Black Manhattan

by James Weldon Johnson

Analyzing the changing role of black artists in music, literature, and the theatre, a participant in the black renaissance of the twenties draws an impressionistic portrait of Harlem during this era

Genres: History, New York, Nonfiction, Sociology

284 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 1929

About the author

James Weldon Johnson was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and collections of folklore. He was also one of the first African-American professors at New York University. Later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University.

Reviews

[Elizabeth Higginbotham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black Manhattan by James Weldon Johnson was written in 1930, so he is commenting on the different neighborhoods where Black people lived and then the expansion of Harlem. The early history is interesting. Slavery is abolished in 1827, but the status of the Negro population was precarious. In the decades before the Civil War, New York was a center of activism. Frederick Douglas and many others. Yet, after the war it was not the center, as people travel to the south to teach and play other roles. There were pockets of the Black population, in what we think of as the Greenwich Village and Little Italy and people began to living in the 30s on the west side, but it is time for a rebirth that takes many forms. Music is much of the new lifeblood, but also the city become an intellectual center. There is also theatre, but many Black actors find more roles and a positive reception in Europe.

In 1900, there were new center, the Marshall Hotel on west 53 Street and the Meceo, both run by Black men who offered fashionable hotels that served dinner to music. There were also the gathering places of major trained musicians, like James Reese Europe, who would reshape the industry with jazz and ragtime. Europe is best known for his band leading during World War I, but from Johnson’s view, this history is rich with many men and women experimenting and seeking a living even in era of discrimination.

New York is also the intellectual center that offers a critic of Booker T. Washington, with social scientists like DuBois and Ira Reid offering both evidence of inequality and a different political stance. New York City had riots in 1900, when the police were no help. Yet, as the housing expands into Harlem in the 1920, it is not like the expansion of Black communities in the mid-west. Of course, there are Black real estate people buy and renting. This resistance is key to shaping the way for many others.

I read about Dr. Sweet housing challenges in Detroit and the long court case that lead to the beginning of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Kevin Boyle’s Arc of Justice. However, Johnson writes about the initial discrimination in Harlem, but in the end money talks. Harlem was overbuilt, as I think housing was expanding in many new neighborhoods and the expansion of the subway put this area right in the thick of things. There is tension, but not the bloody opposition found in mid western cities. Eventually it become the Black community that is known around the world.

The NAACP and Urban League are part of the scene. Johnson is very close to these events. Making this reading very interesting. To Johnson it was not history, but the environment he was making a life within.

As Harlem become the place, it is unique in that many of the owners of buildings were Black people. Some churches and home were relocated for the building of Penn Station, so they entered Harlem with resources. Yet, the over building in the city meant that prices came down. There is more homeownership than in some cities. Harlem becomes a place where people Johnson notes, they quickly become New Yorkers, because they work all over the city. They are not clustered in one occupation or for one employer. There is diversity in employment, meaning professionals as well as service workers. Slowly people make there way into industrial and manufacturing work that was still part of the city.

One of my friend’s mother, talked about doing social work on San Juan Hill, the area on the west side in the 50s, and then taking the subway to Harlem and talking to people on stoops as she made her way to her own home. This was a community that people saw as home. At the same time, we see the real expansion of music and the theatre. Johnson is more into the history of all these musicians than I am, but I find it interesting about the vitality of the community. Some White writers playing with Black themes, but this is time when Harlem productions pull a diversity of people to this community and productions travel to Washington DC and Philadelphia. Johnson also has his eye on the emergence of writers and poets in the Harlem Renaissance, but there is photography, radio and recordings of music. Nice to read about how these people were viewed at this time.

In the era after World War I, Harlem does become a center for political activism again, but with a different tone than the pre-Civil War era. Johnson cover Marcus Garvey rise and fall. Coming from Jamaica, Garvey was use to three racial groups, but in the U.S. there were only two. For Johnson, some of Garvey’s message is lost, as well as the inability to manage the ships. An interesting perspective.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for a course I took on the Harlem Renaissance. It was an interesting and informative book that discusses the negro in the life of New York City from the very first arrivals through the Harlem Renaissance. It pays special attention to theater (mostly musical theater), and touches on the other arts as well. There is a lot of valuable information in here on the life of Black America, and for that reason this book will probably stay in my collection. The main flaw is that too much ground is covered in too short a time, so that many interesting and significant details are surely skipped over. And the book's odd construction cannot really be considered a strong point (i.e. the more detailed history of the theater sandwiched between a brief history of African Americans, with a few pages here and there devoted to one major incident, like the atrocious East St. Louis massacre of 1917, or an important individual, such as Marcus Garvey). Someone since Johnson must have written a better short history of Afro-Americans, and I would like to read it someday.

[Edward Champion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for research. Much like its heftier and more comprehensive cousin, BLACK METROPOLIS, this vital 1930 volume demonstrates that Black life flourished significantly in Harlem before World War II. Johnson documents the poets, the protesters, and the theatrical talents in the 1920s. Unfortunately, he also relies far too much on long quotes for his otherwise airtight mission. And he is not as comprehensive as his colleagues in Chicago. But this is still an important volume of Black History: the rare tome published in the 20th century that didn't have it in for its subject.

[Malik · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Weldon Johnson provides an engaging history of and commentary on the Black population in the New York City region, ranging from colonial times to the top of the 20th century. The book focuses on Black theatre, music, poets and writers, as well as intellectual trends of the time.

[Corryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

slow school read

[Shannon King · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for an introduction to Black Manhattan, especially Harlem community life and culture, during the early 20th c.

[Dennis Greene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing narrative on African American life in New York City at the turn of the 20th Century.