Moving Minds and Mountains: African Americans in New York City from 1919 to 1945 (Report‪)‬

Cities are exciting, ever changing places that are inherently restless and perpetually in motion. They thrive from being, as Lewis Mumford observed, in a constant "state of dynamic tension and interaction." Urban dynamism promotes the opportunity, diversity, growth and prosperity that define the American Dream. It is precisely because cities are not static that they are places of possibility, none more so than New York, the city that never sleeps. As the poet Langston Hughes understood, "New York is truly the dream city, city of towers near God, city of hopes and visions." (1) The African American experience in New York from 1919 to 1945 provides perspective on the "'dynamic tensions" of the American city and the hopes so central to the American Dream. It encompasses various forms of movement including the physical movement uptown, the cultural movement of the Harlem Renaissance, the social protest movement of Marcus Garvey and the jobs protest movement led by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. finally, the violence of the 1935 and 1943 riots expose the paradoxes of movement--of progress contrasted with stagnation, of dreams dashed by frustration.