Brenna Norrell - Timeline #2 lyrics

The dates in this timeline are meant to reflect a larger, cultural discussion happening from 1900 to 1940. I argue that this discussion had to do with discovering or creating a black cultural identity outside of slavery and in a new, urban context and deciding how it was to be best expressed, with work near the end of the period seeming to reclaim that which work at the beginning dismissed. I argue that this is seen through fewer instances of distancing language over time, and an increase in the level or informality or even negative emotions like anger. By the 1930s, the language of the work produced was more informal, as, I argue further, an established African-American culture became stabilized, especially in urban centers like Harlem. 1900: Booker T. Washington - Up From Slavery “Of my ancestry I know almost nothing. In the slave quarters, and even later, I heard whispered conversations among the coloured people of the tortures which the slaves, including, no doubt, my ancestors on my mother's side, suffered in the middle pa**age of the slave ship while being conveyed from Africa to America. I have been unsuccessful in securing any information that would throw any accurate light upon the history of my family beyond my mother….Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not even know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white man who lived on one of the near-by plantations. Whoever he was, I never heard of his taking the least interest in me or providing in any way for my rearing. But I do not find especial fault with him. He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at the time.” “There was no cooking-stove on our plantation, and all the cooking for the whites and slaves my mother had to do over an open fireplace, mostly in pots and ‘sk**ets'.” “One of my earliest recollections that of my mother cooking a chicken late at night, and awakening her children for the purpose of feeding them. How or where she got it I do not know. I presume, however, it was procured from our owner's farm. Some people may call this theft. If such a thing were to happen now, I should condemn it as theft myself.” “I have never been able to understand how the places throughout the South, completely ignorant as were the ma**es so far as books or newspapers were concerned, were able to keep themselves so accurately and completely informed about the great National questions that were agitating the country.” 1912: James Weldon Johnson - The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man “We pa**ed along until, finally, we turned into a street that stretched away, up and down hill, for a lie or two; and here I caught my first sight of colored people in large numbers. I had seen little squads around the railroad stations on my way south, but here I saw a street crowded with them. They filled the shops and thronged the sidewalks and lined the curb. I asked my companion if all the colored people in Atlanta lived in this street. He said they did not and a**ured me that the ones I saw were of the lower cla**. I felt relieved, in spite of the size of the lower cla**. The unkempt appearance, the shambling, slouching gait and loud talk and laughter of these people aroused in me a feeling of almost repulsion. Only one things about the, awoke a feeling of interest; that was their dialect. I had read some Negro dialect and had heard snatches of it on my journey down from Washington; but here I heard it in al of its fullness and freedom. I was particularly struck by the way in which it was punctuated by exclamatory phrases as ‘Lawd a mussy!' ‘G'wan, man!' ‘Bless ma soul!' ‘Look heah, chile!' These people talked and laughed without restraint. In fact, they talked straight from their lungs and laughed from the pits of their stomachs. And this hearty laughter was often justified by the droll humor of some remark. I paused long enough to hear one man say to another: “Wat's de mattah wid you an' yo' fr'en' Sam?' and the other came back like a flash: ‘Ma fr'en'? He ma fr'en'? Man! I'd go to his funeral jes' de same as I'd go to a minstrel show.' I have since heard that this ability to laugh heartily, is, in part, the salvation of the American Negro; it does much to keep him from going the way of the Indian.” 1921: James Weldon Johnson - The Book of American Negro Poetry. Preface “Moreover, the matter of Negro poets and the production of literature by the colored people in this country involves more than supplying information that is lacking. It is a matter which has a direct bearing on the most vital of American problems. A people may become great through many means, but there is only one measure by which its greatness is recognized and acknowledged. The final measure of the greatness of all peoples is the amount and standard of the literature and art they have produced. The world does not know that a people is great until that people produces great literatures and art. No people that has produced great literature and art has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior. The status of the Negro in the United States is more a question of national mental attitude toward the race than of actual conditions. And nothing will do more to change that mental attitude and raise his status than a demonstration of intellectual parity by the Negro through the production of literature and art. Is there likelihood that the American Negro will be able to do this? There is, for the good reason that he possesses the innate powers. He has the emotional endowment, the originality and artistic conception, and, what is more important, the power of creating that which has universal appeal and influence. I make here what may appear to be a more startling statement by saying that the Negro has already proved the possession of these powers by being the creator of the only things artistic that have yet sprung from American soil and been universally acknowledged as distinctive American products.” 