The Making of the New Negro: Black Authorship, Masculinity, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance (Amsterdam University Press - American Studies)

281 Pages·2011·1.3 MB·English

by  Anna Pochmara

American Studies

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The Making of the New Negro examines black masculinity in the period of the New Negro/Harlem P m
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Renaissance, which for many decades did not attract a great deal of critical attention, until, c e
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in the 1990s, many scholars discovered how complex, signifi cant, and fascinating it was. Using m r
African American published texts, American archives and unpublished writings, and contempo- ara ci
raneous European discourses, this book focuses both on the canonical fi gures of the New Negro a
Movement and African American culture, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Alain Locke, n
and Richard Wright, and on writers who have not received as much scholarly attention despite T
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their signifi cance for the movement, such as Wallace Thurman. Its perspective combines gender, h
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sexuality, and race studies with a thorough literary analysis and historicist investigation,
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an approach that has not been extensively applied to analyze the New Negro Renaissance.
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Anna Pochmara is Assistant Professor of English Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland.
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“The Making of the New Negro breaks completely new ground in our understanding of the male writers g
and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. Conceptually rich and theoretically sophisticated this is a

powerful and compelling portrait of the racialized politics of masculinity and non-normative sexualities o
of the New Negro. Anna Pochmara has written an utterly persuasive and very important book.”
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Hazel V. Carby, author of Reconstructing Womanhood and Professor of African American Studies

and American Studies at Yale University t
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e Anna Pochmara

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ISBN 978 90 896 4319 3
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Black Authorship, Masculinity, and Sexuality
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in the Harlem Renaissance
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aup_am_nwnegro_def.indd 1 29-06-2011 11:21:29
The Making oftheNew Negro
American Studies
American Studies publishes monographs and edited volumes on American
history, society, politics, and culture. The series is a forum for groundbreaking
approaches and areas of research, as well as pioneering scholarship that adds
newinsightsintorelativelyestablishedfieldsinthestudyofAmerica.
SeriesEditors:
DerekRubinandJaapVerheul,
UtrechtUniversity
Published in thisSeries
DerekRubinandJaapVerheul(eds.)
AmericanMulticulturalismafter9/11:TransatlanticPerspectives
2009(ISBN9789089641441)
SebastianReyn
AtlantisLost:TheAmericanExperiencewithDeGaulle,1958-1969
2010(ISBN9789089642141)
2
The Making of the
New Negro
Black Authorship, Masculinity, and Sexuality
in the Harlem Renaissance
Anna Pochmara
AmsterdamUniversityPress
Thepublicationofthisbookwasmadepossiblebyafinancialcontributionfrom
theInstituteofEnglishStudies,theUniversityofWarsaw.
Coverillustration:AuthorLangstonHughes [farleft]with[lefttoright:] Charles
S. Johnson; E. Franklin Frazier; Rudolph Fisher and Hubert T. Delaney, on the
roof of 580 St. Nicholas Avenue, Harlem, on the occasion of a party in Hughes'
honor,1924.PhotographsandPrintsDivision,SchomburgCenterforResearchin
BlackCulture,TheNewYorkPublicLibrary,Astor,LenoxandTildenFoundations
Cover design: Neon, design and communications, Sabine Mannell, Amsterdam,
theNetherlands
Design:JAPES,Amsterdam,theNetherlands
isbn 9789089643193
e-isbn 9789048514236
nur 632
©AnnaPochmara/AmsterdamUniversityPress,2011
A part of Chapter 1 has already been published as “The Black Man’s Burden:
Dilemmas of Black Masculinity in Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery.” The
Americanist25(2009):97-110
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both
thecopyrightownerandtheauthorofthebook.
Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustra-
tionsreproducedinthisbook.Nonetheless,whosoeverbelieves tohaverightsto
thismaterialisadvisedtocontactthepublisher.
Table of contents
Acknowledgements 7
Introduction 9
ChapterOne 17
Prologue:TheQuestionofManhoodintheBookerT.Washington-
W.E.B.DuBoisDebate
PART1:ALAINLOCKEANDTHENEWNEGRO
ChapterTwo 57
MidwiferyandCamaraderie:AlainLocke’sTropesofGenderand
Sexuality
ChapterThree 95
Arts,War,andtheBraveNewNegro:GenderingtheBlackAesthetic
PART2:WALLACETHURMANANDNIGGERATIMANOR
ChapterFour 111
GangstersandBootblacks,RentPartiesandRailroadFlats:Wallace
Thurman’sChallengestotheBlackBourgeoisie
ChapterFive 141
DiscontentsoftheBlackDandy
ChapterSix 179
Epilogue:RichardWright’sInterrogationsoftheNewNegro
Conclusion 217
BlackMaleAuthorship,Sexuality,andtheTransatlanticConnection
Notes 221
Bibliography 255
Index 267
CurriculumVitae 279
5

