February is Black History Month, so I thought it might be nice to provide a sampling of works by authors and poets who were active during this movement.
There were so many, I won’t get to them all, but if I missed your favorite, let me know in the comments.
“But to look back from the stony plain along the road which led one to that place is not at all the same thing as walking on the road; the perspective to say the very least, changes only with the journey; only when the road has, all abruptly and treacherously, and with an absoluteness that permits no argument, turned or dropped or risen is one able to see all that one could not have seen from any other place.”
– James Baldwin, Go Tell It On The Mountain
I think he’s trying to say you never know how a choice in your life will turn out until you make it. What do you think?
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.– Langston Hughes, Dreams
That’s what this blog is all about.
“There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.”
– W.E.B. Dubois, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870
Pretty self-explanatory. Hard to stop an evil when enough evil existed for the evil to have been created in the first place.
“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.”
-Zora Neale Hurston
I thought this was a witty take on a serious subject.
“Authors do not supply imaginations, they expect their readers to have their own, and to use it.”
– Nella Larson, Author of Quicksand
OK, this quote has nothing to do with civil rights, but I came across it and had to share it, because I feel this way all the time. I mean, as an author, you do have to provide enough detail to establish who your character is, what he/she looks like, some major characteristics and traits, but after that – you have to leave it to the reader to fill in the blanks.
It’s hard when you think about it. I can picture my character in my head. If you read about my character, you’ll likely picture someone very different than who I had in mind. But overall, if the author has done his/her job, the reader will get the gist.
Bookshelf Battle 
I took a Harlem Renaissance class a few semesters back and it remains to be one of my favorites that I’ve taken in college.
I loved Quicksand and also Passing, but I have to say my favorite was Zora Neale Hurston’s, Moses, Man of the Mountain. Technically, it was written after the Harlem Renaissance is generally considered to be over, but I think it’s still an incredibly important text and I took a lot away from it.
I hate to say it, I’d never heard of Zora until researching this post. She had a good sense of humor and deserves more attention.
Re the last quote, I have been astonished by the way a reader will describe back to me a character that is almost unrecognisable from the one I had in mind.
When I read a book, usually I just assign a famous actor to play each character in my head. Sometimes I have to change actors if the author later reveals something about the character that doesn’t fit with the original actor.
It’s tough, we have our vision, we describe it the best we can, but it’s going to look different in the heads of every reader.