Enter the New Negroes: Images of Race in American Culture Review

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(More customer reviews)The title of this text does its contents no justice. This book accurately explains the continually changing mentality of (and towards) African Americans from the end of slavery and through the Harlem Renaissance. It follows two methods of expression (art and literature) which helped to define the diverse culture that blossomed in Harlem after the Great Migration.
In efficiently examining the art and writings of the prominent African Americans of the time, Prof. Nadell helps bring to the surface fascinating connections between the two creative forms and between the creative, intellectual, and socio-economic aspects of the 'New Negro'.
Besides being wonderfully enlightening, the book is also masterfully put together. Nadell's art selection is thought-provoking and sharply printed. The layout of the book is stunning and the index complete. The cover-art, as you can see, makes you want to display the book on a pedestal instead of stuffing it between some musty tomes on your shelf.
A completely invigorating read.

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With the appearance of the urban, modern, diverse "New Negro" in the Harlem Renaissance, writers and critics began a vibrant debate on the nature of African-American identity, community, and history. Martha Jane Nadell offers an illuminating new perspective on the period and the decades immediately following it in a fascinating exploration of the neglected role played by visual images of race in that debate.

After tracing the literary and visual images of nineteenth-century "Old Negro" stereotypes, Nadell focuses on works from the 1920s through the 1940s that showcased important visual elements. Alain Locke and Wallace Thurman published magazines and anthologies that embraced modernist images. Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men, with illustrations by Mexican caricaturist Miguel Covarrubias, meditated on the nature of black Southern folk culture. In the "folk history" Twelve Million Black Voices, Richard Wright matched prose to Farm Security Administration photographs. And in the 1948 Langston Hughes poetry collection One Way Ticket, Jacob Lawrence produced a series of drawings engaging with Hughes's themes of lynching, race relations, and black culture. These collaborations addressed questions at the heart of the movement and in the era that followed it: Who exactly were the New Negroes? How could they attack past stereotypes? How should images convey their sense of newness, possibility, and individuality? In what directions should African-American arts and letters move?

Featuring many compelling contemporary illustrations, Enter the New Negroes restores a critical visual aspect to African-American culture as it evokes the passion of a community determined to shape its own identity and image.

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