The Morning: Revisiting the Harlem Renaissance

Plus, unions, Nancy Pelosi and influencers

View in browser|nytimes.com November 10, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleague Veronica Chambers writes about why the Harlem Renaissance still resonates a century later. We're also covering unions, Nancy Pelosi and influencers. —David Leonhardt An American movement By Veronica Chambers I'm a Brooklyn girl, but I'm low-key obsessed with the Harlem Renaissance. I've written a book about the era and taught its literature at universities. I can, and often do, spend whole weekends rereading Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, listening to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, thumbing through books featuring artwork by Aaron Douglas and Augusta Savage. But what brings me back to the Renaissance again and again is the way it changed this country. When the movement started a century ago, the United States was finally creating our own distinctly original culture — songs and dances, paintings and novels. We were looking less to Europe as a model of creativity. And in this moment — the 1920s, in New York City, both uptown and downtown — we become more wholly American. This year, a team of Times journalists marked the 100th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance with a series examining its vibrant history. A 1925 breakfast party for Langston Hughes. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library We began with a little-known dinner party that took place on March 21, 1924, an unprecedented interracial gathering that included such luminaries as W.E.B. Du Bois, Carl Van Doren and Alain Locke, as well as up-and-coming writers like Gwendolyn Bennett and Countee Cullen. Even today, in New York, this kind of gathering is rare. The purpose of the dinner was to marry talent to opportunity, connecting writers with editors and critics, and it was a wild success: In the decade after the dinner, Renaissance writers published more than 40 volumes of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, works that transformed the literary landscape of our nation. You can read about the dinner party (and the friendships, feuds and affairs that it launched) in this piece. Remixing Black dance. Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. for The New York Times The Harlem Renaissance is not only a historical story. The 1920s were called the Jazz Age because the music, and the movements that it inspired, gave the decade a distinctly American groove, one that persists to this day. Imani Perry — who recently won the National Book Award for her work, "South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation" — is also, as it turns out, a dance enthusiast. For our series, she interviewed three choreographers who are keeping the dance traditions of the Renaissance alive in their work. For days, the studios of The Times were filled with some of the finest dancers in the nation doing the lindy hop, swing and gravity-defying tap routines. You can see the results (and dance along) here, with stunning video and photography. The New York Times Harlem in the 1920s was a powerful space of sexual exploration and freedom. Many argue that the neighborhood was as important to the development of queer life in New York as the West Village was, in part because it offered queer men and women a chance to interact without the racial restrictions of the era. Working with The Times's graphics team, we created a map of queer Harlem, one that you could open on your phone for a self-guided tour. It features places like Hamilton Lodge, which held drag balls going back to the 19th century; clubs where entertainers like Ma Rainey, Gladys Bentley and Jimmie Daniels performed; and homes where Alain Locke, Ethel Waters, Langston Hughes and so many others lived, loved and made art. Years ago, Ann Douglas, author of "Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s," a seminal text on the subject of New York in the 1920s, told The Times: "I have the unfashionable posture of loving my country. I don't mean in the sense of the Pledge of Allegiance, but in that I believe America was founded on complex social, religious and political ideas and feelings, and that it is still the most exciting culture, the one where there is the most hope for the most people." We invite you to read through these pieces, which represent a remarkable array of American ingenuity and creativity, a celebration of not only our past but all that is yet to come. More from the series During the Harlem Renaissance, some Black people hosted rent parties — celebrations with an undercurrent of desperation in the face of racism and discrimination. Gwendolyn Bennett was a talented young poet and artist who was central to a fledgling cultural movement, but her life was shrouded by tragedy. The women who ran libraries during the Renaissance didn't just build collections. They built communities of writers and readers. THE LATEST NEWS 2024 Election President Biden promised to support and protect unions. Under Donald Trump, the approach is likely to change. Immigration lawyers are preparing to battle Trump in court again. Trump won't have Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo in his new administration. In his appointments, he is navigating ideological differences within his party. Europe lacks a strong leader to create a bulwark against Trumpism. The French and German governments are politically struggling at home. Vice President Kamala Harris will leave office in January with no concrete plans about what to do next. Here are six options. "Saturday Night Live" joked about the election. International In Amsterdam. Freek Van Den Bergh/EPA, via Shutterstock Amsterdam banned demonstrations under an emergency order and mobilized additional police officers after what city officials described as antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans. Read about the attacks. The Russian military has assembled 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, to push back Ukrainian troops inside Russia. Other Big Stories After Hurricane Helene. Mike Belleme for The New York Times Among the many things that Hurricane Helene swept away are hundreds of treasured family photographs. A detective is picking them out of the dirt, and helping return them. She was a child Instagram influencer, known for snowboarding. Her fans were adult men. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Was it Harris's election to lose? No. Harris's biggest problems were inflation and a global anti-incumbency bias. "Working-class Americans are clearly saying they don't think the current system works for them, and they're ready to try almost anything to change it," The Washington Post's Heather Long writes. Yes. Instead of focusing on how she would govern, Harris propped herself as nothing more than a centrist alternative to Trump. "You cannot win a hundred-day campaign simply by promising who you are not, whether that be Trump or President Joe Biden," Connor Foote writes for The Daily Tar Heel. FROM OPINION At the Palm Beach Convention Center. Mark Peterson for The New York Times Photographers at Harris's watch party at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Trump's in West Palm Beach, Fla., captured true believers. Unwinnable wars now have liberal support — and they will only get worse if those leaders do not acknowledge the costs, Ruben Andersson and David Keen write. Democrats lost because Biden — who selected Harris as his running mate and tied her to his own immigration failures — set the party up to fail, Josh Barro argues. Democrats are waking up and realizing "woke is broke," Maureen Dowd writes. Here's a column by Ross Douthat on how Democrats helped Trump and Nicholas Kristof on working-class pain. MORNING READS Shaboozey Michael Tran/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Country star: Shaboozey received six Grammy nominations, including song of the year. Read about his rise. Sadness: Technology and loneliness are linked, scholars say. Routine: How the choreographer of an Off Broadway drag show spends his Sundays. Health: See eight factors that could raise your heart disease risk. Vows: First they built a relationship. Then they built a real-estate brand. Lives Lived: Bobby Allison was a NASCAR Hall of Fame driver who became one of stock-car racing's most popular figures. He died at 86. BOOK OF THE WEEK "Into the Uncut Grass" Penguin Random House By Elisabeth Egan "Into the Uncut Grass," by Trevor Noah: "If imagination is the rocket, then books are the rocket fuel. They supercharge the mind and help it see beyond what it can conceive on its own," Noah writes in the introduction to this soothing picture book for all ages. Accompanied by Calvin and Hobbes-esque illustrations from Sabina Hahn, we follow a boy and a teddy bear beyond the confines of a gated yard into the wider world. Adventure awaits, as do lessons on connection, compromise and making peace while remaining true to who we are. Noah's message couldn't be more timely. THE INTERVIEW Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times By Lulu Garcia-Navarro This week's subject for The Interview is Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, who was eager to move past the presidential election and dismissive of the idea that the result is a rebuke of the Democratic Party. When you look at what happened on Tuesday, you can see it in two ways. You can see that the country embraced Trump or you can see that they rejected the Democratic Party more broadly and the Biden-Harris administration. How do you see it? Well, I don't see the Democratic Party more broadly. We lost two seats in the House, and we expect to pick up some more to offset that. Right now, we're about even. So I don't think whatever you said, with all due respect, applies to the House Democrats. House races are run very locally. They message specifically for their district. But the brand of the Democratic Party over all seems to have been hurt this election cycle. Well, we lost the presidential election, [but] in many cases, our Democrats in the House ran ahead of the presidential ticket. So, your branding that we all got rejected, we didn't. We're still in the fight right now, and it's going to be a very close call. I don't see it as an outright rejection of the Democratic Party. Now, I do have a discomfort level with some of the Democrats right now who are saying, "Oh, we abandoned the working class." No, we didn't. That's who we are. We are the kitchen table, working-class party of America. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Meridith Kohut for The New York Times Click the cover image above to read this week's magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Try a beginner dumbbell workout. Customize your Kindle for cozy reading sessions. Invest in self-care. MEAL PLAN Christopher Testani for The New York Times. In this week's Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein suggests two simple dishes from Eric Kim: salt-and-vinegar baked fish and chips, featuring frozen French fries; and peanut butter noodles, a bowl that fuses Parmesan and peanut butter for a salty and satisfying sauce for ramen or spaghetti. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangrams were bogeying and obeying. Can you put eight historical events — including the building of the Colosseum, the Blitz, and creation of Sherlock Holmes — in chronological order? Take this week's Flashback quiz. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving The Morning, unsubscribe. 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