Harlem: The Harlem And The Harlem Renaissance

On May 9, 1897 John Wesley Fisher and Glendora Williamson Fisher gave birth to their son Rudolph John Chauncey Fisher in Washington D.C. throughout Fishers childhood, he was constantly moving due to the fact that his father was a Baptist Minister. By Fishers father being a minister he moved the family each time he was assigned to a new church. Eventually, Fisher and his family settled in Providence, Rhode Island. He graduated from Providence’s Classical High School with honors. Four years later in 1919 he graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor Major in English and Biology (Martin, 2003). One year later he also received a Masters from Brown University with honors. During his enrollment at Brown he was recognized for his public speaking

talent. He accomplished many things in his lifetime, such as winning numerous awards for public speaking while he attended Brown University. Fisher won the first Caesar Misch Premium in his freshman year, first prize in the Carpenter Prize Speaking Contest his sophomore year. Junior year Fisher won the Dunn Premium and he delivered one of three orations at his commencement program. After Fisher graduated from Brown, he continued his education by attending Howard Medical School. In 1924 he graduated from Brown with highest honors. He began studies at Columbia University, training in biology and roentgeneolgy-- the use of x-rays for diagnosis if disease. He taught embryology while he was there, from 1920 to 1924. Later in the year, Fisher married Jane Ryder. She was a Washington D.C. schoolteacher. The couple later had a son and named him Hugh, and nicknamed him “The New Negro” as an appreciation to the Harlem Renaissance.
In 1929, Fisher takes a position at the New York City Health Department as a roentgenologist. In 1931, he begins serving in the 369th Infantry as a lieutenant. He participates as a committee member at the YMCA and as a lecturer at the New York Public Library both located in 135th street in Harlem (Martin, 2003). Fisher was developing The Conjure Man Dies into a play, but died of intestinal cancer at age 37, on December 26, 1934, before the manuscript was completed. His death was attributed to his own X-ray machines. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2002).

Inspiration
Harlem!

To African Americans during the first half of the twentieth century the word evoked strong images – the Negro Metropolis, Black Manhattan, the political, cultural , and spiritual center of African America, a land of plenty, a city of Refuge (Wintz, 2007). For some, the image of Harlem was more personal (Wintz, 2007). Africans Americans such as Rudolph Fisher was mainly inspired by his surroundings. While living in New York City, Fisher was soaking up the sights, sounds and smells of Harlem, just as urban blacks were leading the sweeping literary, musical, and artistic revolution known as the “Harlem Renaissance (Lewis, 2011). Fisher took pride in revealing the human side of his people. Many of his stories have as their main plot the prejudices within the black community. His works defines how he lived his life and what he experienced throughout

it.
Works
Fisher was very good at producing works that portrayed the condition of the Harlem African Americans during the 1920’s.

Fisher writes about black people in a manner which expresses their connection with other people and the difference between the rural South and the urban North in the African American community. He captures the historically induced unique nature of black people. Fisher also had to deal with racism in society as a whole as well as with prejudice within black society. This prejudice occurred especially between working-class blacks and middle- and upper-class African Americans. That’s why he focuses on African American’s not as black people but merely as people, which allows the audience to relate to his story. Fisher has written phenomenal novels, short stories, essays and poems during his short lifetime. Fisher wrote several short stories. He first gained acknowledgement with his short story “The City of Refuge” (1925), about life in Harlem. The Walls of Jericho (1928) describes class strife among African Americans in Harlem. Some of Fishers novels; The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem (1932) is one of the first black detective stories, which was generally recognized as the first black detective novel. “South Lingers On," 1925; "Ringtail," 1925; "High Yaller," 1925 a “white” black girl, crosses the color line to escape both blacks and white prejudice. In “Common Meter” as in several other stories, music symbolizes the common bond among black

people. Using a dance to bring together otherwise non socializing factions of the community, Fisher vividly illustrated class conflicts and the potential for resolution of conflict within Harlem. Often considered his best story, “ Miss Cynthie” combines two of fishers principal concerns—the contrasting value systems of traditional southerners and modern northerners and the value of music as a form of cross-cultural communication and reconciliation. (Draper) The effect of those stories establishes Fisher as an accurate chronicler of the social history of Harlem during the Renaissance. He was very adept at accurately interpreting what he saw as an active participant in the Renaissance (Martin, 2003).

Themes
After the publication of “The City of Refuge”, Fisher became the first Harlem Renaissance Writer to break into main stream publishing. Within his novels and short stories, a common theme is where he avoids describing people by their race. In his novel “The Conjure Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem” the theme explores the power of magic and the supernatural among the people of Harlem. In his novel “The Walls of Jericho”, Fisher focuses on the idea of black unity and the discovery of the self. Within his short stories, “The City of Refuge offers vibrant tales that deal with the problems faced by newcomers to the city, ancestor figures who struggle to instill a sense of integrity in the young, problems of violence and vengeance, and tensions of caste and class (Press, 2012). In the popular article The Caucasian Storms Harlem, Fisher recognized the dramatic and comic power in African American folklore and music and frequented Harlem’s many cabarets, speakeasies, and nightclubs, and at the core of his work is a strong regard for music as context and counterpoint (Press, 2012). Other themes in Fishers work include Drug Trafficking, Great Migration, Black Southern folkways, Black urban experiences and interracial oppression and exploitation. (African American Literature, 2014)

Critiques
In all of his stories, Fisher writes about immigrants, musicians, and the poor of Harlem. In his time, critics scolded him for not writing about African Americans of his own class. W. E. B. Du Bois wrote to that effect in a 1928 review of The Walls of Jericho, asking why characters like Fisher's actual Harlem friends (doctors, writers, and educators) never appear in his fiction (eNotes, 2014). Wallace Thurman retaliated towards the criticism, and commented "The entire universe is the writer's province and so are all the people therein" ["High, Low, Past and Present," Harlem 1928], and argued that it was unnecessary for Du Bois to decree that African American writers should write about one class and not another. (eNotes, 2014). Most of the criticism has a tendency to focus on the characters and themes of Fishers work. Still, critics acknowledge that Fisher was a writer who best captured the nature of Harlem during its most critical period. Some of his critics were Oliver Louis Henry, John McCluskey Jr, and Margaret Perry. Henry argues that Fisher's literary intelligence should be judged by his short stories, which show a keen attention to race and class consciousness. (eNotes, 2014). McCluskey argues that Fisher transplants folk vernacular, through music, to the urban setting, and embodies it into his stories. Perry observes that Fisher was a nonbeliever and social historian whose stories were traditional in style, yet he was still able to grasp the spirit of Harlem. Although this proves to become a heated debate between his critics, most of whom, however, find this to be "a skillful and sophisticated innovation." (Reuben, 2014). "Fisher exploits the Black population in that his characters are mostly Black," - Isaac Anderson .Quote from Anderson’s review of Fisher's novel Conjure (203).