Harlem Nocturne
Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II
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- $33.99
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- $33.99
Publisher Description
As World War II raged overseas, Harlem witnessed a battle of its own. Brimming with creative and political energy, the neighborhood's diverse array of artists and activists took advantage of a brief period of progressivism during the war years to launch a bold cultural offensive aimed at winning democracy for all Americans, regardless of race or gender. Ardent believers in America's promise, these men and women helped to lay the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement before Cold War politics and anti-Communist fervor temporarily froze their dreams at the dawn of the postwar era.
In Harlem Nocturne, esteemed scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin tells the stories of three black female artists whose creative and political efforts fueled this historic movement for change: choreographer and dancer Pearl Primus, composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams, and novelist Ann Petry. Like many African Americans in the city at the time, these women weren't't native New Yorkers, but the metropolis and its vibrant cultural scene gave them the space to flourish and the freedom to express their political concerns. Pearl Primus performed nightly at the legendary Cafe Society, the first racially integrated club in New York, where she debuted dances of social protest that drew on long-buried African traditions and the dances of former slaves in the South. Williams, meanwhile, was a major figure in the emergence of bebop, collaborating with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell and premiering her groundbreaking Zodiac Suite at the legendary performance space Town Hall. And Ann Petry conveyed the struggles of working-class black women to a national audience with her acclaimed novel The Street, which sold over a million copies -- a first for a female African American author.
A rich biography of three artists and the city that inspired them, Harlem Nocturne captures a period of unprecedented vitality and progress for African Americans and women, revealing a cultural movement and a historical moment whose influence endures today.
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Griffin's triptych focuses on dancer Pearl Primus, writer Ann Petry, and musician Mary Lou Williams African-American political activists and artists who were innovative and influential during the 1940s, the era of the Double Victory Campaign (Victory at Home and Abroad), as black Americans "fought not only overseas for their country but also to be recognized as citizens at home." Devoting a section to each artist, Columbia University professor Griffin provides biographical details and a discerning assessment of particular works, among them Primus's "Strange Fruit," Petry's The Street, Williams's Zodiac Suite, and delineates their historical, social, and personal milieu. In placing the women's artistic endeavors squarely in the context of their political activities in the midst of the Double V Campaign, Griffin adds a fresh and provocative perspective to their creative work, but the book bursts at the seams. There's almost a whole history of Harlem, as well as a who's who of friends, husbands, employers, and contemporaries of the primary subjects (Katherine Dunham, Dinah Washington, Benjamin Davis, and others). Still, the book constitutes a giant step to securing the place all three subjects merit in American cultural history. Fully accessible to general readers, it will be mined by future scholars.