Acknowledgements
This book has been an intellectual adventure that wouldnot bepossible without
the contribution and help from a number of scholars and friends. All my aca-
demicteachers have left a significant mark on my analytical approach and scho-
larly interests. I would especially like to thank Professors Piotr Skurowski, Ag-
nieszka Graff, and Cynthia Dominik. I am also very grateful to Professor Agata
Preis-SmithforherguidanceasmyM.A.thesissupervisoraswellasforherastute
review of this text, which was very helpful in the process of revision. The most
substantial part of this book was written during my stay at Yale University in
2007-2008, where Professor Hazel V. Carby, as my Fulbright mentor, enhanced
my research with her warm, friendly, and inspiring guidance. I also wish to ex-
pressmygratitude tothe ChairofAmericanLiteratureSection, Dr.Marek Paryż,
who activelyencouragedme to publish my manuscriptas a book. Additionally,I
want to thank a number of my friends for their intellectual and emotional sup-
port. Most notably, I am grateful to my dear friend Anna B. Ross for her careful
andconstructiveproofreadingofthedraftversionofthisstudy,helpwitharchival
sources in German, and companionship during our American expedition. I am
also deeply indebted to Filip Lipiński, who has helped me with visual references
and, as a fellow Fulbrighter, greatly facilitated my research at the New York ar-
chives. I was fortunate to find support in many other young scholars, especially
Dr. Ewa Nowik, Dr. Agnieszka Szarkowska, Dr. Justyna Wierzchowska, and Dr.
Joanna Ziarkowska, whose exemplary academic commitment have inspired me.
Finally, I want to thank my parents and my husband for their generous support
forthisacademicprojectaswellasotherlifechoices.
7

Introduction
…TheNegrobeganthatrevelationandvindicationofhimself,
thatimpassionedstudyofhisaccomplishments,
thedeclarationofhisfuturethatcreates
themasculineliteratureofthe‘NewNegro.’1
J.SaundersRedding,ToMakeaPoetBlack
IfthereiseveraNegroliterature,itmustdisengageitself
fromtheweak,heinouselementsoftheculturethatspawnedit.2
LeroiJones(AmiriBaraka),“TheMythofa‘NegroLiterature’”
Thisbooksetsouttoanalyzegenderandsexualityconstructionsinselectedtexts
of New Negro Renaissance discourse.3 One of the main aims of this book is to
examine the production of literary and cultural history as an ongoing dialogic
process that is mediated through the notions of gender and sexuality. Such a
dialogueisexemplifiedbytheopeningepigraphs.J.SaundersReddingandAmiri
Barakarefertothesameperiodofblackliteraryhistoryandyettheirassessments
arediametricallyopposed.Moresignificantly,bothviewsareexpressedinagen-
der-marked way – on the one hand, the New Negro Renaissance is praised as
“masculine”and,ontheother,representedastheabject–condemnedas“weak,
“heinous,” and femininely able to “spawn.” Following the logic revealed in this
example,thisstudywillexplorehowaestheticevaluationsandrepresentationsof
the New Negro Renaissance are diversely entangled in the tropes of gender and
sexuality.Inthemainbody,thisgender-markeddialoguewillbeanalyzedonthe
exampleofthetwoleadingfiguresofthemovement,WallaceThurmanandAlain
Locke.InthePrologueandtheEpilogue,thissynchronicperspectivewillbecom-
plementedwithafocusonthepublicdebatesprecedingandimmediatelyfollow-
ingtheRenaissance.
Theexaminationofthesedialogicalrhetoricswilldemonstratethattheroleof
masculinity is especially significant in historical narratives of black literature.
Both levels of analysis, diachronic and synchronic, will examine how the tropes
loaded with gendered and sexual connotations serve either to celebrate or to re-
pudiaterivalblackleaders.Consequently,adiscussionofrelationsamongtower-
ing black authors needs the explanatory potential of two theoretical paradigms:
HaroldBloom’sanxietyofinfluenceandSusanGilbertandSusanGubar’sanxiety
of authorship.4 The black male writer is caught in a double bind between the
needtoengagein“heroicwarfare”withhisstrongpredecessorsandtheneedto
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