A Renaissance in Harlem: Lost Voices of an American Community

Between 1934 and 1939, the Work Progress Administration sent thousands of writers around the country to document local communities, and Harlem, the unofficial capital of black America, was one of them. The Harlem writers produced hundreds of slice-of-life vignettes that provide an intriguing view of ordinary African-Americans as they struggled to cope with the Great Depression and the pervasive racism of the times. Journalist Bascom has rescued 45 of these forgotten essays from WPA Archives. They include works by young luminaries-to-be, such as Ralph Ellison and Dorothy West, as well as talented unknowns like Vivian Morris. Ellison's ""The Street"" is a hilarious profile of a young musician unafraid of white hecklers. Often using fictional techniques, these nonfiction stories capture aspects of Harlem life during and after Prohibition: the backbreaking, poorly paid labor and union organizing; and such irresistible characters as Pullman porters--the train-riding cosmopolitans of the black working class--and an urban colony of ingenious black pushcart vendors. Although Bascom claims that the book corrects an overly middle-class, privileged view of Harlem life left to us by the Harlem Renaissance elite, these accounts are not quite a revelation. Renaissance writers like Langston Hughes and Rudolph Fisher also left many gritty, colorful sketches of working-class Harlem life. Nevertheless, Bascom has produced a delightfully engaging and diverse portrait of an almost legendary black urban community. (Dec.)