Josephine Baker, née Freda Josephine McDonald, was born in St. Louis in 1906. In 1921 she ventured to New York City, danced at The Plantation Club in Harlem, and became a popular and well-paid chorus girl in Broadway revues. In 1925 she travelled to Paris where she wowed ‘em with her athletic elegance and fresh humour. Parisians were mad for all things “Negro” and “Exotic” so Baker shrewdly “invented” herself for France – yet somehow remained sincere and real. She became a French citizen, spied on the Nazis for her government during WW2, raised a dozen adopted children – her rainbow tribe – and, from the 1950s onward, was a tireless campaigner for Civil Rights in the U.S.A. She died peacefully in 1975 after having given a performance at the Bobino music-hall theatre in Montparnasse.
ZP_Aaron Douglas’ 1929 dustjacket illustration for The Blacker the Berry – A Novel of Negro Life, by Wallace Thurman 1902-1934
ZP_Claude McKay, 1889-1948, Jamaican-born author of the frank and intense 1928 novel, Home to Harlem
ZP_Bessie Smith, 1894 to 1937, was the biggest Blues singer of the 1920s. Her sexual frankness through the use of metaphor is an absolute marvel – even in 2013. Poet Langston Hughes would’ve been familiar with her spicy lyrics.
Bessie Smith
“Empty Bed Blues” (recorded in 1928, lyrics by Smith)
.
I woke up this morning with a awful aching head
I woke up this morning with a awful aching head
My new man had left me, just a room and a empty bed
.
Bought me a coffee grinder that’s the best one I could find
Bought me a coffee grinder that’s the best one I could find
Oh, he could grind my coffee, ’cause he had a brand new grind
.
He’s a deep sea diver with a stroke that can’t go wrong
He’s a deep sea diver with a stroke that can’t go wrong
He can stay at the bottom and his wind holds out so long
.
He knows how to thrill me and he thrills me night and day
Oh, he knows how to thrill me, he thrills me night and day
He’s got a new way of loving, almost takes my breath away
.
Lord, he’s got that sweet somethin’ and I told my girlfriend Lou
He’s got that sweet somethin’ and I told my girlfriend Lou
From the way she’s raving, she must have gone and tried it too
.
When my bed get empty make me feel awful mean and blue
When my bed get empty make me feel awful mean and blue
My springs are getting rusty, sleeping single like I do
.
Bought him a blanket, pillow for his head at night
Bought him a blanket, pillow for his head at night
Then I bought him a mattress so he could lay just right
.
He came home one evening with his spirit way up high
He came home one evening with his spirit way up high
What he had to give me, make me wring my hands and cry
.
He give me a lesson that I never had before
He give me a lesson that I never had before
When he got to teachin’ me, from my elbow down was sore
.
He boiled my first cabbage and he made it awful hot
He boiled my first cabbage and he made it awful hot
When he put in the bacon, it overflowed the pot
.
When you git good lovin’, never go and spread the news
Yes, he’ll double-cross you, and leave you with them empty bed blues.
ZP_Gladys Bentley, 1907 – 1960, in a retouched and colourized 1920s photograph_Bentley was an openly lesbian Blues singer who often performed at Clam House, a gay speakeasy in Harlem.
ZP_Fire!, the 1926 one-issue-only Harlem literary journal that appalled and offended the Black middle-class
ZP_Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, 1874 – 1938_PuertoRican-born and mixed race, he settled in Harlem in the 1890s and was determined to untangle and reveal the African thread in the fabric of the Americas. Historian and activist, Schomburg was one of the intellectual backbones of The Harlem Renaissance.
ZP_The Crisis – A Record of the Darker Races, founded in 1910, was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s monthly journal. Edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, it featured, in a 1921 issue, the first published poem of a 19 year old Langston Hughes – The Negro Speaks of Rivers.
