In his 1925 article, “The New Negro” Alain Locke ( you should say who he is and
what the article is part of—a special issue of the Survey Graphic )
argues for Harlem as the centre of “New Negro” life. He states “Harlem, as we
shall see…is the home of the Negro’s “Zionism”…The pulse of the Negro world has
begun to beat…in Harlem”. (Locke, 633) The comparison of the “New Negro”
movement with Zionism in an interesting one and has many implications. Zionism in its
broadest sense is a political movement that began ….. that called for the selfdetermination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland separate
from the Diaspora.
Perhaps just one question makes sense here. Probably the third one
What did Locke mean by self-determination? Why was self-determination so
important at this time and in this particular place? Why was it important for Locke to
make the connection with Zionism and what did it represent to African Americans?
At the turn of the twentieth century, the African American population in the
United States was undergoing the greatest change it had seen since slavery? colonialism,
which came to be known as The Great Migration. Beginning around 1910, “over the
course of six decades, some six million black southerners left the land of their forefathers
and fanned out across the country for an uncertain existence in nearly ever other corner
of America…and would become a turning point in history” (Wilkerson, 9) As more and
more people moved away from the Jim Crow South, African Americans found
themselves with the opportunity to form their own independent identity, apart from that
which was created by others during and after slavery. Locke believed that African
Americans needed to seize the opportunity to create a new identity for themselves, what
Locke would describe as the “New Negro”. No longer slaves or sharecroppers shackled
by the Jim Crow laws of the south, the “New Negro” , according to Locke, was cultured,
well read and both enjoyed and participated in the arts. The idea of the “New Negro” was
heavily based on an Afro-centric arts renaissance in Harlem in the 1920s, which would
become the centre for “New Negro” Zionism. Despite rhetoric of differentiation from
both white culture and the “Old Negro” (Locke, 2) This is not clear—you should
elaborate on what you mean by “rhetoric of differentiation Locke’s goal seems
overwhelmingly to be assimilation. Locke called for African American self-determination
and the creation of a nation (did Locke use the term “nation”? If so, you should put it in
quotes. This is important—because you argument is that this “nation” should be
assimilated into the broader nation. of “New Negroes” and Afro-centric culture as a
method not to separate from American society and culture but in fact to be accepted by
and integrated into it. CLEAR ARGUMENT!!!!!
THE similarities between Jewish and Black Zionism abound. WHEN? WHEN WAS
JEWISH ZIONISM? YOU NEED TO SITUATE THIS COMPARISON IN
HISTORICAL CONTEXT WITH YOUR TOPIC SENTENCE Both movements were
based on ideas that sprung from groups of people being persecuted by mainstream
society. For the Jews, Israel had always been thought of as the Jewish homeland;
however, the Zionist movement truly began to develop in Europe and Russia in the late
19th Century when hostility and anti-Semitism towards Jews was growing in popularity.
The leader of the Jewish Zionist movement, Theodore Hertzl, was similar to Locke in
that he advocated for the urgency for self-determination for the Jewish people. ( He
differed in the sense that he called for a separate nation???). Both movements called for
the self-determination and separation (did Locke call for separation or differentiation?)
of a group from those around them and both called for the focus on traditions linking
each group to a specific geographical location. In the case of Zionism it was the land of
Israel and in the case of “the New Negro” the traditions (folk art, music) of Africa were
used to bring blacks together for the purpose of nation building (again—you should
explore what Locke meant by “nation building” here—did he mean physically or
symbolically? centre of the movement in Harlem.