1922: Langston Hughes - Mother to Son Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, And turning corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So boy, don't you turn your back. Don't you set down on the steps ‘Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now— For I'se still going', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair. 1925: Countee Cullen - Heritage “Africa? A book one thumbs Listelessly, till slumber comes.... One three centuries removed From the scenes his fathers loved, Spicy grove, cinnamon tree, What is Africa to me?…. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, So I make an idea boast; Jesus of the twice-turned check, Lamb of God, although I speak With my mouth these, in my heart Do I play a double part. Ever at They glowing altar Must my heart grow sick and falter, Wishing He I served were black, Thinking then it would not lack Precedent of pain to guide it, Let who would or might deride it; Surely this flesh would know Yours had borne a kindred woe. Lord, I fashion dark gods, too, Daring even to give You Dark despairing features where, Crowned with dark rebellious hair, Patience wavers just so much as Mortal grief comples, while touches Quick and hot, of anger, rise To smitten cheek and weary eyes. Lord, forgive me if my need Sometimes shapes a human creed All day long and all night through, One thing only I must do: Quench my pride and cool my blood, Lest I perish in the flood. Lest a hidden ember set Timber that I thought was wet Burning like the driest flax, Melting like the merest wax, Lest the grave restore its dead. Not yet has my heart or head In the least way realized They and I are civilized. 1926: Zora Neale Hurston - Sweat “It was eleven o'clock of a Spring night in Florida. It was Sunday. Any other night Delia Jones would have been in bed for two hours by this time. But she was a washwoman, and Monday morning meant a great deal to her. So she collected the soiled clothes on Saturday when she returned the clean things. Sunday night after church, she sorted them and put the white things to soak. I saved her almost half a day's start. A great hamper in the bedroom held the clothes that she brought home. It was so much neater than a number of bundles lying around.” 1927: Langston Hughes - Song for a Dark Girl Way Down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) They hung my black young lover To a cross roads tree. Way Down South in Dixie (Bruised body high in air) I asked the white Lord Jesus What was the use of prayer. Way Down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) Love is a naked shadow On a gnarled and naked tree. Langston Hughes - Gal's Cry for a Dying Lover Heard do own hootin', Knowed somebody's ‘bout to die. Heard do own a hootin', Knowed somebody's ‘bout to die. Put ma head un'neath de kiver, Started in to moan an' cry. Hound dawg's barkin' Means he's gonna leave this world. Hound dawg's barkin' Mean's he's gonna leave this world. O, Lawd have mercy On a po' black girl. Black an' ugly But he sho do treat me kind. I'm black an' ugly But he sho do treat me kind. High-in-heaben Jesus, Please don't take this man o' mine. Helene Johnson - Poem Little brown boy, Slim, dark, big-eyed, Crooning love songs to your banjo Down at the Lafayette Gee, boy, I love the way you hold your head, High sort of and a bit to one side, Like a prince, a jazz price. And I love Your eyes flashing, and your hands, And your patent-leathered feet, And your shoulders jerking the jig-wa. And I love your teeth flashing, And the way your hair shines in the spotlight Like it was the real stuff. Gee, brown boy, I loves you all over. I'm glad I'm a jig. I'm glad I can Understand your dancing' and your Singin', and feel all the happiness And joy and don't-care in you. Gee, boy, when you sing, I can close my ears And hear tom-toms just as plain. Listen to me, will you, what do I know About tomtoms? But I like the word, sort of, Don't you? It belongs to us. Gee, boy, I love the way you hold your head, And the way you sing and dance, And everything. Say, I think you're wonderful. You're All right with me, You are. 1931: Langston Hughes - Christ in Alabama Christ is a n******g, Beaten and black: Oh, bare your back! Mary is His mother: Mammy of the South, Silence your mouth. God is His father: White Master above Grant him your love. Most holy ba*tard Of the bleeding mouth, n******g Christ On the cross Of the South. Helene Johnson - Invocation Let me be buried in the rain In a deep, dripping wood, Under the warm wet breast of Earth Where once a gnarled tree stood. And paint a picture on my tomb With dirt and a piece of bough Of a girl and a boy beneath a round, ripe moon Eating of love with an eager spoon And vowing an eager vow. And do not keep my plot mowed smooth And clean as a spinster's bed, But let the weed, the flower, the tree, Riotous, rampant, wild and free, Grow high above my head. Irving Mills - It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing It don't mean a thing all you got to do is sing It makes no difference if its sweet or hot Just give that rhythm everything you got It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing