He also wrote a
commissioned history of the NAACP and the text of a much praised pictorial history of Black America. His text
in The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955), where he explicated photographs of Harlem by Roy DeCarava, was
judged masterful by reviewers. The list of works below is by no means comprehensive:
Poetry
The Weary Blues (1926)
Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
Dear Lovely Death (1931)
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1932)
Scottsboro Limited (1932)
Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)
Freedom's Plow (1943)
Fields of Wonder (1947)
One-Way Ticket (1949)
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Selected Poems (1959)
Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961)
The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times (1967)
Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994) Edited by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel.
Prose
Not Without Laughter (1930)
The Ways of White Folks (1934)
The Big Sea (1940)
Simple Speaks His Mind (1950)
Laughing to Keep From Crying (1952)
Simple Takes a Wife (1953)
I Wonder as I Wander (1956)
Simple Stakes a Claim (1957)
The Langston Hughes Reader (1958)
Tambourines to Glory (1958)
Something in Common and Other Stories (1963)
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
Simple's Uncle Sam (1965)
Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings by Langston Hughes (1973) Edited by Faith
Berry.
The Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters (1980) Edited by Charles Nichols.
Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964 (2001).
Drama
Mule Bone (1930) With Zora Neale Hurston.
Little Ham (1935)
Mulatto (1935)
Soul Gone Home (1937)
Don't You Want to Be Free? (1938)
Simply Heavenly (1957)
Black Nativity (1961)
Five Plays by Langston Hughes (1963) Edited by Webster Smalley.
The Political Plays of Langston Hughes (2000) Introduction by Susan Duffy.
Collected Works of Langston Hughes, vol. 5: The Plays to 1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move (2000) Edited
by Leslie Catherine Sanders.
Poetry in Translation
Cuba Libre (1948) By Nicolas Guillen, translated by Hughes and BF Carruthers.
Gypsy Ballads (1951) By Federico García Lorca.
Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral (1957)
Translation
Masters of the Dew (1947) By Jacques Roumain, translated by Hughes and M Cook.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
Selected Poems
‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow
of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went
down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn
all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
‘The Weary Blues’
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan "Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more-"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
‘Harlem’
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load?
Or does it explode?
I, Too, Sing America
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed -
I, too, am America.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
2.
SIMPLY HEAVENLY
Langston Hughes and Jesse B Semple
As Langston Hughes tells it, the character of Simple was created one day when he met a distant acquaintance
in his favourite Harlem Bar - Patsy's Bar and Grill. Joining the man and his girlfriend for a drink, Hughes asked
him what he did for a living. The man told him that he helped make cranks in a defence factory. “What kind of
cranks?” Hughes asked. The man didn't know. How could he not know what sort of cranks he made?
demanded his girlfriend. On the defensive the man replied that white folks never told Black folks such things
and he knew better than to ask. "I don't crank with those cranks, I just make 'em". His girlfriend was scornful,
saying "You sound right simple".
Langston Hughes introduced the world to Jess B Semple on February 13, 1943 in "From Here to Yonder", the
weekly column he wrote for the Black-owned Chicago Defender. The initial purpose of Hughes' character was
to encourage African Americans to support the Allied cause in World War II, but Simple came to express the
more widespread frustrations, anger and disgust of most African Americans living in the deeply divided society
of post war America.
Simple became a popular figure and the column was syndicated to several other newspapers. In 1950 Hughes
published a collection of Simple stories called Simple Speaks His Mind. The volume sold well and was well
received by critics. Langston Hughes dryly commented that "this gentleman of colour, who can't get a cup of
coffee in a public place in the towns and cities where most of our American book reviewers live is nevertheless
being warmly received by white male critics from Texas to Maine." Four more volumes followed between 1953
and 1965, including Simple Takes a Wife in 1953 which Hughes went on to adapt as the musical: Simply
Heavenly.
When Hughes tried to explain how he came to write Simple’s speeches he said it was "Really very simple. It is
just myself talking to me. Or else me talking to myself."
Simple was always presented by Hughes' in
conversation with the fictional narrator of the column, allowing Hughes to present two aspects of himself and
of the African American experience. Boyd, as Simple's straight-man came to be known, is educated, poised
yet conventional. Simple in contrast, is lacking in education and presents his fusion of down-to-earth
philosophy and rich wit through a heady mixture of rural folk motifs and hip Harlem expressions. Boyd is a
romantic and an idealist. Simple is a realist, allowing Hughes to confront head-on the issues of race and
racism. "Negroes are advancing," says Boyd. "I have not advanced one step" replies Simple "still the same old
job, same old salary, same old kitchenette, same old Harlem and the same old color.” "You bring race into
everything," complains Boyd. " It is everything," states Simple.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
‘That Word Black’
An Article from The Return of Simple by Langston Hughes
"This evening," said Simple, "I feel like talking about the word black."
"Nobody's stopping you, so go ahead. But what you really ought to have is a soap-box out on the corner of
126th and Lenox where the rest of the orators hang out."
"They expresses some good ideas on that corner," said Simple, "but for my ideas I do not need a crowd. Now,
as I were saying, the word black, white folks have done used that word to mean something bad so often until
now when the N.A.A.C.P. asks for civil rights for the black man, they think they must be bad. Looking back into
history, I reckon it all started with a black cat meaning bad luck. Don't let one cross your path!
Next, somebody got up a blacklist on which you get if you don't vote right. Then when lodges came into being,
the folks they didn't want in them got blackballed. If you kept a skeleton in your closet, you might get
blackmailed. And everything bad was black. When it came down to the unlucky ball on the table, the eightrock, they made it the black ball. So no wonder there ain't no equal rights for the black man.
"All you say is true about the odium attached to the word black", I said. "You've even forgotten a few. For
example, during the war if you bought something under the table, illegally, they said you were trading on the
black market. In Chicago, if you're a gangster, the Black Hand Society may take you for a ride. And certainly if
you don't behave yourself, your family will say you're a black sheep. Then, if your mama burns a black candle
to change the family luck, they call it black magic."
"My mama never did believe in voodoo, so she did not burn no black candles," said Simple.
"If she had, that would have been a black mark against her."
"Stop talking about my mama. What I want to know is, where do white folks get off calling everything bad
black? If it is a dark night, they say it's black as hell. If you are mean and evil, they say you got a black heart. I
would like to change all that around and say that the people who Jim Crow me have got a white heart. People
who sell dope to children have got a white mark against them, And all the white gamblers who were behind the
basketball fix are the white sheep of the sports world. God knows there was few, if any, Negroes selling stuff
on the black market during the war, so why didn't they call it the white market? No, they got to take me and my
color and turn it into everything bad. According to white folks, black is bad.
"Wait till my day comes! In my language, bad will be white. Blackmail will be whitemail. Black cats will be good
luck, and white cats will be bad. If a white cat crosses your path, look out! I will take the black ball for the cue
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
ball and let the white ball be the unlucky eight-rock. And on my blacklist - which will be a whitelist - I will put
everybody who ever Jim Crowed me from Rankin to Hitler, Talmadge to Malan, South Carolina to South
Africa.
"I am black. When I look in the mirror, I see myself, daddy-o, but I am not ashamed. God made me. He also
made F D, dark as he is. He did not make us no badder than the rest of the folks. The earth is black and all
kinds of good things comes out of the earth. Trees and flowers and fruit and sweet potatoes and corn and all
that keeps mens alive comes right up out of the earth - good old black earth. Coal is black and it warms your
house and cooks your food. The night is black, which has a moon, and a million stars, and is beautiful. Sleep
is black, which gives you rest, so you wake up feeling good. I am black. I feel very good this evening.
"What is wrong with black?"
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
Simple Goes to Broadway
When Hughes decided to take Simple onto the stage, he used his second Simple book, Simple Takes a Wife,
(published in 1953) as a starting point. With Simple Takes a Wife, Hughes had written more of a novel,
exploring several characters in greater depth, especially the women who had appeared only briefly in earlier
Simple material. The novel had originally been called Simply Heavenly and when Hughes decided to use it as
the basis of a musical script, he returned to this title.
The process of getting a play from idea to stage was a frustrating one and Hughes wrote of Simply Heavenly's
ups and downs in an article called 'You're Simple if You Want to Write a Play'.
"When I first put Simple into play form myself, it was a straight comedy. The producers holding the option,
however, suggested making a musical, so I rewrote it and inserted 20 songs. Meanwhile these showmen went
broke and allowed their option to run out. The producers who took the next option had entirely opposite ideas,
so working with a new director of their choice, the play underwent a third drastic revision. Still no production
came about."
During the many rewrites Hughes drew from the columns he had written about Simple. He said he had fun
letting the directors think he was a fast writer. He also thought that the "songs are the most fun" and took
pleasure in working with David Martin in adding many new musical numbers. Finally, under the direction of a
fourth director, the play came to the stage.
Simply Heavenly opened in May 1957 at the auditorium of the Order of the True Sisters on West 85th Street to
wonderful notices. The production thrived in this small, off-Broadway auditorium until the fire department
closed the theatre for building violations. The show then moved to the Playhouse, an intimate theatre on
Broadway, opening there on August 20, 1957. It was well-received by the critics and achieved a respectable
run. Brooks Atkinson in The New York Times praised it saying: "Mr Hughes loves Harlem. He loves the
humour, the quarrels, the intrigues, the crisises and the native shrewdness that makes life possible from day
to day. He has written Simply Heavenly like a Harlem man. If it were a tidier show, it would probably be a good
deal less enjoyable. It would seem like something that has been improvised out of high spirits for the sake of a
good time."
Simply Heavenly had a very brief run at the Adelphi in London in 1958, but since then hasn't been seen in
Britain until the Young Vic's production this year.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
Black Theatre in Harlem and on Broadway
In the second stanza of his poem ‘Note on the Commercial Theater’, Langston Hughes writes:
You also took my spirituals and gone.
You put me in Macbeth and Carmen Jones
And all kinds of Swing Mikados
And in everything but what’s about me—
But someday, somebody'll
stand up and talk about me
and write about me
black and beautiful
and sing about me
and put on plays about me!
I reckon it'll be
me myself!
Yes, it'll be me.
Hughes' poem responds to the fact that African American playwrights and performers did not have a voice in
the popular theatre until the twentieth century. Some of the first representations of African Americans on the
stage were created by white performers in the now notorious black-and-white minstrel shows. These shows
presented Black stereotypes that supported racist assumptions about African American behaviour and
character. It wasn't until 1898, with the musicals A Trip to Coontown and Clorindy, that Broadway was
introduced to its first Black performers. Although these two musicals maintained some of the stereotypes from
the black-and-white minstrel shows, they contained a broader spectrum of Black experience and went on to
make Black musicals a Broadway staple. Shows such as In Dahomey (1903), Abyssinia (1906), The Oyster
Man (1907), The Shoo-Fly Regiment (1907) and The Red Moon (1909) introduced Broadway to some of the
top Black performers of the age: Bob Cole, Bert Williams, George Walker, J Rosamund Johnson and Ernest
Hogan. By 1910, however this brief flowering of Black theatre on Broadway had ended as death and illness
halted the careers of three out of four of these performers. However Black theatre still flourished in Harlem, as
all-Black ensembles such as the Lafayette Players experimented with serious drama and classic revivals.
Similarly musical revue-style shows were so popular that Broadway audiences began to travel to Harlem to
see them and sections of these revues were programmed into Flo Ziegfeld's Follies on Broadway.
In 1921 Shuffle Along, a musical comedy by Eubie Blake ran to 504 performances on Broadway. Its breathless
choreography and physical comedy, impressed both critics and audiences creating a flurry of impersonations.
As financial success came to Black musicals, whites gradually took over in the creative and financial areas of
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
production. In the late 1920s several serious dramas began to be written dealing with themes of poverty and
hardship among African Americans. The most notable of these were Porgy (1927) and The Green Pastures
(1930). Although these plays were by white authors and used racist stereotypes, they served to prove to
Broadway audiences and critics that Black performers could perform in dramatic roles with subtlety and
intelligence. Black dramatists, however were still few and far between with only three plays by Black writers
appearing on Broadway in the twenties: Appearances (1925) by Garland Anderson, Meek Moses (1928) by
Frank Wilson and Harlem (1929) by Wallace Thurman.
Broadway was hit by the Great Depression and Black writers and performers suffered more than most. The
Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) and Langston Hughes Mulatto (1935) were the only notable productions
from this period. Mulatto would stay the longest running play by a Black playwright until Lorraine Hansberry's
Raisin in the Sun in the late 50s. Many Black artists received work with the Federal Theatre Project. This
government-sponsored scheme produced many plays including Walk Together Chillun and Turpentine in 1936
and Swing It in 1937.
In 1938 Langston Hughes founded the Harlem Suitcase Theater, which staged his agitprop drama Don't You
Want to Be Free? The play, employing several of his poems, vigorously blended Black nationalism, the blues,
and socialist exhortation.
During the war Black dramas flourished in Harlem with the formation of American Negro Theater (ANT). Some
of its productions received Broadway runs including Anna Lucasta in 1944.
After World War II the number of shows performed by all-Black ensembles declined as Black performers
began to appear more frequently in plays and musicals with predominantly white casts. Straight drama began
to tackle the problems of racism such as Deep are the Roots (1945), Set My People Free (1948) and Mister
Johnson (1956). Black authors contributed such work as Our Lan' (1947), Take a Giant Step (1953), Trouble
in Mind (1955) and A Land Beyond the River (1957). Two years after Simply Heavenly had a modest run on
Broadway, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, a play about a Black family in Chicago who aspire to a
house in the suburbs, won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play in 1959 and was a huge hit
on Broadway.
