Stereotypes During The Harlem Renaissance

‘It was a period when the Negro was in vogue’

The Harlem Renaissance was the blossoming of black American social thought in the first half of the twentieth century. This cultural movement was expressed through artistic avenues such as literature, paintings, music, dance and art. A whole host of creatives – writers, artists, musicians – settled in Harlem. This was due to the Great Migration, a passage that saw over 1.5 million educated, middle class black Americans move from the South to Northern cities. Settled in Harlem, African American writers and artists were concerned with redefining negative perceptions of their peoples and culture. Unsavoury stereotypes such as mammy, Jezebel and minstrelsy existed to reinforce racist ideas about African

There was a desire to employ their newfound creative autonomy to refashion their conventional cultural identity. An identity to America that was characterised either as docile servants or bestial beings. This period coincided with Howard Carter’s 1922 discovery of Tutkanhem’s tomb in Egypt. Carter’s find led to a crazed worldwide fascination with Ancient Egypt, a phenomenon that has come to be known as Egyptomania. African Americans had a conflicted interest in Egypt, on one hand it was to them a motherland that represented imperial might. One that they were stolen from and denied a chance to claim due to slavery. On the other hand they drew parallels between Egyptian pharaoh’s and white slaveowners as their oppressors. Nevertheless Egypt became an important trope for imagining African American cultural identity and history in the early twentieth century (Farebrother 2013, pg.207) This piece of coursework will examine the ways in which this African country played a part in the Harlem Renaissance and how she was used as an

Some of the most iconic images to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance featured Egyptian motifs. One of the earliest examples can be found in The Awakening of Ethiopia (1914) by Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller. The sculpture depicts an erect Egyptian woman in traditional Egyptian garb, wrapped in mummy-like funeral bands, even though she appears to be waking from death or slumber. This signifies the awakening of black people to a renewed consciousness after the sleep of oppression or historical forgetfulness. Additionally The Ascent of Ethiopia (1932) painting by Loïs Mailou Jones includes a similar representative figure, but within a broader narrative context. The painting is actually a rendering of African-American history, one that follows the displacement of African figures from the old continent who are following a three wise men like star to the modern United States, where they unearth icons of the cultural activities of their descendants: art, drama, music. The art work responds to the manifesto of Locke’s and Du Bois’ campaigns resoundingly: it provides an account of history and tradition in a genteelism manner – the middle passage being muted to a providential call and ascent. The painting aims to provide a tribute to the achievements of the race in artistic matters; it can therefore be counted as a piece of propaganda in support of African-American