The comparison between Jewish and “New Negro” Zionism was important for Locke
for a number of reasons. Locke was fond of using nationalist rhetoric in the creation of
the idea of the New Negro “race” as he called it and used it as a tool to unite the African
American Diaspora. “African Americans become a race for the first time…. our
comparison is taken with those nascent centers of folk expression and self determination
which are playing a creative part in the world today. Without pretense to their political
significance, Harlem has the same role to play for the New Negro as Dublin has for the
New Ireland or Prague for the new Czechoslovakia.” (Locke, 3) The use of nationalist
rhetoric and comparisons to Zionism gave the New Negro a concrete ideal to grasp hold
of as Locke and his contemporaries tried to define and shape their “nation” and provided
a source of pride for the New Negro. Locke aligned the New Negro movement with
colonized and subjugated groups throughout the world in the early 20th century whose
struggles towards a national identity was co-existent with their struggle for political
liberation. Locke also capitalizes on the African ???American effort to define a new
national identity through cultural means. Locke wanted “New Negro” art and culture to
become part of ??? a new American culture. ??? This is where you need to distinguish
between Locke and Zionism. This seems to be your argument about assimilation. You
need greater clarity here.
( you should probably move this paragraph up closer to the beginning because it is
background for Locke’s emphasis on the New Negro. In his article “ The New Negro”
Locke explains the state of the “Old Negro” or essentially the cultural stereotype of
African Americans at the time. In his mind, the Old Negro “has become more of a myth
than a man. …His has been a stock figure perpetuated as an historical fiction partly in
innocent sentimentalism, partly in deliberate reactionism. The Negro himself has
contributed his share to this through a sort of protective social mimicry forced upon him
by the adverse circumstances of dependence. So for generations in the mind of America,
the Negro has been more of a formula than a human being—a something to be argued
about, condemned or defended, to be "kept down," or "in his place," or "'helped up," to be
worried with or worried over, harassed or patronized, a social bogey or a social burden….
Through having had to appeal from the unjust stereotypes of his oppressors and traducers
to those of his liberators, friends and benefactors he has had to subscribe to the traditional
positions from which his case has been viewed. Little true social or self- understanding
has or could come from such a situation.”(Locke, 2) Locke believed that the image and
role of the Negro at the turn of the century had essentially been decided by society and
had very little to do with neither the construction nor the understanding of these
stereotypes.
The new self-determined Negro not only determined his role and image in society,
but also has a deep understanding of that role. By determining the definition of the New
Negro in Harlem themselves, through art, music and other cultural forms, African
Americans were able to “foster greater self esteem…and ideally great inclusion in
American society at large”(Tarver and Barnes, 34) Through separation and emphasis of
their difference, the New Negro (and Locke solely advocates for the cultured, educated
and worldly “New Negro”) might actually find acceptance and importance in American
society at the time. According to….“Locke urges people to capitalize on the European
and American obsession with the primitive and notions of absolute racial
difference….Locke argues that the integration of African signs into black American
cultural production will enable the black American artist to offer something authentically
and distinctly racial to the American cultural scene. …Africa’s function is to shore up the
cultural and political positions of the African American” (Tarver and Barnes, 35)
Therefore in returning to and embracing Africa as homeland and African art forms in
what Locke would call “New Negro Zionism” the “New Negro” carved out an identity
for himself outside of ???????
Harlem, as a location for the New Negro Zionism. was important because it would act
as a centre for the construction of a New Negro identity. Acceptance into American
society was important for Locke’s New Negro (again – this is your main argument which
is clear at the beginning but you have not woven it throughout) and Harlem acted as a
centre for African-American culture. Africa was used more as a source of authentic
culture and roots that could be used as building blocks of the New Negro nation. Harlem
was the place for these roots to grow in new ways, creating a unique and self-aware
African-American nation.
References:
References:
1.Alain Locke, Enter the New Negro, in
The Survey Graphic, Harlem, March 1925
2. Richard Wright (1941). 12 million Black voices: A folk history of the Negro. New
York: Viking Press.
3.Nadell, M. (2004). Enter the new Negroes: Images of race in American culture.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 34-67.
4. New Voices on the Harlem Renaissance: Essays on Race, Gender, and Literary
Discourse-Book by Australia Tarver, Paula C. Barnes; 2006