During the 1960s Black theatre flourished alongside a powerful civil rights movement, plays began to carry a
stronger political message. Baldwin’s explosive drama, Blues, first produced in 1964 in New York by the
Actor’s Studio, explored the racial conflicts in a small southern town confronted with the killing of a Black boy
and the subsequent trial of the white man who murdered him. The work of LeRoi Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka)
started to pass into the mainstream. His play Dutchman won the Village Voice OBIE Award for Best American
Off-Broadway Play for 1964. As the acknowledged leader of the Black Arts and Black Theatre movements of
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
the 1960s, Baraka founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre and School in Harlem in 1964. There was also a
growth in interest in Black history and culture as the roots of Black music were explored in Black Nativity
(1961) and Hughes' Tambourines to Glory (1966), while plays like The Hand is on the Gate (1966) explored
the history of race relations in the US. The 1960s also saw the rise of The Negro Ensemble Company, the
New Lafayette Theatre and the New Federal Theatre companies, which were directed by Black artists.
In the 1970s Broadway began to see a resurgence in Black musicals, such as Aint Misbehavin' and Eubie! in
1978. Other serious plays won recognition such as The River Niger (1973) and For Coloured Girls Who Have
Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf (1976) by Ntozake Shange. A collection of twenty poems that
explore the realities and complexities of life for seven Black women, the play interweaves poetry, music,
dance, and drama to produce what Shange terms a “choreopoem.” First staged in a women’s bar in Berkeley,
California, the play moved to New York in 1975. It eventually appeared on Broadway, garnering resounding
recognition and praise and winning an OBIE Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Audience Development
Committee (Audelco) Award, and Mademoiselle Award in 1977. The play also received Tony, Grammy, and
Emmy award nominations. Success in the Black theatre continued to grow during the 1980s. In 1982 Charles
Fuller won a Pultizer prize for A Soldier's Play and Dreamgirls won a sweep of Tony’s in the same year. The
powerful and prolific dramatist August Wilson was the most important creator of Black theatre in the 1980s.
His play Fences was a big hit in1985.
Much of the growing success of Black theatre can also be attributed to a growing Black audience. Earlier in
the century Black shows were created for a white audience, but as theatres phased out segregated
auditoriums and groups such as The Negro Ensemble Company encouraged the attendance of a Black
audience, Black audiences began to support the work of Black writers and performers in the theatre. However,
while there are now many important Black playwrights who "write about me" as Hughes once dreamed, and
though many Black actors and performers have a popular and critical following, it is important to remember
that Black theatre is still greatly underrepresented on Broadway and in the rest of American theatres.
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3.
HARLEM AND THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
An African American Timeline
This history contains major events in the social history of African Americans, interspersed with the publication
of major works by Black authors, poets and playwrights and biographical details from the life of Langston
Hughes. It will hopefully show the history that Langston Hughes was drawing on while writing Simply Heavenly
and how race relations progressed after its premiere. This history is a compiled, expanded and edited version
of several chronologies from the internet, as listed in the bibliography.
Bold type indicates a key event in the history or literary heritage of African Americans, or an important event in
the life of Langston Hughes. Italics indicate the title of a publication or play, followed by its author. The year
listed is the year of publication for books and of premiere performances for theatre, unless otherwise noted.
1619
The first Africans arrive in the American Colonies. Twenty indentured servants (bound to work without
wages) are captured in Africa and then sold in an auction in Jamestown, Virginia. White indentured servants
can earn their freedom after four to seven years. Most of the Black servants do not have this opportunity.
1637
A Dutchman called Hendrick de Forest establishes a village to the north of Manhattan. He names it after a
Dutch town called Haarlem.
1638
The New England slave trade begins with the shipment of Native American slaves to the West Indies, where
they are exchanged for Africans and goods.
1664
First law prohibiting marriage between English women and Black men enacted in Maryland; the other colonies
will pass similar laws.
1760
An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries, by Jupiter Hammon, a New York slave
and probably the first published Black poet.
1773
Massachusetts slaves petition the legislature for freedom.
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley.
1776
Declaration of American Independence adopted on 4 July. A section denouncing the slave trade was
deleted.
1777
Vermont becomes the first American colony to abolish slavery. Other Northern states followed over the next
two decades.
1791
Beginning of the Haitian Revolution.
1804
Jean Jacques Dessalines proclaims the independence of Haiti, which becomes the second republic in the
Western Hemisphere.
The first of a series of Northern Black Laws is passed by the Ohio legislature. These restrict the rights and
movement of free Black people in the North.
1807
Congress bans the slave trade.
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1820
Missouri Compromise enacted. It prohibits slavery to the north of the southern boundary of Missouri.
1823
King Shotaway, by James Brown, first known play by a Black playwright.
1827
Freedom's Journal, the first Black newspaper, is published in New York City.
Slavery abolished in New York State.
1834
Slavery abolished in the British Empire.
1837
La Mulatre, by Victor Séjour, the earliest known work of African American fiction.
1845
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass, one of the most eminent Abolitionists of
the century.
1850
Fugitive Slave Act passed by Congress, which provides for the seizure and return of runaway slaves fleeing
from one state to another.
1853
Clotel, by William Wells Brown, the first novel by an African American.
1854
The Kansas-Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri Compromise and opens Northern territory to slavery.
1855
John Mercer Langston, Hughes' great-great-grand uncle is one of the first African Americans to be elected to
public office.
1857
Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court opens Northern territory to slavery and denies citizenship to African
Americans.
1858
The Escape, by William Wells Brown, the first play by a Black American to be published.
1859
The militant abolitionist John Brown sets out for Harpers Ferry with five Black men (including Langston
Hughes' grandmother's first husband) and 16 white men in an attempt to assist runaway slaves and launch
attacks on slaveholders. Met by a local militia many die, the rest are arrested, tried and executed.
1860
Abraham Lincoln is elected president: South Carolina declares itself an 'independent commonwealth.'
1862
Congress abolishes slavery in Washington.
1863
Emancipation Proclamation issued by US President Abraham Lincoln on 1 January, 1863, that frees the
slaves of the Confederate states in rebellion against the Union.
1865
The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery.
1867
The Fourteenth Amendment extends the Bill of Rights to individuals, thus preventing states from
depriving individuals of federally guaranteed rights.
1870
The Fifteenth Amendment guarantees the right to vote to all men of all races (women do not get the vote
until 1920).
1875
Civil Rights Bill gives African Americans the right to equal treatment in inns, public transportation, etc.
1870-95 Many African Americans gain elective office, but at the same time there are outbreaks of violence against
Black people in the South.
1880
Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings, by Joel Chandler Harris.
1881
Segregation of Public Transport. Tennessee segregates railroad cars, establishing a trend that spread
through 13 states over the next 30 years.
An Autobiography of the Reverend Josiah Henson ('Uncle Tom').
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1882-96 More than 1200 reported lynchings of African Americans.
1890
Clarence and Corinne; or, God's Way, by Mrs A E Johnson.
1896
The doctrine of 'separate but equal' upheld by the Supreme Court, 18 May in the case of Plessy v
Ferguson. The ruling initiates the age of Jim Crow legislation, a nickname for all segregation laws based
on a character from the Black-faced minstrel shows.
The Suppression of the African Slave Trade, by W E B DuBois, eminent sociologist and one of the most
important Black protest leaders of the first half of the 20th Century, who would later lecture Lorraine Hansberry
at University.
Lyrics of Lowly Life, by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
1896-1906 800 reported lynchings of African Americans.
1898
Spanish-American War. Sixteen regiments of Black volunteers recruited in the course of the war. US gains
the Hawaiian Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands. Five Black soldiers win Congressional Medals
of Honour.
1899
The Conjure Woman and Other Tales, by Charles W. Chesnutt.
1900
A riot breaks out in Hell's Kitchen between Irish and Black communities over the death of a white
police officer, provoking a mass migration of Black New Yorkers to Harlem.
Census - US Population: 76,994,575, Black Population: 8,833,944 (11.6%).
Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing, composed by James Weldon Johnson and J Rosamond Johnson, will become a
Black anthem.
1901
Up From Slavery, by Booker T Washington, educator and reformer, who, this year, becomes the first Black
man to be invited to dine at the White House.
1902
Langston Hughes born in Joplin Missouri
1903
The Souls of Black Folk, by W E B DuBois, in it he rejects the gradualism of Booker T Washington, calling
for agitation on behalf of African American rights.
1905
The Niagara Movement, led by DuBois, demands abolition of all distinctions based on race.
1906
Race riots in Atlanta and Philadelphia.
1909
National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) founded on 12 February, the
100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, with the intention of promoting the use of the courts to restore
the legal rights of African Americans.
1910
Crisis, first issue published by DuBois, sponsored by the NAACP
Segregated Neighbourhoods. On 19 December, the City Council of Baltimore approves the first city
ordinance designating the boundaries of Black and white neighbourhoods. This ordinance was copied by nine
other cities.
1911
The National Urban League formed to help African Americans secure equal employment.
1912
W C Handy's Memphis Blues, the first blues composition to published.
The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, by James Weldon Johnson.
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1912
Harriet Tubman, dies 10 March. A bondwoman who escaped from slavery in the South, she became a leading
Abolitionist before the American Civil War. She led hundreds of bondsmen to freedom in the North along the
route of the Underground Railroad - an elaborate secret network of safe houses organised for that purpose.
Woodrow Wilson's administration begins segregating Blacks and whites in government departments.
1915
Renowned African American spokesman, Booker T. Washington dies, 14 November. The Ku Klux Klan, a
secret society based on the principles of white supremacy and segregation and responsible for many of the
lynchings of Black men and women, receives a charter from the Fulton County, Georgia, Superior Court. The
organisation spreads quickly, reaching its height in the 1920s, when it has an estimated 4 million members.
Great Migration begins. Approximately 2 million African Americans from the Southern states move to
northern industrial centres during the following decades, looking for relief from racism and seeking better jobs
and schools. The migration increases during the First World War when jobs opened up in war production
industries. It continues through to the 1960s. In 1890 85% of the Black population lived in the South. By 1960
that number had been reduced to 42%.
1916
Rachel, a play by Angelina W Grinké is a great success.
1917
United States enters World War I.
Major race riots in East St Louis, Illinois.
More than 10,000 African Americans march down Fifth Avenue in New York City in a silent parade to protest
lynchings and racial indignities, organised by the NAACP.
Race riots in Houston lead to the hanging of 13 Black soldiers.
1918
World War I ends. Official records indicate that 370,000 Black soldiers and 1400 Black commissioned officers
participated, more than half of them in the European Theatre. Three Black regiments - the 369th, 371st, and
272nd - receive the Croix de Guerre for valour. The 369th was the first American regiment to reach the Rhine.
1919
DuBois organizes the first Pan-African conference in Paris.
The 'Red Summer'; a total of 26 race riots in Charleston, Washington, Chicago, Arkansas, and Texas. In
Chicago, on 27 July a young Black man, Eugene Williams flees a fight between Black and white gangs on
29th Street Breach by swimming out into the water where he became exhausted and drowned. A rumour that
he had been stoned to death provokes five days of rioting, resulting in the deaths of 23 African Americans, 15
white people and injuring a further 291 people.
1920
Marcus Garvey launches the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Harlem; the first mass
movement for African Americans. He addresses a crowd of 25,000 in Madison Square Garden.
1922
A federal anti-lynching bill is killed by filibuster (a speech by a senator that lasts so long it obstructs the
progress of the bill) in the Senate, the same year as 51 African Americans are known to have been lynched.
Martial law is declared in Oklahoma as a result of activities by the Klu Klux Klan.
Cane, by Jean Toomer.
1923
There is Confusion, by Jessie Fauset and Fire in the Flint, by Walter White.
1924
Langston Hughes returns to Harlem
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The Civic Club Dinner held, marking the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance, a remarkable period of
creativity for Black writers, poets and artists (see page 46).
Carter G. Woodson organises the first Negro History Week celebration in the second week of February to
include the birthday of Abraham Lincoln and the generally accepted birthday of Frederick Douglass.
1925
Alain Locke edits an issue of Survey Graphic filling it with Black art, literature and folklore, declaring a
‘New Negro’ movement.
Malcolm Little (later Malcolm X) born on 19 May in Omaha, Nebraska. Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
is organised; A Philip Randolph elected president. The BSCP is the first union of Black workers, at a time
when half the affiliates of the American Federation of Labour barred Black people from membership.
Louis Armstrong records the first of Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings that influenced the direction of jazz.
40,000 Klu Klux Klan members parade in Washington
Colour, by Countee Cullen and The New Negro: An Interpretation by Alain Locke.
The Weary Blues, by Langston Hughes and Blues: An Anthology, edited by W C Handy.
1926
Duke Ellington opens at the Cotton Club in Harlem.
Congaree Sketches, by Edward C L Adams and Walls of Jericho by Rudolph Fisher.’
'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountian' by Langston Hughes
1928
Nigger to Nigger, by Edward C L Adams, Quicksand, by Nella Larsen and
Home to Harlem, by Claude McKay.
1929
Martin Luther King, Jr, born on 15 January in Atlanta. Later to become Dr King.
The stock market crashes on 19 October, beginning the Great Depression and marking the end of the Harlem
Renaissance. By 1937, 26% of Black males are unemployed.
The Blacker the Berry, by Wallace Thurman.
1930
Black population of Harlem has reached 180,000.
Langston Hughes publishes his first novel Not Without Laughter
1931
First Scottsboro trial begins in Scottsboro, Alabama on 6 April. Nine Black youths are accused of raping two
white women on a freight train. The blatant injustice of the case outrages the public throughout the 1930s.
Black No More, by George Schuyler.
1932
A Southern Road, by Sterling A Brown and The Conjure Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem, by
Rudolph Fisher.
Langston Hughes spends a year in the Soviet Union.
1934
Jonah's Gourd Vine, by Zora Neale Hurston.
1935
Joe Louis, the Black boxer, defeats Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium.
National Council of Negro Women founded in New York; Mary McLeod Bethune, President.
Mulatto, by Langston Hughes, a Broadway hit.
1936
Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at the Olympics in Berlin, in defiance of Hitler's Aryan-supremacist
propaganda.
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Black Thunder, by Arna Bontempls.
1937
Joe Louis becomes heavyweight boxing champion.
Bessie Smith, one of the great blues singers, dies.
Uncle Tom's Children, by Richard Wright.
1938
James Weldon Johnson, poet, diplomat and anthologist of Black culture, dies.
Marian Anderson performs before 75,000 at the Lincoln Monument. Her concert is scheduled in protest of the
decision made by the Daughters of the American Revolution to forbid, for reasons of race, Ms Anderson to
sing in Constitution Hall.
1940
Marcus Garvey dies in London.
President Roosevelt issues a statement that segregation is the policy in the US armed forces.
Native Son, by Richard Wright.
Langston Hughes publishes the first volume of his auto-biography, The Big Sea.
1941
US enters World War II.
President Roosevelt, responding to pressure from Black leaders, issues an Executive Order forbidding racial
and religious discrimination in war industries, governmental training programs, and governmental industries.
First US Army flying school for Black cadets established at Tuskegee.
The first of many serious racial incidents between Black and white soldiers and Black soldiers and white
civilians; these continue throughout the war. Ferdinand ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton, jazz composer and pianist who
pioneered the use of prearranged, semi-orchestrated effects in jazz-band performances, dies.
The Negro Caravan, by Sterling Brown, Arthur P Davis and Ulysses Lee.
1942
Congress of Race Equality (CORE) organised in Chicago. It advocates direct, non-violent action. The National
CORE is organised in 1943.
Negro Digest, first issue published by John H Johnson.
1943
Race riots in Detroit, Harlem, and elsewhere.
Thomas W ‘Fats’ Waller, pianist, composer and one of the few jazz musicians to achieve commercial fame,
dies.
Jesse B Semple introduced to the readers of Langston Hughes' column ‘From Here to Yonder’ in the
Chicago Defender.
1944
United Negro College Fund is founded by Frederick D Patterson, President of Tuskegee University. The fund
goes on to become America's oldest and most successful African American higher education assistance
organisation.
Adam Clayton Powel, prominent Black activist, is elected to Congress.
Rendezvous with America, by Melvin Tolson.
1945
President Roosevelt dies.
United Nations founded.
Germany surrenders on 8 May, V-E Day. Japan surrenders on 2 September, V-J Day, ending World War
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II. Total of 1,154,720 Black Americans were inducted or drafted into the armed services during the war.
White students in various metropolitan areas protest against integration in the schools.
Brooklyn Dodgers sign Jackie Robinson, the first Black man to play major league baseball.
Ebony, first issue published by John H. Johnson, Lay My Burden Down, by B A Botkin, A Street in Bronzeville,
by Gwendolyn Brooks and If He Hollers, Let Him Go, by Chester Himes.
1946
Supreme Court bans segregation on interstate bus travel.
The Street, by Ann Petry and The Foxes of Harrow, by Frank Yerby.
1947
Widespread violence against Black Americans, especially returning soldiers.
CORE sends 23 Black and white Freedom Riders through the South to test compliance with court orders.
Knock on Any Door, by Willard Motley.
1948
President Truman issues an Executive Order directing equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed
forces.
1950
Simple Speaks His Mind, a collection of stories based around Hughes' creation Jess B Semple
published.
Gwendolyn Brooks receives Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Ralph Bunche receives Nobel Prize for his successful mediation of the Palestine conflict.
Americans from Africa, by Saunders Redding.
1951
Jet Magazine, founded by John H Johnson.
Montage of a Dream Deferred, a book of poetry by Langston Hughes
1952
In the 1950s, school segregation was widely accepted throughout the nation. In fact, it was required by law in
most southern states. In 1952, the Supreme Court heard a number of school-segregation cases, including
Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
University of Tennessee admits first Black student.
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, Review by Saul Bellow, Libretto for the Republic of Liberia, by Melvin B
Tolson.
1953
Simple Takes a Wife, the novel Simply Heavenly is based on, is published.
The movement of Black families into Trumbull Park housing project in Chicago, 4 August, triggers
virtually continuous rioting lasting more than three years and requires over one thousand policemen to
maintain order.
Langston Hughes is forced to testify at the McCarthy hearings.
Go Tell It to the Mountain, by James Baldwin.
1954
Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v Board of Education declares segregation in public
schools unconstitutional - "Separate is not equal". School integration begins in Washington and Baltimore.
Defence Department announces elimination of all segregated regiments in the armed forces.
Youngblood, by John O Killens.
1955
Marian Anderson debuts at the Metropolitan Opera House, the first Black singer in the company's history.
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Supreme Court orders school integration "with all deliberate speed."
Emmet Till, aged 14, kidnapped and lynched in Money, Mississippi on 28 August.
Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks, a 43 year old Black seamstress, is arrested in Montgomery,
Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. The following night, fifty leaders of the Negro
community meet at Dexter Ave Baptist Church to discuss the issue. Among them is the young minister, Martin
Luther King. The leaders organise the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which deprives the bus company of 65% of
its income, but also results in a $500 fine or 386 days in jail for Martin Luther King. He pays the fine, and eight
months later, the Supreme Court decides, based on the school segregation cases, that bus segregation
violates the constitution.
Richard J Daley elected Mayor of Chicago and holds the office for an unprecedented 14 years and 3 days.
1956
Home of Martin Luther King is bombed on 30 January.
First Black student admitted to the University of Alabama on 3 February. She is suspended after a riot on 7
February and expelled on 29 February.
Nat King Cole attacked on stage in Birmingham, Alabama by white supremacists.
Bus Boycott begins in Tallahassee.
Federal court rules that racial segregation on Montgomery city buses violates the Constitution. Supreme Court
upholds the decision several months later.
1957
Simply Heavenly opens in May at the auditorium of the Order of the True Sisters on West 85th Street.
When the theatre is closed due to building violations it transfers to Broadway.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) organised; Martin Luther King president.
Prayer Pilgrimage, the biggest civil rights demonstration to date, held in Washington.
Civil Rights Act of 1957 passes Congress, giving the Justice Department the authority to seek injunctions
against voting rights infractions.
Desegregation at Little Rock, Arkansas. Little Rock Central High School is to begin the 1957 school year
desegregated. On 2 September, the night before the first day of school, Governor Faubus announces that he
has ordered the Arkansas National Guard to monitor the school the next day. When a group of nine Black
students arrive at Central High on 3 September, they are kept from entering by the National Guardsmen. On
20 September, Judge Davies grants an injunction against Governor Faubus and three days later the group of
nine students return to Central High School. Although the students are not physically injured, a mob of 1,000
townspeople prevent them from remaining at school. Finally, President Eisenhower orders 1,000 paratroopers
and 10,000 National Guardsmen to Little Rock, and on 25 September, Central High School is desegregated.
Corner Boy, by Herbert Simmons.
1958
The first riots involving Black people in Great Britain take place in Nottingham and Notting Hill.
Members of the NAACP begin sitting at lunch counters reserved for white people in Oklahoma city, in protest
at segregation.
Stride Toward Freedom, by Martin Luther King.
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1959
A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry (at the age of 26) premieres; the first Broadway play by a
Black woman, winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.
Prince Edward County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors closes the county's schools in an attempt to prevent
integration.
Brown Girl, Brownstones, by Paule Marshall.
1960
Sit-in Campaigns. After having been refused service at the lunch counter of a Woolworth's in Greensboro,
North Carolina, Joseph McNeill, a Black college student, returns with three friends and refuses to leave until
they are served, which they are not. The four students return to the lunch counter each day. When an article in
the New York Times draws attention to the students' protest, they are joined by more students, both Black and
white, and students across the nation are inspired to launch similar protests.
Student protest marches spread; white police forces and white civilians respond with violence. By March, more
than 1,000 are arrested.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organised at Shaw University, North Carolina.
President Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960 on 6 May, an attempt to protect the rights of
Black voters.
John F Kennedy elected President.
The Bean Eaters, by Gwendolyn Brooks and The Angry Ones, by John A Williams.
1961
SNCC launches Jail-in movement ('Jail, no Bail.').
Thirteen Freedom Riders take a bus trip through the South as part of a campaign to try to end the
segregation of bus terminals. On 14 May, the bus is bombed and burned. Robert F Kennedy sends four
hundred federal marshals to Montgomery to keep order. Hundreds of protesters, including Martin Luther King,
are arrested and beaten.
Preface to a 20 Volume Suicide Note, by LeRoi Jones.
1962
University of Mississippi Riot. President Kennedy orders Federal Marshals to escort James Meredith, the
first Black student to enrol at the University of Mississippi, to campus. A riot breaks out and before the National
Guard can arrive to reinforce the marshals, two students are killed.
Martin Luther King is jailed in Albany, Georgia.
Several Black churches are burned.
A Ballad of Remembrance, Robert Hayden and Portrait of a Young Man Drowning, by Charles Perry.
1963
Medgar Evers, Black civil rights activist, is assassinated on 12 June, becoming a martyr for the Black Civil
Rights Movement.
National Guard troops brought to Boston because of protests against integration.
W E B DuBois dies on 27 August.
March on Washington. Despite worries that few people would attend and that violence could erupt, A Philip
Randolf and Bayard Rustin organises the historic event that will come to symbolise the civil rights movement
when 250,000 people march on Washington on 28 August. A reporter from the Times wrote, “no one could
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ever remember an invading army quite as gentle as the two hundred thousand civil rights marchers who
occupied Washington.”
Church Bombing. Birmingham, Alabama is one of the most severely segregated cities in the 1960s. Black
men and women hold sit-ins at lunch counters where they are refused service, and ‘kneel-ins’ on church steps
where they were denied entrance. Hundreds of demonstrators are fined and imprisoned. Martin Luther King,
the Reverend Abernathy and the Reverend Shuttlesworth lead a protest march in Birmingham. The protestors
are met with policemen and dogs. The three ministers are arrested and taken to Southside Jail.
More than 225,000 students boycott Chicago schools on 22 October to protest against the continuation of
segregation in everything but name.
John F Kennedy assassinated on 22 November.
Letter from Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King and The Learning Tree, by Gordon Parks.
1964
24th Amendment eliminates poll tax requirements in federal elections. Previously failure to pay the tax
had meant forfeiting voting rights and impoverished African Americans were widely effected by this.
Muhammad Ali defeats Sonny Liston on 25 February.
Malcolm X resigns from the Nation of Islam on 12 March.
Civil Rights bill signed by President Johnson on 2 July.
Malcolm X founds the Organization for African American Unity on 28 June.
Race riots in Harlem, Brooklyn, Rochester, Jersey City, Philadelphia.
Martin Luther King receives Nobel Peace Prize on 10 December.
Catherine Carmier, by Ernest J Gaines, The Dead Lecturer, by LeRoi Jones and Why We Can't Wait, by
Martin Luther King.
1965
Martin Luther King begins a voter registration drive in Selma. King and more than 100 others are arrested on 1
February.
Malcolm X assassinated on 21 February.
Bloody Sunday. Outraged over the killing of a demonstrator by a state trooper in Marion, Alabama, the Black
community of Marion decide to hold a march. Martin Luther King agrees to lead the marchers on Sunday, 7
March, from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital, where they will appeal directly to governor Wallace to
stop police brutality and call attention to their struggle for suffrage. When Governor Wallace refuses to allow
the march, Martin Luther King goes to Washington to speak with President Johnson, delaying the
demonstration until 8 March. However, the people of Selma cannot wait and they begin the march on Sunday.
When the marchers reach the city line, they find a posse of state troopers waiting for them. As the
demonstrators cross the bridge leading out of Selma, they are ordered to disperse, but the troopers do not
wait for their warning to be headed. They immediately attack the crowd of people who have bowed their heads
in prayer. Using tear gas and batons, the troopers chase the demonstrators to a Black housing project, where
they continue to beat the demonstrators as well as residents of the project who have not been at the march.
Bloody Sunday receives national attention, and numerous marches were organised in response. Martin Luther
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King leads a march to the Selma bridge that Tuesday, during which one protestor is killed. Finally, with
President Johnson's permission, Martin Luther King leads a successful march from Selma to Montgomery on
25 March. President Johnson gives a rousing speech to congress concerning civil rights as a result of Bloody
Sunday, and passed the Voting Rights Act within that same year.
President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Bill on 6 August, authorising the end of literacy tests for voting.
Riots in Watts and Chicago.
The Promised Land, by Claude Brown, The System of Dante's Hell, by LeRoi Jones, Harlem Gallery, by
Melvin B Tolson and Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X and Alex Haley.
1966
Julian Bond, Black civil rights leader, is denied his seat in Georgia House of Representatives because of his
opposition to the Vietnam War.
First world festival of Black art is held in Dakar, Senegal. Langston Hughes is hailed as a historic
artistic figure.
Martin Luther King denounces the Vietnam War.
Stokely Carmichael named chairman of SNCC.
James Meredith is wounded by sniper during the Memphis-to-Jackson voter registration march. Carmichael
launches the Black Power Movement during the same march.
Race riots in Chicago, Lansing, Milwaukee, Dayton, Atlanta and nearly forty other cities.
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party in Oakland.
Selected Poems, by Robert Hayden, Home, by LeRoi Jones, Jubilee, Margaret Walker.
1967
Langston Hughes dies of cancer at the age of 65.
Julian Bond is finally seated in the Georgia legislature.
Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr, is expelled from the House of Representatives for refusing to pay
damages having lost a libel case. Harlem voters defy Congress and re-elect Powell.
H Rap Brown replaces Stokely Carmichael as chair of SNCC.
Thurgood Marshall becomes the first Black man appointed to the Supreme Court.
Race riots in Roxbury, Tampa, Cincinnati.
Muhammad Ali convicted for refusing induction into the army on religious grounds; sentenced to five years of
prison and stripped of his titles, overturned by the Supreme Court in 1971.
Newark Rebellion; racial tension causes riots which spread to other New Jersey cities. Riots in numerous
cities across the nation. National Guard called out.
75 major riots during the year.
Tales, by LeRoi Jones, The Free-Lance Pall Bearers, by Ishmael Reed and A Glance Away, by John E
Wideman.
1968
Kerner Commission Report states that white racism is the fundamental cause of the riots in the cities.
Martin Luther King announces in March plans for Poor People's Campaign in Washington, scheduled
for 20 April but he is assassinated in Memphis on 4 April. Riots ensue throughout the country.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
Robert F Kennedy assassinated on 6 June.
Richard M Nixon elected President on 5 November.
Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver, Bloodline, by Ernest J Gaines, Black Feeling, Black Talk, by Nikki Giovanni
and The First Cities, by Audre Lorde.
1970
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou, The Lives and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger, by Cecil
Brown, I Am a Black Woman, by Mari Evans and Hurry Home, by John Edgar Wideman.
1974
Raisin! a musical version of A Raisin in the Sun premieres, adapted by Nemiroff and Charlotte Zaltzberg. It
wins a Tony Award.
1981
Claudia McNeil, who played Lena in the 1959 prodcution of A Raisin in the Sun plays the role in a revival of
the musical version.
1989
A Raisin in the Sun, film starring Danny Glover.
1991
Mule Bone, the play co-written by Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston in 1930 only to be abandoned when they
quarreled, is produced on Broadway, starring Robert Earl Jones.
2001
Young Vic produces A Raisin in the Sun at the same time as Hansberry's Les Blancs is revived at the Royal
Exchange Theatre in Manchester.
Little Ham, a musical based on Langston Hughes' play is produced off Broadway.
2002
Street Scene, the Kurt Weill musical Hughes wrote the lyrics for is revived in New York for an opera festival.
Halle Berry and Denzel Washington both win Oscars, the first time Black Americans win both the Best Actress
and Best Actor awards in the same year.
2003
Young Vic brings Simply Heavenly to the London stage (for the first time since The Adelphi production
45 years ago).
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
A Black British Time Line
This Timeline was compiled from a number of sources. It is intended to act as a broad overview of the subject
rather than as an exhaustive history. We use the word Black conscious that today it means different things to
different people – and add to its meaning those people discriminated against because of the colour of their
skin.
Bold type indicates a key event in the history or literary heritage of Black British people. Italics indicate the title
of a publication or play, followed by its author. The year listed is the year of publication for books and of
premiere performances for theatre, unless otherwise noted.
210
African soldiers, described as a ‘division of Moors,’ are sent by Rome to defend Hadrian's Wall. The
presence of these Africans predates the arrival of those who are today considered ’English,’ since Britannia
(modern-day England) was created during Roman rule.
800
The Ancient Irish record the existence of ‘blue men’ from Morocco who were captured by the Vikings and
taken to Ireland.
1000
A young African girl dies in North Elmham, Norfolk. Her body will be found almost 1000 years later.
1441
Antam Goncalves, Portuguese sailor, seized ten Africans near Cape Bojador; generally seen as the start
of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Early 1500's A small group of Africans are ‘attached,’ or enslaved, to King James IV's court.
1511
Henry VIII employs a Black trumpet player, who receives 8d a day.
1515
First samples of Caribbean sugar sent to Spain.
1541
Between 1541 and the 1850's, there are 61 taverns called the ‘Black Boy’ in England and 51 called ‘The
Blackamoor's Head’ in London alone.
1550
The first English traders land in West Africa.
1555
Five West Africans come to London from present-day Ghana to learn English and assist traders.
1563
Sir John Hawkins, an ‘unscrupulous adventurer,’ purchases 300 Africans from the coast of Guinea and
sells them at Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), thus beginning England's foray into
the slave trade.
1570's African slaves come to England as servants for households, prostitutes to the wealthy and court entertainers.
1596
Queen Elizabeth, despite her fondness for Black entertainers in court, is disturbed by the growing Black
population in England and issues an edict ordering English slaveholders to 'have those kinde of people sent
out of the lande.’
1624
England colonises Barbados and St. Kitts.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
1641
Frances, a 'Blackymore maide' servant who joined a church, became the first recorded person of African
heritage in Bristol.
1642 – 1646 The Great Civil War. Charles I is captured. Queen Henrietta Maria and Charles, Prince of Wales, escape
to France.
1647
First Barbados sugar sent to England.
1649
Charles I is beheaded. The Interregnum; the Commonwealth established.
1650-1800 Sugar, needed to sweeten the newly created and insatiable English appetite for tea, chocolate, and coffee,
dramatically increases the number of African slaves in Britain.
Absentee plantation ‘sugar barons’,
government officials, navel officers and army captains bring slaves to Britain. In much smaller numbers,
Africans came to England as free sailors, recruited to replace white English sailors who had died while at sea.
For the next 150 years slavery is the driving force behind Britain's Triangular Trade economy and fuels the
Industrial Revolution.
1660
The Restoration; Charles II returns from France and takes the throne.
1663
The Royal Adventurers became the first English company chartered to take part in the African slave trade. The
company reflects the ‘cream’ of English aristocracy; twenty-five percent of the company's stock was owned by
the King and Queen of England.
1665
English capture Jamaica from the Spanish.
1672
Establishment of the Royal African Company to take control of the British slave trade. It transports an average
of 5,000 slaves year.
1688
Oroonoko, Aphra Behn's popular story of the life of an enslaved African prince, is published.
1698
Private traders, on payment of 10 percent duty on goods exported to Africa, are given parliamentary approval
to participate in the slave trade.
1700's By the eighteenth-century, the ‘Black presence’ in England has become a reality. The visible signs of slavery
are evident especially in port cities (Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff) and London. Street names such as Black Boy
Alleys, Black Boy Court, Blackamoor's Head Yard, reflect the nature of the businesses and people living there.
In London Black pages dressed in silks and satins are a sign of wealth and status. Interracial marriages
between working class White women and Black men are documented in paintings, prints, engravings, popular
novels and plays.
1700
Liverpool’s participation in the slave trade begins in September when the Liverpool Merchant set sale for
Barbados carrying 220 slaves, who are sold for £4,239.
1707
Act of Union between Scotland and England.
1713
The signing of the Treaty of Utrecht gives Britain the right to provide Spain’s colonies with slaves and
Britain becomes the world's pre-eminent slavers.
1729
British law continues to be contradictory in court rulings on issues of slavery. Africans enslaved because they
were heathens did not necessarily gain their freedom when baptised.
Most slaves respond to the legal
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
confusion by simply freeing themselves; the numbers of runaway slaves increases throughout the eighteenth
century.
1731
Job Ben Solomon, a non-European educated African descended from Muslim royalty, is captured in Gambia
and sold to a Maryland slave owner. A British general intercepts a letter in which Solomon pleads for his
release and is so impressed by the writer's level of education that he orders that Ben Solomon should be
taken to England. There, Ben Solomon becomes the darling of Britain's intellectual set, is 'lionised and feted
by polite society.'
The Lord Mayor of London proclaims that no Black person will be taught trades, and neither Black slaves nor
servants were entitled to poor law relief or wages.
1732
Black characters feature regularly in William Hogarth’s engravings, such as Southwark Fair.
1738-1739 Liverpool's slave trading peaks and eclipses Bristol’s lead when its vessels travel 52 times to Africa.
1750
Parliament gave annual grants to British Royal Africa Company totalling £90,000.
1752
The monies brought from Britain's slave trade accounts for 40% of Europe's economy.
1754
Anglo-French war begins in North America.
1756
Seven Years War starts.
1757
India captured from the French.
1759
Two Africans, one being Prince William Ansah Sessarakoo, recently rescued from slavery, attends a showing
of the play Oroonoko, adapted from Behn's 1688 book.
1765
The letters of Philip Quaque are stored in the Rhodes House Library in Oxford. Most of Quaque's letters were
written to London missionaries asking for their help in maintaining various missions in Africa.
1770
A Narrative of the Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African
Prince, Related by Himself is published.
1772
A declaration makes it illegal to forcibly remove any person from England.
1773
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, by Phillis Wheatley, is published. Although the author
was an American, her work was 1st published in London due to an inability to get any work published by a
Black person in the United States. She was the first Black female author to be published in Britain or America.
1775
American Revolution begins.
1777
Richard Pennant elected M.P. for Liverpool'. He owns 8,000 acres of sugar plantations and over 600 slaves in
Jamaica. He is re-elected from 1784 to 1790.
1781
3 of the 41 councillors in Liverpool are slave ship owners or major investors in the slave trade.
1782
The Letters of the late Ignatius Sancho is published after his death by his children.
1783
Peace Treaty signed between Great Britain and the United States. Black North American soldiers, who
fought alongside British soldiers in the American Revolutionary War, arrive in London to reap the ‘freedom’
they were promised. Instead they experience homelessness, starvation, or kidnapping and re-enslavement.
1787
All 20 of Liverpool's mayors holding office between 1787 and 1807 finance or own slave ships.
31
Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
Ottobah Cugoano’s (John Stuart) Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and
Commerce of the Human Species is published. It is more outspoken than previous and contemporary works
on the evils of slavery.
1789
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African, Written by Himself is
published and becomes a bestseller. It is widely used to fight in the abolition of slavery in Britain.
1801
Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
1804
Ira Aldridge, ‘The African Roscius’ is born in America. In 1824 he emigrates to Britain and becomes the
first Black actor to play the major Shakespearean roles winning acclaim as Othello, King Lear, Shylock,
Macbeth and Hamlet.
1808
Britain and the United States abolish the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
1812
Britain and the United States are at war.
1813
Sweden abolishes the slave trade.
1814
Treaty of Ghent ends Anglo-U.S. War.
Britain and allies invade France.
1815
Charles Dickens writes about a Black woman who dressed as a man and surreptitiously served as a British
sailor for eleven years after leaving her husband.
1815
The Life, History and Sufferings of John Jea, the African Preacher, by John Jea is published.
1821
Spain abolishes the slave trade.
1824
The Horrors of Slavery, by Robert Wedderburn was published. This vivid account of slavery is the most
passionate and radical thus far.
The Rights of Man in the West Indies is published under the pseudonym Anthropos.
1827
Britain declares slave trading piracy, and is thus punishable by death.
1829
Peel establishes the Metropolitan Police.
1831
The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, by Mary Prince is published; the first account of the female
slave experience.
1833
Emancipation Act in British Parliament, introduces 5 year apprenticeship system.
1833
Slavery finally abolished in the British Empire.
1846
Sweden abolishes slavery.
1853
American Prejudice Against Colour, by William G Allen. This autobiography talks about the prejudice that
exists in America in regards to interracial marriages and Allen’s decision to flee from America to avoid
persecution.
1853 – 6 Crimean War.
1857
The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole in Many Lands, by Mary Seacole, is one of only two books by
Black British women published in the nineteenth century. It tells the story of a freeborn Black woman who
served as a nurse to the British during the Crimean war.
The Indian Mutiny.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
1859
American Black and White Minstrel performer, George Washington Moore, performs in St James’ Hall, London
and creates popular demand for White performers who ‘black-up.’
1867
Canada is the first British colony given self-governing Dominion status.
1868
West African Countries and Peoples, by James Africanus Beale Horton, argues for self-government in the
West African countries.
1879
The Zulu War.
1881
African Trading: or the Trials of William Narh Ocansey, by John E. Ocansey and tells a different kind of story of
slavery.
1887
Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, by Edward Wilmot Blyden’s is published.
1889
Froudacity, by J. J. Thomas is a response to a book by an Oxford Professor, Froude, which is racist in its
treatment of Black West Indians. Thomas eloquently refutes the claims of Froude with factual evidence as well
as exposing the Professor as a racist.
1891
Control of West African trade passes to the Elder Dempster Company, a Liverpool shipping firm.
1900
Australia becomes a Dominion.
1910
South Africa becomes a Dominion.
1914-1918 The first substantial numbers of Afro-Caribbeans arrive in Britain to fight in WWI.
1918
Walter Daniel Tull, a famous Black footballer is the first Black man commissioned into the British Army in WWI.
He dies on a battlefield in Favreuil in the second battle of the Somme.
All men over 21 and women over 30 are given the right to vote.
1918
Public outcries mount for immigrant restrictions, particularly in seaport towns where White residents fear
competition from Black seamen during recessions and unemployment. White people also voice concerns over
‘inter-racial liaisons’ and poverty.
1919
Race riots occur in seaside towns.
1922
The African Churches Mission is founded by Nigerian Pastor G. D. Ekarte in Liverpool for unemployed and
‘stranded’ African seamen.
1926
Imperial Conference held. For the first time, Britain is prepared to accept the dominions as free countries
within the British Commonwealth of Nations.
1928
Equal voting rights for men and women.
African American actor, Paul Robeson, stars in Show Boat, Drury Lane in London’s West End.
1930
First Empire or Commonwealth Games are held.
Paul Robeson plays Othello in London.
1931
West Indian doctor Harold Arundel Moody founds the missionary and welfare League of Coloured Peoples in
Merseyside.
Statute of Westminster; Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa become freely associated
members of the British Commonwealth. This new status of the so-called "White Dominions" helped to ease
tension and provided clarification for these countries on their position within the Commonwealth.
33
Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
The Beacon is published and is highly influential throughout the Black community under the editorship of
Albert Gomes.
1932
Iraq gains independence.
At the Imperial Economic Conference Britain agrees to give preferential treatment to certain goods from
commonwealth nations.
1936
Egypt gains independence.
How Britain Rules Africa, by George Padmore, is a critique of British colonialism in Africa.
1938
Paul Robeson turns down a West End show to appear in Plant in the Sun, a strike play produced by the
radical left-wing company Unity Theatre.
1939-1945 The second (and larger) wave of Afro-Caribbeans arrives in Britain to fight in WWII.
Several
thousands fight in the RAF and other branches of the armed forces, and to serve as military technicians. Many
others are also recruited to work in Merseyside munitions plants.
1940
The British Colonial Office begins welfare work for Black seamen and their families in seaport towns.
1941
The British Ministry of Labour open a welfare hostel in Liverpool.
Labour Minister M. A. Bevan argues that Britain should ‘dismiss the idea’ of bringing West Indian labourers to
Britain ‘from the start.’ And the possible arrival of additional West Indians causes fear within official circles that
a potential ‘colour racial problem’ will arise in Britain.
1944
The 1944 Education Act combines church, state, and charitable schools that had once been separate under
the control of local education. Detractors in the 1960's and 1970's maintain that the system institutionalised
religious and class differences and, from its inception, automatically placed Afro-Caribbean children into
programs for 'under-achievers,' and declared most Asian children inferior due to cultural and language
differences.
Negro Repertory Arts Theatre, one of the first Black theatre companies in Britain, produces Eugene O’Neill’s
All God’s Chillun Got Wings, at Colchester. NRAT was founded by Robert Adams, a British Guyanan who had
a highly successful career as an actor in film, theatre, radio and television.
1946
Les Ballets Negres is founded; the first black dance company in Europe. This pioneering company toured
throughout Britain and paved the way for other Black dance groups such as Pearl Primus, Mas Movers,
Kokuma, IRIE!, Adzido, Sakoba and Phoenix.
1947
India, Pakistan and Burma become independent.
1948
Nearly 500 people arrived in Britain on board the Empire Windrush and 100 enter on the S. S. Orbita.
The Windrush's passengers are detained on board, interviewed, and most are placed in agriculture, the iron
foundries, railways, and in other industries that needed labourers.
Passage of the British Nationality Act provides for common British citizenship for Commonwealth members.
Britain’s previous ‘laissez-faire’ policy towards Black immigration comes under attack but the importance
attached to the citizenship rights of British subjects becomes the obstacle to tightening controls on the
numbers of Black migrants to Britain.
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Simply Heavenly
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Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
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Among the 492 Jamaicans who arrive in England seeking the employment are the writers Wilson Harris,
George Lamming and Samuel Selvon.
1949
Membership in the Commonwealth widened to include republics such as India, as they were more willing to
join this new idea of a Commonwealth of Nations.
The Republic of Eire becomes independent.
The first colonial Black football team from Lagos, Nigeria plays at Merseyside, home of Britain's largest and
oldest Black community, and defeats the Marine team, 5-2. The touring Nigerian team is the first of many
colonial teams from Africa and the Caribbean who, from 1949-1959, are be used prove that Britain's economic
and political system was far superior that any offered in Africa.
1950's Britain continues to invite West Indian workers and British Rail, the National Health Service, and London
Transport particularly recruit workers from Jamaica and Barbados. By the mid-1950's most of the West Indies
have lost one-third of their workforce.
There are over 30,000 'coloured British subjects' in Britain, and 5,000 have migrated since 1945 with a
majority from West Africa and the West Indies.
Levels of Black unemployment in Merseyside and Liverpool concern citizens and led to calls for deportation
and a quota of how many Black workers are needed at each port.
1951
In other parts of Britain labour shortages increase the numbers of West Indian nursing and labour recruits.
This rises from less than 1,000 persons per year in 1951 to 10,000 per year in 1954.
The Society of Friends meet at Toynbee Hall to discuss promoting racial harmony through increased welfare
programs and changing the restriction policies used by British labour unions.
The remains of several Roman-era (third-century AD) African soldiers are exhumed in an archaeological dig at
York.
Edgar Mittelholzer’s novel, Shadows Move Among Them focuses on the differences between cultures and the
need for creating new ones.
1952
The Wales Establishment Office reports that Black males can only find employment on foreign-owned ships,
and that Black women have been forced from jobs as domestics and shop girls to working for ‘mainly rag and
bone merchants in the docklands area.’
British Ministry of Labour Staff Association reports that only half of the 152,000 job vacancies for that year are
open to Black men due to job quotas, a ban from jobs where White women also worked, racist stereotypes,
and perceptions of a low skill base.
1953
George Lamming’s first novel, In the Castle of My Skin, portrays the life experiences of Barbadian children.
1955
The number of West Indian nursing and labour migrants increases to an average of 32,850 per year.
1956
As the need for workers is reduced a substantial number of West Indian migrants return home.
Yvonne Brewster, co-founder of Talawa Theatre Company, comes to England as one of Britain’s first Black
women drama students, attending Rose Bruford and the Royal Academy of Music.
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Simply Heavenly
By Langston Hughes
Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
Resource Pack
1958
Racial clashes occur in Nottingham and Notting Hill in London. The Conservative Macmillan government,
strong on law and order, support the police, punish offenders and reassure West Indian officials. Civil liberty
groups denounce the violence encountered by Blacks. The politicisation of Black immigration issues and
escalating violence assist the Conservatives in their fight for immigration controls.
The segregation of Blacks people into manual jobs has given these occupations the ‘taint’ of racial inferiority.
In a Ministry of Labour brief presented to the House of Commons, it is revealed that white unemployed people
are 'not suitable for the kind of jobs held by the coloured people.'
1959
The fatal stabbing of Kelso Cochrane by a White assailant and the police’s handling of the incident confirms
the belief among Notting Hill’s Black community that the police are far from racially impartial.
A Raisin in the Sun has its British premiere at the Adelphi Theatre, London. The actor playing George
Murchinson was harassed and beaten by police in Trafalgar Square. He was fined £7 for assaulting an officer.
E. R. Brathwaite’s first novel, To Sir, With Love, was published.
Shelagh Delaney’s play, A Taste of Honey, controversially deals with an inter-racial relationship and the birth
of a mixed race child.
1960
Birmingham Immigration Control Association, a fascist, far right wing political cell, is created and heralded in
the British press.
Palace of the Peacock is the first novel by Wilson Harris.
The Black and White Minstrel show is a regular feature in the West End theatre and on Sunday evening
television.
1961
The British government begins to keep official statistics on Commonwealth immigration.
South Africa withdraws from the Commonwealth due to its apartheid policy.
1962
Britain passes the Commonwealth Immigrants Act to restrict the entry of non-White Commonwealth
citizens to Great Britain. As a consequence the numbers of West Indian immigrants falls to less than 14,000
a year.
1963
The Black West Indian Association notes that brutal attacks by the police had escalated without public
criticism
Cyril Lionel Robert James’ Beyond a Boundary covers his philosophy on life, art, culture and political ideology
told through the game of cricket as a model for life.
1964
The Feather Pluckers, written by John Peter Jones depicts the lives of three Black British youths and their
battles with society.
1965
The Notting Hill Carnival is started by writer and activist Claudia Jones and takes place during August Bank
Holiday weekend.
1966
Joseph A. Hunte publishes Nigger Hunting in England? which is presented at the West Indian Standing
Conference on police brutality.
1968
Wole Soyinka publishes his poem, Telephone Conversation in Voices.
1970
Two-fifths of the Black population in Britain are second-generation.
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Simply Heavenly
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1971
Singapore Declaration of Commonwealth Principles agrees that all Commonwealth Nations support a loose
set of principles including individual liberty, international peace and cooperation, opposition to all forms of
racism, and a willingness to promote free and fair trade.
Leeds police officers are convicted of the manslaughter of David Oluwale, a Nigerian vagrant but receive light
sentences.
As Time Goes By, by Trinidad-born Mustapha Matura, premieres at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh and then
the Royal Court, London. It receives the George Devine and John Whiting Awards.
1971
Selective Commonwealth immigration policies result in larger numbers of white-collar workers and their
families migrating to Great Britain.
1972
Pakistan withdraws from the Commonwealth in protest at the recognition of East Pakistan as Bangladesh, but
rejoins some years later.
The West Indian Standing Conference issue a memorandum to Parliament’s committee on relations between
the Black population and police. The committee’s chairman responds that ‘the memorandum which you have
submitted to us does present a case almost akin to civil war between the West Indians and the police.‘
Temba, a theatre company pioneering new Black writing from Britain, Africa, America and the Caribbean, is
formed by Oscar James and Alton Kumalo. Playwrights involved include Mustapha Matura, Jimi Rand, Edgar
White and Leroi Jones. Temba is the Zulu word for hope.
Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners tells the story of the isolation that is felt by Caribbean communities
who arrived in Britain in the Great Migration of the 1950s.
1973
The international oil crisis of 1973 heralds the end of Britain’s need for post-colonial labourers.
Sociologist Maureen Cain publishes Society and the Policeman’s Role, and argues that stereotypes and racial
epithets are part of the police used to ‘control’ Blacks
1973
Nkemba Asika self-publishes a volume of his poetry entitled, Black Waves.
1974-1976 Four ‘Political and Economic Planning Reports’ are published and indicate that most of the two million
people of African heritage in Britain are subject to discrimination in employment, housing, education, and
areas of law enforcement.
1975
In Troubled Waters, Ernest Marke gives a rare account of what it was like to be Black in Britain before 1950.
Linton Kwesi Johnson publishes a poem entitled Rage in Dread Beat and Blood.
1976
The Bride Price, written by Buchi Emecheta emphasizes the role of the wife in Nigerian life.
Albert Gomes, previously editor of The Beacon and a politician in Trinidad, publishes his controversial
autobiography, which relates his views of British government.
Tara Arts is established, becoming the first theatre company in Britain to be run by Asian artists.
The Blood Knot¸ by Athol Fugard performed by Temba.
1977
Sizwe Bansi is Dead, by Athol Fugard, Winston Ntshona and John Kani performed by Temba.
1978
Roy A. K. Heath’s novel, The Murderer is published.
A wave of Jamaican middle-class emigrates to Britain due to governmental unrest in their homeland.
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1979
Another account of police brutality, Police Against Black People, is submitted to the Royal
Commission on Criminal Procedure. The evidence, taken from lawyer’s case files, legal and advisory
centres, Black self-help groups, and personal interviews, argues that Britain’s police ‘no longer merely
reflected or reinforced popular morality [but] re-create it - through stereotyping the Black section of society as
muggers and criminals and illegal immigrants.’ By the beginning of the 1980’s Black youth swear they were
not going to take any more abuse from police officers.
1981
The number of British persons born in the West Indies has increased from 15,000 in 1951 to 304,000 in 1981.
At the time, the total population of persons of West Indian ethnicity was between 500,000 and 550,000.
The Education Act of 1981 paves the way to race-based educational segregation, which allowed White
parents to remove their children from predominantly Black or Asian schools that didn’t reflect proper ‘British
culture.’
Increasingly, Black people have to provide proof of citizenship to receive health and welfare service benefits,
or to have access to housing, education, and employment. Future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher justified
British racism as a necessary measure; ‘People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather
swamped by people with a different culture.’
Thirteen Black people burned to death in a fire that the Black community believed was racially
motivated in Deptford.
Over 15,000 Black protesters march from Deptford to central London in protest
against widespread injustices against the Black community. In what is perceived as a retaliatory gesture
police unleash ‘Swamp 81’ against Brixton’s Black community. In six days, 943 Black people are stopped and
detained on the street and 118 are arrested and Brixton erupts in a rebellion, with violence spreading to
Southall, Toxteth in Liverpool.
1982
The Black Theatre Co-operative is formed. Pioneered by dramatist Mustapha Matura and director Charlie
Hanson it produces works by Black playwrights such as Jacqueline Rudet, Edgar White and Farrukh Dhondy.
1983
Grace Nichols’ publishes her book of poetry, i is a long-memoried woman.
1984
David Dabydeen’s collection of poetry, Slave Song, is published and wins the Commonwealth Poetry Prize.
Les Isaac’s Dreadlocks is published and gives an autobiographical account of one man’s struggle to survive
as a Black man in Britain.
Amos A Ford gives his account on the role of Black service men during WWII in his narrative, Telling the Truth:
The Life and Times of the British Honduran Forestry Unit in Scotland (1941-1944).
Desmond Johnson’s poem Mass Jobe in Deadly Ending Season looks back at the life of an older man and
relates the disappointment he feels at not accomplishing his goals in England.
Black Mime Theatre formed by David Boxer and Sarha Cahn.
1985
A British Home Office study reports that over 70,000 racially motivated attacks occur each year.
Talawa Theatre Company is founded by Yvonne Brewster, Mona Hammond, Carmen Monroe and Inigo
Espejel. The company aims to use Black culture to enrich British Theatre, to demonstrate Black talent and to
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Simply Heavenly
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enlarge theatre audiences among the black community. Its inaugural production is The Black Jacobins by CLR
James.
John Agard edits a book of old and new poems in a volume entitled, Mangoes and Bullets.
Fred D’Aguiar’s book of poems entitled Mama Dot is published. It won the 1984 Commonwealth Poetry Prize
and has received national attention.
James Berry publishes Confession in Chain of Days.
Caryl Philips’ novel, The Final Passage, won the Malcolm X Prize in the Greater London Literature
Competition.
Joan Riley’s novel, The Unbelonging, explores the alienation a little girl feels as she is moved from her home
in Jamaica to England and back to Jamaica again.
The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain by Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie and Suzanne Scafe.
1986
James Berry’s text, The Rise of Dub Poetry and After, serves as the first substantial critical work on
contemporary African-British poetry.
Woza Albert!, by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema and Barney Simon is staged by Temba.
Prodigal, by Ivor Osbourne explores issues of alienation in his story of a man’s return to Jamaica after living
for several years in Britain.
1988
The 1988 Education Reform Act builds upon the new freedoms given parents in the 1981 Education Act to
chose (within limits) their children’s schools.
1989
Mahogany Carnival Arts, a group of multidisciplinary artists combining British theatre design, Asian and
Caribbean performance traditions and Carnival ‘mas-making’, is founded by Clary Salandy and Michael
Ramdeen and becomes a regular feature at Notting Hill Carnival and other events in Paris, Nice and Trinidad.
Back Street Mammy, by Trish Cooke, performed by Temba.
1990
The Black Mime Theatre expands by forming the Black Mime Women’s Troupe.
Streetwise, the first play by dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah is produced by Temba.
1991
Harare Commonwealth Declaration made in which commonwealth countries agreed to promote democracy
and human rights in developing countries as well as sustainable economic and social development.
1992
John Patten, the secretary of state for education, publishes a White Paper that makes it possible for more
schools to ‘opt out’ of local education control.
A Passage to England: Barbadian Londoners Speak of Home is a collection of interviews by John Western in
which Barbadians discuss their memories of their homeland and the reasons they felt they had to leave it.
1992
The Ensemble combines the Black Mime Theatre and Black Mime Women’s Troupe to create Heart performed
in the Young Vic Studio.
1993
22 April, Stephen Lawrence, a Black A-Level student, is murdered in an unprovoked attack in Eltham,
London. After a series of attempted public and private prosecutions no one has yet been convicted of the
crime.
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Running Dream, by Trish Cooke is produced. This play tells the story of three generations of Black Dominican
women.
Iced by actor and singer, Ray Shell, is published by Flamingo.
1994
South Africa rejoins the Commonwealth.
Talawa’s production of King Lear. Ben Thomson played the title role and became the first Black man to play
the part since Ira Aldridge in 1859.
The Booker Prize committee awards a special Best of the Past 25 years, to Salman Rushdie's Midnight's
Children.
Fred D'Aguiar's first novel The Longest Memory wins the Whitbread Award.
1995
Whitbread awards Salman Rushdie best Novel prize for The Moor's Last Sigh.
The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi, is published by Faber.
The Saga Prize is awarded to Diran Adebayo for his first novel Some Kind of Black.
1996
Steve Martin's historical thriller, Incomparable World is published.
New Nation newspaper launched.
Andrea Levy publishes Never Far From Nowhere.
1997
The Theatre Museum and Talawa collaborate on Blackgrounds, a project to record interviews with senior
Black theatre professionals.
Mike Phillip's The Dancing Face about a stolen African mask is published.
Leone Ross' first novel All the Blood is Red.
LARA the first novel of Bernardine Evaristo, is published.
1998
John Agard engaged as BBC Poet in Residence, to commemorate Windrush celebrations.
Empire Windrush - the irresistible rise of Multi-racial Britain by Mike Phillips.
Empire Windrush - Fifty Years of writing about Black Britain, edited by Onyekachi Wambu
1999
Tricycle Theatre stages The Colour of Justice, an adaptation of the report of the public inquiry into the death of
Stephen Lawrence.
Ray Fearon is the first Black actor to play Othello in Stratford-upon-Avon since Paul Robeson in 1959.
2001
David Oyelowo is the first Black actor to play a king in one of Shakespeare’s history plays as part of the RSC’s
season at the Young Vic.
The Young Vic brings A Raisin in the Sun to the London Stage and Les Blancs is performed in Manchester.
Push, a diverse mix of contemporary Black arts, media and culture takes place at the Young Vic.
2002
Adrian Lester plays the title role in Peter Brook's Hamlet at the Young Vic.
2003
Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Francesca Annis' son in Michael Grandage's production of Noel Coward's The Vortex at
the Donmar Theatre. Michael Billington calls it "A fine performance that transcends the artificial barriers of
race."
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A Short History of Harlem
In 1637 a Dutchman called Hendrick de Forest established a village to the north of the island of Manhattan. He
named it after the Dutch town of Haarlem.
During the seventeenth century, slaves to the West India Company built the first wagon road into Harlem.
Over the next 200 years, African slaves worked the Dutch and then English farms in Harlem.
In 1644, eleven Black slaves, in service to the Dutch West India Company, were granted conditional freedom.
They established a tiny community of free African Americans in what is now known as Greenwich Village,
which became a Black enclave for over 200 years. Also in 1644, the English took over what was then known
as New Amsterdam and re-named it New York.
In 1655 the first cargo of slaves imported directly from Africa arrived in Manhattan.
By the turn of the eighteenth century, there were so many slaves in New York that one fifth of the population
was Black. Black people, both freed and slaves were completely segregated. They were forbidden to testify
against a freeman, travel 40 miles north of Saratoga or congregate in groups of more than three.
In 1712 a group of slaves protested by setting fire to an outhouse and killing nine men. The authorities took
two weeks to bring them under control. Before being captured six men committed suicide and twenty-one
others were executed. Three men were identified as the ringleaders: one was broken on the wheel, one was
hung in chains and the last was burned alive. The result of this uprising was to make the laws even more
restrictive. A law was passed making whites pay £200 per year to any slave they freed for their life. This
resulted in considerably less slaves being freed.
In 1741 a plot was discovered among Black slaves to burn the city.
The end of the War of Independence (1753-83) resulted in more freed slaves migrating to New York.
In 1785 the sale, but not ownership of slaves was prohibited in New York State.
In 1790, 115 slaves were listed for the ‘Harlem Division’ equal to one-third the population of the area.
In 1796, 30 African Americans formed a congregation. Many other Black churches were soon created.
In 1799 freedom was granted to the children of slaves.
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In 1807 there were 4000 African Americans in New York, 2300 of them were free.
In 1808 the import of slaves was banned by Congress. Marriage between two Black people was legalised.
In 1817 a law was passed to abolish slavery in New York State in ten years, July 4 1827. Even after slavery is
abolished, many Black men could not vote (no woman can). The ownership of property is required to qualify
for the vote, most Black men did not meet these requirements. In 1813, 300 Black men vote but this number
dropped in the years after.
In 1846 the discussion of the State Constitution led to a debate about the rights of African Americans in the
state. One man present stated that "The Almighty had created the Black man inferior to the white man."
During the latter half of the Nineteenth century a huge influx of European migrants pushed African Americans
out of their communities and north into other areas of the city. In 1790 Black people were 10% of the
population. Fifty years later, although their number has grown they were only 5% of the population.
Competition for jobs (mainly at the lower end of the wage-scale) caused friction between the Irish and Black
communities. In 1854 street battles were fought over stevedoring jobs. In 1857 there were ‘panic’ riots as the
city's unemployed demand work and bread. In 1857 Seneca Village, a prosperous Black community was
demolished to make way for Central Park. In 1863 there was further Irish rioting against the Black community.
They set fire to the Coloured Orphan Asylum. The influx of Italian immigrants causes Little Africa in Greenwich
Village to be re-named Little Italy.
In 1880 the area known as Hell's Kitchen became a new Black enclave with 7th Avenue being re-named Black
Broadway. A centre for neighbourhood arts and entertainment it becomes known as Black Bohemia.
Permission for a new subway line was given north of 125th St to an area currently full of marshes and garbage
dumps. This resulted in a building boom which collapses beneath excessive real estate speculation in 1904
and 1905.
On August 12 1900 a police officer in civilian clothes arrested a Black woman for supposedly soliciting in Hell's
Kitchen. Her husband, whom she was waiting for, came out of the shop were he was buying some tobacco
and saw her being manhandled by a stranger. In the fight that ensues the police officer was killed. At the
funeral gangs of Irish beat and club Black men and women in Hell's Kitchen. The riot resulted in a mass
migration 5 miles north - to Harlem.
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This migration coincided with the completion of the Lenox Avenue subway line to lower Manhattan, facilitating
the settlement of African Americans migrating from the South and Caribbean in Harlem as well as greatly
reduced housing prices due to the slump in Real estate. Philip Payton's African-Am Realty Company leased
large numbers of Harlem apartment houses from white owners and rented them to Black tenants in
neighbourhoods that began at 135th Street east of Eighth Avenue and over the decades expanded east-west
from Park to Amsterdam avenues and north-south from 155th Street to Central Park. In 1910 the population of
Harlem had increased from 300 to 4500.
Over the first few decades of the twentieth century, waves of southern African Americans from Carolina,
Georgia and Virginia streamed into New York escaping the greater poverty, exploitation and persecution of the
South. By 1930 the Black population of New York had more than tripled, to 328,000 persons, 180,000 of
whom live in Harlem, - two thirds of all African Americans in New York City and 12% of the entire population.
Between 1920 and 1930 the Black population of Harlem increased by nearly 100,000 persons, developing
middle- and upper-middle class neighbourhoods such as Strider's Row on West 139th Street.
The migration led to a political, cultural, and social community unprecedented in scope. The African Methodist
Episcopal Zion, St Philips' Protestant Episcopal, and Abyssinian Baptist Church moved north to Harlem. The
Amsterdam News is founded in Harlem in 1919. The community also supported a vital literary and political life:
by 1920 the trade union newspaper the Messenger, edited by A Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen,
published in Harlem, as did the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP)'s
magazine Crisis, edited by W E B DuBois and Jessie Fauset, and the National Urban League's magazine
Opportunity, edited by Charles S Johnson. Incipient political movements followed the establishment of an
branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910 and Marcus
Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1916. Flamboyant and charismatic, Garvey promoted
both a back-to-Africa drive and the first, popular Black Nationalist movement. Harlem also nurtured a socialist
movement led by H H Harrison, W A Domingo, and A Philip Randolph.
Especially in the 1920s Harlem nurtured pioneering Black intellectual and popular movements as well as a
dynamic nightlife centred around nightclubs, impromptu apartment ‘buffet parties’, and speakeasies. Many of
Harlem's cultural venues developed at this time, ranging from the Lincoln and Apollo theatres to the Cotton
Club, Smalls Paradise, and Savoy Ballroom. In popular dance, Florence Mills was one of the most celebrated
entertainers of the 1920s, while in tap, Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson was called ‘The Mayor of Harlem’. In
vaudeville, Bert Williams broke the colour line. In drama, Paul Robeson was an honored figure for both his
acting and singing.
In 1925 Alain Locke filled an issue of the Survey Graphic magazine with Black literature, folklore, and art,
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declaring a ‘New Negro’ renaissance to be guided by "forces and motives of [cultural] self determination." Led
by writers such as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, and Zora
Neale Hurston, Harlem was the symbol of that renaissance. In art, Aaron Douglas, Richmond Barthe, and
(later) Jacob Lawrence launched their careers. (See the Harlem Renaissance section below)
In music, Harlem pianists such as Fats Waller and Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith began one of the most storied
traditions of jazz in the world. In the 1920s it included big-bands led by Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington,
and Chick Webb, and individual virtuosos such as Eubie Blake. Later, it included Charlie Parker, Bud Powell,
Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis.
In the 1920s Harlem gained some political power and institutions. Arthur Schomburg's renowned collection of
Black literature and historical documents became a branch of the New York Public Library (see Schomburg
Library). Three years later Charles Fillmore was elected the first Black district leader in New York City, and
Black physicians were admitted to the permanent staff of Harlem Hospital.
But such advances were modest. Harlem’s African Americans owned less than 20 percent of Harlem's
businesses in 1929, and the onset of the Depression quadrupled relief applications within two years. African
Americans continued to be excluded from jobs, even in Harlem. The Communist Party and the Citizens'
League for Fair Play organised a boycott of Harlem businesses that refused to hire African Americans, but it
collapsed in 1934. A year later frustration erupted into a riot in which millions of dollars in property was
damaged and 75 were arrested. By 1937 four African American district leaders were elected, and the Greater
New York City Coordinating Committee for the Employment of Negroes was formed.
During World War II migration from the Southern states and the Caribbean increased enormously, the direct
result of the opening of defence industry jobs to African Americans, for which the 1941 March on Washington,
- organised by A Philip Randolph - was instrumental. But racism persisted, and an incident of police brutality in
1943 precipitated a riot in which six African Americans were killed and 180 were injured. In 1944, on the heels
of widespread efforts at improving race relations, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr, was elected to the United.States
Congress and Benjamin Davis replaced him on the city council.
The 1940s and 1950s brought further political cohesion and literary expression. Hulan Jack was elected the
first Black borough president in 1953. Through the 1970s Harlem was home to heralded writers such as
novelist Ralph Ellison, essayist James Baldwin, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and poets Audre Lorde and
Maya Angelou, many of them associated with the Harlem Writers Guild. Yet by 1960 middle-class flight from
Harlem produced a ghetto in large sections of the community. Half of all housing units were unsound, and the
infant mortality rate was nearly double that in the rest of the city. Under the leadership of Harlem Youth
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Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU), organised by Kenneth B Clark, Harlem tried to draw federal funding into
the area to rebuild the community and create jobs. The effort was largely unsuccessful, and in 1964, when an
off-duty police officer shot a Black youth, a riot ensued. Two people were killed and hundreds injured; stores
were looted for several days.
In the 1950s Malcolm X arrived to head the Harlem Mosque and soon created an independent religious and
Black Nationalist movement that declared itself ready to fight - "by any means necessary", - against white
racism and violence toward African Americans. In 1965, however, Malcolm X was assassinated. His death
made him a martyr for Black Nationalists even as his religious movement dissipated.
Percy Sutton was Manhattan borough president for 11 years beginning in 1966. In 1970 Charles Rangel was
elected to the congressional seat vacated by Adam Clayton Powell. By the late 1970s, however,
deindustrialisation and inflation led to widespread unemployment while poverty, drugs, crime, and a
deteriorating school system plagued the community for the next decade.
Today, poverty and unemployment are still in evidence in Harlem, but regeneration is underway. Violent crime
rates are down, federally-funded and community-led schemes have brought businesses (albeit largely whiteowned) back to Harlem, affluent African Americans are moving back into the area and significantly, Bill Clinton
has established his post-presidential offices on 125th Street. There is some distrust of these developments:
(one activist called Clinton the "missionary of gentrification") as some see the changes to Harlem as whiteowned businesses taking advantage of federal funding to make a subsidised land-grab. There are also fears
that the unique cultural heritage of Harlem might be lost. However, the mood seems to be generally optimistic
as a renewed sense of community and greater prosperity for the area are experienced. Some have even
suggested that Harlem, ever the heart and soul of Black America, might be seeing a second renaissance.
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The Harlem Renaissance
The great migration of African Americans to northern cities between 1919 and 1926 was described by
sociologist and critic Alain Locke in his book The New Negro (1925) as "something like a spiritual
emancipation”. This new sense of release, combined with the experimental trend of American society as a
whole during the 1920s and the rise of radical Black intellectuals such as Locke, Marcus Garvey and W E B
DuBois all contributed to the particular styles and unprecedented success of Black artists during the Harlem
Renaissance period.
Beginning as a series of literary discussions in Greenwich Village and Harlem sections of New York City, ‘The
New Negro Movement’, later known as the Harlem Renaissance was formally launched on March 21,1924 at
the Civic Club Dinner. Organised by Charles S Johnson, editor of the Black paper Opportunity, the dinner
brought Black writers together with publishers. One of the first major outcomes of the Civic Club Dinner was
the release, in 1925, of a Survey Graphic issue, ‘Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro’, edited by Locke and
Johnson, devoted entirely to Black literature, folklore, and art, declaring a ‘New Negro’ renaissance to be
guided by "forces and motives of [cultural] self determination." Led by writers such as Jean Toomer, Langston
Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, and Nora Zeale Hurston the Renaissance attempted
to use folk themes, motifs and forms to create a new kind of art which looked to Africa as a source of racial
pride and inspiration.
Langston Hughes said of the Renaissance that he "thought it wouldn't last long. For how long could a large
and enthusiastic number of people be crazy about Negroes forever?" The crash of Wall Street in 1929
signalled the demise of the movement as wealthy patrons left Harlem to attend to their threatened fortunes
and other fashionable causes. The end of the movement could also be seen within Harlem as alliances and
friendships fell apart and the many conflicting aims it tried to fulfil, such as politics and art, race building and
literature, began to take their toll.
With hindsight, the Harlem Renaissance has been criticised by many African American artists and thinkers,
who saw in the movement an aping of white, middle-class sophistication. Harlem intellectuals, while
proclaiming a new race consciousness, earnt the epithet ‘dicty niggers’ (taken from DuBois' ‘talented tenth’)
from the very people they were supposed to be championing. Langston Hughes' said of this time that, "All of
us knew that the gay and sparkling life... was not so gay and sparkling beneath the surface... Ordinary "blacks"
hadn't heard of the Negro Renaissance. And if they had, it hadn't raised their wages any."
However, the legacy of the Renaissance remains enormous, providing an important cultural and political
starting point for Blacks all over America. It gave African Americans a sense of pride and belonging. Alain
Locke wrote of the Renaissance, "The peasant, the student, the businessman, the professional man, artist,
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poet, musician, adventurer and worker, preacher and criminal, exploiter and social outcast, each group has
come with its own special motives ... but their greatest experience has been the finding of one another."
The Harlem Renaissance was made up of many contributors. As well as writers and artists, intellectuals,
editors of journals and newspapers, hostesses, patrons, jazz musicians and entertainers contributed to the
Renaissance. A few major figures are listed below, including the "midwives", as Langston Hughes termed
those who brought the Renaissance about. A search on the web will provide considerable detail about their
lives and work.
W E B DuBois (1868 - 1963)
Alain Locke (1885 - 1954)
James Weldon Johnson (1871 - 1938)
Jessie Fauset (1882 - 1961)
Charles S. Johnson (1893-1956)
Jean Toomer (1894 - 1967)
Countee Cullen (1903 - 1946)
Claude McKay (1889 - 1948)
Nella Larsen (1891 - 1964)
Zora Neale Hurston (1891 - 1960)
Wallace Thurman (1902 - 1934)
Richard Bruce Nugent (1906 - 1987)
Aaron Douglas (1898 - 1979)
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Jive Talk: Harlem Slang
Modern day rap artists with their fast-talking, rhyming, boastful patter, have a long and honourable ancestry,
from the griots (or storytellers) of Nigeria and Gambia, through to the street sellers of Harlem and jazz masters
like Cab Calloway. Griots were a cross between priests and entertainers and as well as telling traditional
stories would wittily satirise current events. They were prized artists in a society that relied on oral culture.
Their skills and stories were brought to America by the slaves. ‘Good-talking’ has remained an important skill
in modern African American society and folk and street culture abounds in examples of word games, jokes
and verbal contests.
Children in neighbourhoods like Harlem learn to make up ‘catches’, rhyming jokes (a little like knock-knock
jokes) that aim to catch the other person out. For example:
A: Say "washing machine"
B: Washing machine
A: I'll bet you five dollars your drawers aint clean
There are also the games ‘signifying’ and ‘dozens’, semi-ritualised battle of words and insults that make
bragging an artform, similarly ‘toasts’ were abusive, violent narrative poems and rhyming stories that
developed in the prison, army and street corners of 1950s America. One of the most famous wordsmiths was
Bo Diddly (he took his name from a one-stringed African guitar) a bragger par excellence who released
several R&B records in the 1950s and 1960s. His biggest hit was the double A-sided single 'I'm the
man/Bodiddly' in 1955. The latest development of word games and competitions is the rap of artists like Puff
Daddy and Eminem.
Harlem has also developed its own rich slang, first known as Harlemese and later as ‘jive’. This was a
rhythmic blend of rhymes, onomatopoeia (‘Zap’, ‘yack-de-yack’, ‘honkytonk’) and specially codified slang
which was born from and fed into the music of jazz and be-bop.
In the late thirties and early forties, any one was accepted as a ‘hep-cat’ if he could talk ‘jive’ a language that
no ‘square’ could make sense of. There were even books which tried to compile a list of words and definitions,
for example Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary, which listed expressions such as ‘kill me’ (show me a good
time), ‘early black’ (evening) and a ‘twister to the slammer’ (key to the door). Dan Burley wrote a column for
the Age, which was written in pure jive. Here is an example from one of his columns:
"And what's on the rail for the snail? Let's get some cash and talk some trash and get all set for the crash.
Feeling sorta hip. I'm strictly for the vaunce and those for the vout can nix-nay the play and do without. It's a
cool deal, McNeil, when you play a stray and dig the bray and those not gay picking up clay that you're
righteous that way... How does that sound, clown?"
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4. AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSIC OF THE 1950S
Langston Hughes and the Blues
In 1925 Hughes wrote in his essay 'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain' about his admiration for “low
down folk" and his belief that Black artists should use folk forms as a foundation for their work. He himself
would find an enduring source in both the blues songs of his native Missouri and the more sophisticated
’Classic blues’ sung in the bars of Harlem. In their plaintive tales of struggle and sorrow Hughes discovered
"the pulse beat of the people who keep on going", a rhythm which told the story of African Americans from
their tragic past to the hardships of their current lives.
The blues grew out of the work songs of the Negro slaves, more specifically the ‘field holler’ which was sung
by lone workmen in order to communicate with other workers further away. Using the call and response
pattern common to much African music, the ‘field holler’ developed into a basic 12-bar blues structure
consisting of three lines of four bars each. The first two lines contain a vocal ‘call’ and an instrumental
‘response’, while the third line is longer, usually rhyming with the first two lines and completing the thought
contained in them:
"Standing at the crossroads
Tried to flag a ride
Aint nobody seem to know me, everybody passed me by."
The blues were characterised by the ‘bending’ of notes giving the songs a plaintive quality and creating a
characteristic blues scale somewhere between the major and minor scale. Ralph Ellison wrote that, "The blues
speak to us simultaneously of the tragic and the comic aspects of the human condition and they express a
profound sense of life shared by many Negro Americans precisely because their lives have combined these
modes". The blues are characterised by sadness, certainly, but also a wry humour. Hughes described them as
"Songs folks make up when their hearts hurt... sad funny songs. Too sad to be funny and too funny to be sad."
The blues are a folk music, and use familiar speech patterns. They also draw from a shared pool of lyrics as
blues artists create variations on well-worn and well-loved themes. The title poem of Hughes' first collection of
poems, 'The Weary Blues', published in 1926, draws from at least three known blues songs:
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
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Harlem Dance - The Lindy Hop
The Harlem music scene gave birth to the ‘big band’. The term big band is used to describe a group of five or
six brass players, three or four reed instruments, and four rhythm musicians and the success of the big band
was largely dependent on its acceptance by the dancing public. Big band tunes were specifically designed to
get people up and moving to its swinging beat. The revolution of the Swing Era was led by Black bands and
Black audiences before being broken into by the first white band leader, Benny Goodman.
The Savoy was the place for big bands to perform. ‘The Track’, as it was known, had a capacity of over 5,000.
People arrived from all the world to experience the Savoy nightlife. Some danced and others sat and watched.
Dances such as The Lindy Hop, The Big Apple, Suzy-Q, Truckin', and The Bumpy Bump had their start at the
Savoy. At any moment there could be anywhere from two to three thousand people on the dance floor at the
Savoy.
The Lindy Hop involved both a male and a female dancing together in fast moving acrobatic movements. The
dance allows the female dancer to be lifted by her partner into a second position scissor and then come down
to a seated position on her partners lap. The female can also be helped into the air by her male partner by
bumping her buttocks with his knees (the leg of the gesturing knee may be either bent or straight).
One of the most famous Lindy Hoppers, Frankie Manning, describe the big bands at the Savoy in terms of
their ability to "speak to the people". Many of the Lindy Hoppers give credit to the dynamics of the music for
the desire to perfect of the newest dance crazes. Manning states that the bands "generated a more flowing,
lifting momentum. The effect of the dancers was to increase the energy and speed of execution.”
During the mid 1930s Manning and his partner Freida Washington introduced the first aerial step into the Lindy
Hop. Once performed in a dance contest, it brought about the creation of many more aerial steps and the
popularity of the dance increased. This gave Manning the inspiration to develop ensemble routines and,
therefore, made it possible for the Lindy Hop to be performed as a stage presentation.
Several Lindy Hopper groups, clubs and events exist in or near London. The best-known dance troupe is the
Jivin’ Lindy Hoppers who were established in 1983 during the Notting Hill Carnival. For more information go to
their home page listed in the Resources section on page 58.
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5. INTERVIEWS WITH MEMBERS OF THE CREATIVE TEAM
Interview With Director Josette Bushell-Mingo
What did you know of the play or the author before you started working on the play?
I knew very little. I knew what most people know about Langston Hughes – that he was a writer, a poet,
associated with Harlem. About five years ago I had been given a book with all his plays and poetry. I had also
picked up a bit about him from the Young Vic’s production of A Raisin in the Sun - the title comes from the
Hughes’ poem ‘Montage of A Dream Deferred’. So although I didn't know much about the actual play I knew
quite a lot about Langston Hughes himself.
Why do you think the play should be performed in England today?
Because it's a great play and great plays should be performed. I think we have a very complicated relationship
with the United States, now as we speak, but also historically and particularly for the Black community. We are
inextricably linked and I wish it was more for the positive than the negative but it seems to be going towards
the negative. We can't underestimate the impact of Black American writers, artists and individuals who have
influenced the Black communities here, although I must also say we also have equivalents here, Black British
artists going back at least 100 years that existed in England who have done similar work. But I think one of the
things about Simply Heavenly is that it is part of our history and part of the arc of Black history and art.
Langston Hughes is in there with Shakespeare as far as I'm concerned and as I said great work should be
performed.
I think that what is very particular about Simply Heavenly is that it is a play about people's lives. I would be
very hesitant to produce a play that just shows Black peoples' grief and tribulation. Not because that's not part
of our history, but because if we're not careful that's the only part that gets shown and I want a much more
diverse picture. I know it was something that Langston was actually criticised for, the fact that he was not
writing more obviously political work about the situation for Black people in the 1950s. I think he was but doing
it in a different way. He was saying that there is hope, within all this grief, ignorance and poverty, people and
specifically Black people will find a way to exist and rise above it. It's not right and it shouldn't be like this but
miraculously enough we do continue to live. I think that's another reason why it should be produced today, we
need to see people and particularly Black people living and loving in an uplifting and dignified way.
Is the rehearsal process very different when directing a musical as opposed to a straight play?
Yes there's a lot more singing! But seriously I think it is. I think there is a particular dynamic and language for a
musical. I would say on average Simply Heavenly is 60% words, 40% music, the average musical is the other
way round and I think that's where Langston has been so clever and truly brilliant. The play will actually stand
up without the songs and that's quite a rare thing. There is something very special in the dynamic of musicals
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and you can't treat them in the same way. I think that the way the actors sing the songs, the way they
approach the text is very particular. Because its 60% words, the scenes have to be hot, you have to earn the
songs. There a couple of scenes have no songs in them and then the drama has to drive the performance.
I think you have to have much more sense of humour to do a musical, much more of a theatricality, I think you
have to have much more of a sense of pathos. The experience that I have had of being in musicals and
directing them is that everything has to be lifted slightly. There is a clear language between the audience and
the performers – they know the actors are going to sing, that it is heightened and they are ready for it. When
characters can no longer express themselves in words they sing - it is extremely exhilarating.
What do you hope the audience will get from the experience?
That's quite complicated really. Because of the way Langston has written the play, the audience will not come
away saying "God that time was horrendous, Black people were treated really badly, it was awful." It is not that
clear cut. People should come away uplifted and inspired, partly by the talent of the company. Without being
over dramatic I think it is unlikely that we will be able to get this group of people together again in my lifetime.
The audience should think what a great story and “yeh, actually I don't have too much money myself, and
things are against me but I could actually lift myself up above it”. One of Langston’s main messages was that
"no matter who you are to know and understand love is a great life bouy in the sea of the world" and that's
something I think it is important for the audience to go away with. And also they will be brought closer to
Langston so that they will leave going "where can I get the book, where can I get the CD, who was he, how
fantastic" that would be a great thing.
How did you approach the play in terms of preparation before rehearsals?
I did a lot of thinking. I didn't do as much preparation beforehand as I thought I would. I was very nervous
really, being an actress I felt I should be doing something directorial like study, research and fly off to the
United States and write reams and reams. But I don't work like that as an actress and I don't work like that as
a director. I go purely on instinct, response, reflex and what the actors give me. I did a little bit of reading, I
pulled a lot of information from the internet. But I wanted to be able to approach it fresh. I am so, so happy with
the casting, I knew I would get a lot from them and one thing I am developing as a director is to really respond
to what is happening on the floor. To say “ok this actor needs more help”, or “actually this actor is fantastic, let
me commend them but still give them focus”. My preparation was actually to be open and ready, because I am
getting so much from the actors, that I feel I should deal with that and not come in with a preconceived notion.
Have you had to make any concessions due to the fact the play was written in the 1950s?
Yes I have, and we are still in the process of working out exactly what those concessions will be. There are the
words "Negro" and "coloured" and making sure that they are said in a context that we can accept now as
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British people because we look at those words differently. Also it is important that Langston isn't seen as
writing about a Black man who is put upon because he is Black, that is the most important thing. Jesse B.
Semple, the main character, is pitted against the fates and tribulations of the world, emphasised and
sometimes made worse because he is Black, but that is not the only reason. So that is one place where I am
looking to lift those words out. Would Langston approve? I believe so. He would want the story to be
understood. At the time he was writing it was very important that the audiences, predominantly white
audiences, understood that these things were happening to people because they are Black, but the more I
read it the more I think he didn't want that at all, that really he wanted Jess Semple to come across as a really
stupid man who blames his situation on colour. Other things are direct American references to specific people
which we have had to place in an English equivalent and I hope not to the detriment of the piece at all. And the
last thing we have done is to increase information about a very important person called John Henry and we
can't just say his name and leave it because it lifts and takes us off at the end of Act 1. We have to make sure
that the audience aren't thrown by the name and that they understand the image and metaphor for Jess and
so we are now looking to place a verse from the original John Henry song about a Black slave who competed
against a drill machine with his bare hands and won.
What do you enjoy about rehearsal and how is it different for you as an actor and a director?
I enjoy setting up conditions in which people feel relaxed and happy, I enjoy the possibilities in rehearsal, I
enjoy watching great actors. In this instance the actors have been able to find their way through scenes
without my help which has been great. I enjoy everyone working towards a shared goal without actually losing
anyone's sense of identity. I enjoy hearing other people's thoughts and views, other than the artists involved
about what they actually think of the piece, and what I enjoy most of all is watching stories unfold. That's what I
enjoy about rehearsals as a director. It is also the continued development of my ability to improvise, I like
rising to the challenge of a new scene or idea and being able to use it on the spot and say that's where it's
going. As an actress, how is it different, well it depends on who the director is. I am at a stage now in my
career where I am getting more diverse directors, but actually less rehearsal. People say "Ah we will get
Josette to play that part because she will be able to do it" which is very flattering and very nice and I'm not
knocking it, but sometimes I miss the things I have mentioned before. Also I don't like it when you get directors
who pretend they know when they don't. It is a hard and delicate situation but sometimes you just have to say
"actually I don't know" and you take a break. I get tired of people pretending that there is some great secret
going on. In terms of both I find that one feeds the other, they are not separate. I hope that I become a better
actress because of the directing and vice versa and one isn't less powerful than the other, and it is about
power in the end. The power to create fantastic stories and change peoples' lives and affect people.
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Interview With Choreographer Paul J Medford
What was your knowledge of the play or author before you began this project?
I had heard of him because I had read some of his poems, I had a book and I had seen a film called Looking
for Langston that had been made a few years ago. That really was my knowledge it wasn't extensive but I was
aware of him. My knowledge of Harlem in the 1950s is quite extensive as I’ve worked on a few projects that
had been set in that time and I have a fascination with Harlem Renaissance.
Did you do a lot of research into the dances you were going to use?
Well, a little. I managed to track down many, many videos of authentic footage because what I didn't want was
to use the dances that were in the films of that period that were being used as an art form, I wanted to get
dances that were being used in the streets and the clubs, not choreographed showpieces. It was quite difficult
but I eventually found some footage from the Harlem Savoy which was really helpful.
Have you been tempted to use any dance steps which originated after the 1950s?
I've obviously not used a step like the 'Bogle' or the 'running man' from 1984, that would be crazy but I have
interpreted the choreography and added certain things myself because there was great freedom at that time
and new forms of dance were coming in and Harlem Renaissance comes at the beginning of Jazz dance in a
sense so there is a lot of freedom of the body and arm and leg movements that are open to interpretation.
What are the main dances/steps that you have used?
The main step is the 'flat footed fogue' which is a series of stamps and ball-changes. I've also used the 'mash
potato' which is a Black version of the 'charleston', the 'suzi cue' which is where the heel makes a motion as if
trying to wear a hole in the carpet, the 'Black bottom' which is literally a jump forward and a jump back slapping
your thighs and then your bottom.
Were you surprised by any of the moves that you saw in the videos?
Some of them, yeah. I knew a lot of the moves from previous productions I had worked on that were similar,
but I was surprised at the freedom of some of the movements.
Has it been easy to teach the cast the dances?
Fairly. It is always difficult for actors and singers who come to dance for the first time, but I have particularly
chosen dances that would have been done by normal people at the time in nightclubs or in a bar, they are not
dances that were designed for dancers to do in a theatrical environment on stage.
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Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
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Interview With Actor Rhashan Stone
What excites you about the play and your character?
Well I felt that it was about Black folk and as an actor I very rarely get to play parts that call upon anything I
am, any aspects of myself that would be relevant in theatre, because obviously oftentimes it is not relevant.
So it is nice to do something where all of my life experience is relevant. The reason I love my character is
because it is a huge part! No, it's a good character it is multi-layered - as an actor you want to play as many
different things in an evening as possible and with Jess he goes from high to low, sideways, upwards, every
which way.
Did you feel there was any difference being in an all Black cast, or have you been in an all Black cast before?
I've been in all Black casts before and yes it does make a difference. I think it makes a difference if the
subject matter that you are dealing with is about Black culture, because although I think there is a view that
often when you get Black people together all we talk about is our Blackness, it is actually very rare to get Black
actors together. I therefore I think we should be talking about those things because you don't very often get to.
It's not about having a whinge down the pub about how you feel about New Labour, it's about a group of artists
talking coherently and cohesively about issues that affect us and trying in some way to make some change to
what we do, i.e. acting, directing, designing.
What do you enjoy about rehearsal and performance?
I love, in rehearsal, picking everything apart and putting it all back together again which is a long process. But I
think the thing I enjoy most is performance because every single audience that comes has to believe that it
has never happened before. When you talk about what is acting I'd say that's what it is, it's about being able
to repeat something and give the illusion that it is fresh and that it's happening before your eyes, unlike
television where you maybe only do a couple of takes and you can keep it looking fresh. On television, you
might only have to burst into tears once, if you're doing a year long run of a show and you have to do that kind
of thing eight shows a week. You have to have a technique and that is the skill and the craft of acting: when
an audience comes out thinking they have just seen it for the first time you have done your job well.
Do you think there is a big difference between acting and rehearsing a musical as opposed to a straight play?
Before I did this I would have said yes, just because I think musical theatre is completely different from doing a
straight play and that the rules and techniques are often completely different. But I think it is sad that there are
so many talented performers in musical theatre, so many actors and singers and dancers but often the
directors are not interested in other aspects of that performer like their acting skills. I think that what is
amazing is that the piece doesn't survive unless we treat it as a play. I've always maintained that we could do
this show without any music whatsoever and it would still work. The music is a fantastic luxury and the icing on
the cake, which will just add to the evening.
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Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
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Why do you feel rehearsals are important?
It’s important because in this case we have, twelve different cast members, twelve individuals, with twelve
different thought processes and in five weeks we all have to have the same one. It is not easy because as
people we are not used to slotting together and living our lives in a parallel way of thinking together and doing
things together. You have twelve very strong personalities and intelligent people here and we are all different
which is very beautiful and wonderful but we have to come together and follow the same leader.
Do you ever surprise yourself during rehearsal?
Yes! I think that's the whole point of rehearsals really, it's just to be as brave as you possibly can be. Josette
talks a lot about not repeating a scene in the same way, but just trying things to break it up, to change the
pace, to change the vocal pattern and I think that's good.
Having been brought up in both America and Britain, is there anything in this play that you think British
audiences won't understand, and do you think it would be perceived very differently in America from Britain?
Yes I do, if we were to do it in America, the audience would perceive it very differently. What I think is brilliant
is, at the moment there is a big backlash against Americans and I think people think that we're just the poor
relations and that America is so dominant and that they are the driving force culturally and it all gets mixed up.
What you realise when you do a show like this is that Black folks in America and Black folks here have
completely their own identity, of course there are similarities and as Black folk we have a fantastic
communality. I hope the audience gets from the evening is that we are different and yet we still feel part of the
whole. Being unique and different is important - to find your place and then to slot that back into the greater
picture is the important thing.
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Book and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Music by David Martin
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Interview With Actor Nicola Hughes
What was your knowledge of the play or Langston Hughes before you started rehearsing?
Well I'd heard of Langston Hughes before, being a famous playwright or poet of his time, but I hadn't really
read any of his work.
What excites you about the play and your character?
Well, firstly that we have a fantastic director, if it's great at the top then it filters down to everybody else. The
cast that have been chosen are very talented and include people that I have wanted to work with for a long
time. And the play itself, everybody gets to grow in some way, so you actually get to find out about every
single character rather than just centring round a few so it is a really colourful picture.
Did you feel there was any difference being in an all Black cast?
I have been in all Black casts before, twice. No I didn't feel differently, I think it's always nice to just perform
with talented people whoever they are and we're lucky enough to have some of the greatest Black performers
of my time.
What do you enjoy about the rehearsal process and performing?
I don't know if I enjoy rehearsals although I have cried with laughter every day because this company is so
funny. But rehearsing is quite a gruelling process because it is a very vulnerable time and you're trying to find
the character and you're sort of left alone to develop, so it is a very difficult time but I do love it. But as I say it
is a very vulnerable time and you keep thinking about being good for the first night but of course you have to
go through all this first before you can get on to that.
Do you think there is much difference between doing a straight play and a musical?
I would say it's easier doing musicals because that's what I know rather than the fact that it is easier. With
musicals you don't really have much choice, you are pretty much told what to do and you have to make it work
regardless of whether it feels right or wrong. But with a play you are given more leeway to experiment, to try
different things so you are more vulnerable. I like it but it's not something I'm used to as I’ve worked
predominately in musical theatre. But it's all good!
I think in rehearsal you learn so much from other people, not just about the piece you are doing, but just
watching how other people develop and how they attack a scene or see how they approach things differently
from how you do. Just watching professionals is the one way you learn the most.
Do you ever surprise yourself during rehearsals?
Yes, by making a total fool out of myself all the time. It's great!
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6.
RESOURCES
Websites
http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/index.html
Harlem 1900-1940. The Schomberg Centre for research in Black Culture.
Includes a detailed timeline.
http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/harlem.html
Useful site about the Harlem Renaissance
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/home.htm
Perspectives in American Literature - A Research and Reference Guide
Contains useful information about the Harlem Renaissance and many Black writers.
http://www.poets.org/poets/index.cfm
Academy of American Poets. Contains complete biographies of many Harlem writers.
voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/NellaLarsen.html
Contains biographical information about some women Harlem writers.
http://www.northbysouth.org/1998/index.htm
Site about the Great Migration north to Harlem. Looks at cultures of both south and north.
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hughes/mountain.htm)
‘The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain’ an essay published in the Nation in 1926 by Langston Hughes
www.savoystyle.com
An excellent site describing the development of the jazz dances of the Savoy. Includes video clips of some of
the dances.
www.iniva.org/harlem/intro.html
A site developed for the Hayward Gallery’s recent exhibition ‘Rhapsody in Black’ of photographers and
painters of the Harlem Renaissance. Background to the Harlem Renaissance and excellent visual material.
www.jivinglindyhoppers.com
Home page of the Jiving Lindy Hoppers, a London-based jazz dance group
www.britishcouncil.org/diversity/race_useful.htm
Useful links to sites providing information and opinion about current British race relations.
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Books
Classic Fiction of the Harlem Renaissance. edited by William L. Andrews
New York. Oxford. Oxford University Press. c1994
Harlem. The Great Black Way 1900-1950 by Jervis Anderson
London. Orbis. 1982
Harlem at War. The Black Experience in WWII by Nat Brandt
Syracuse. Syracuse University Press. 1996
The Return of Simple by Langston Hughes. edited by Akiba Sullivan Harper. introduction by Arnold
Rampersad
New York. Hill and Wang. c1994
A Beautiful Pageant. African American Theatre, Drama and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance,
1910-1927 by David Krasner
New York. Basingstoke. Palgrave Macmillan. 2002
Langston Hughes. Critical Perspectives Past and Present edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K.A. Appiah.
New York. Amistad. Distributed by Penguin USA. c1993
A Pictorial History of the Negro in America by Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer. Third revision by C. Eric
Lincoln and Milton Meltzer. (Fifth printing, third revised edition.)
New York: Crown Publishers, 1970. pp. 380; illus. 29 cm.
Jazz Dance. The Story of American Vernacular Dance by Marshall and Jean Stearns
New York. Schirmer. London. Collier Macmillan. 1979
The Rap Attack. American Jive to New York Hip Hop by David Toop. Rap photographs by Patricia Bates
London. Pluto. 1984
The Picador Book of Blues and Jazz edited by James Campbell London. Picador. 1995
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