Harlem - general info and history

Slaves to the Dutch West India Company, Africans built the first wagon road into Harlem in the seventeenth century, and in the next 200 years, African slaves worked the Dutch and then English farms in Harlem. In 1790, 115 slaves were listed for the "Harlem Division," equal to one-third the population of the area. But the evolution of Harlem into the political and cultural capital of black America is a twentieth-century phenomenon. Once a wealthy suburb of New York City, Harlem housing soared in value at the turn of the century, only to collapse beneath excessive real estate speculation in 1904 and 1905.

Those years coincided with the completion of the Lenox Avenue subway line to lower Manhattan, facilitating the settlement of African Americans migrating from the South and Caribbean in Harlem. Philip Payton's Afro-Am Realty Company leased large numbers of Harlem apartment houses from white owners and rented them to black tenants in neighborhoods that began at 135th Street east of Eighth Avenue and over the decades expanded east-west from Park to Amsterdam avenues and north-south from 155th Street to Central Park.

By 1930 the black population of New York had more than tripled, to 328,000 persons, 180,000 of whom lived in Harlem, two-thirds of all African Americans in New York City and 12 percent of the entire population. Between 1920 and 1930 the black population of Harlem increased by nearly 100,000 persons, developing middle- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods such as Striver's Row on West 139th Street.

The migration led to a political, cultural, and social community that was unprecedented in scope. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion, St. Philips' Protestant Episcopal, and Abyssinian Baptist Church moved north to Harlem. The Amsterdam News was founded in Harlem in 1919. The community also supported a vital literary and political life: by 1920 the trade union newspaper the Messenger, edited by A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen, published in Harlem, as did the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP)'s magazine Crisis, edited by W. E. B. Du Bois and Jessie Fauset, and the National Urban League's magazine Opportunity, edited by Charles S. Johnson. Incipient political movements followed the establishment of a branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910 and Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1916. Flamboyant and charismatic, Garvey promoted both a back-to-Africa drive and the first, popular Black Nationalist movement. Harlem also nurtured a socialist movement led by H. H. Harrison, W. A. Domingo, and A. Philip Randolph.

Especially in the 1920s Harlem nurtured pioneering black intellectual and popular movements as well as a dynamic nightlife centered around nightclubs, impromptu apartment "buffet parties," and speakeasies. Many of Harlem's cultural venues developed at this time, ranging from the Lincoln and Apollo theaters to the Cotton Club, Smalls Paradise, and Savoy Ballroom. In popular dance, Florence Mills was one of the most celebrated entertainers of the 1920s, while in tap, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was called "The Mayor of Harlem." In vaudeville, Bert Williams broke the color line. In drama, Paul Robeson was an honored figure for both his acting and singing.

In 1925 Alain Locke filled an issue of the Survey Graphic magazine with black literature, folklore, and art, declaring a "New Negro" renaissance to be guided by "forces and motives of [cultural] self determination." Led by writers such as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem was the symbol of that renaissance. In art, Aaron Douglas, Richmond Barthe, and (later) Jacob Lawrence launched their careers.

In music, Harlem pianists such as Fats Waller and Willie "The Lion" Smith began one of the most storied traditions of jazz in the world. In the 1920s it included big bands led by Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Chick Webb, and individual virtuosos such as Eubie Blake. Later, it included Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis.

In the 1920s Harlem gained some political power and institutions. Arthur Schomburg's renowned collection of black literature and historical documents became a branch of the New York Public Library (see Schomburg Library). Three years later Charles Fillmore was elected the first black district leader in New York City, and black physicians were admitted to the permanent staff of Harlem Hospital.

But such advances were modest. Harlem blacks owned less than 20 percent of Harlem's businesses in 1929, and the onset of the Depression quadrupled relief applications within two years. Blacks continued to be excluded from jobs, even in Harlem. The Communist Party and the Citizens' League for Fair Play organized a boycott of Harlem businesses that refused to hire blacks, but it collapsed in 1934. A year later frustration erupted into a riot in which millions of dollars in property was damaged and 75 were arrested. By 1937 four African American district leaders were elected, and the Greater New York City Coordinating Committee for the Employment of Negroes was formed.

During World War II migration from the South and the Caribbean increased enormously, the direct result of the opening of defense industry jobs to blacks, for which the 1941 March on Washington, - organized by A. Philip Randolph - was instrumental (see World War II and African Americans, Great Migration). But racism persisted, and an incident of police brutality in 1943 precipitated a riot in which six African Americans were killed and 180 were injured. In 1944, on the heels of widespread efforts at improving race relations, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was elected to the United States (U.S.) Congress and Benjamin Davis replaced him on the city council.

The 1940s and 1950s brought further political cohesion and literary expression. Hulan Jack was elected the first black borough president in 1953. Through the 1970s Harlem was home to heralded writers such as novelist Ralph Ellison, essayist James Baldwin, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and poets Audre Lorde and Maya Angelou, many of them associated with the Harlem Writers Guild. Yet by 1960 middle-class flight from Harlem produced a ghetto in large sections of the community. Half of all housing units were unsound, and the infant mortality rate was nearly double that in the rest of the city. Under the leadership of Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU), organized by Kenneth B. Clark, Harlem tried to draw federal funding into the area to rebuild the community and create jobs. The effort was largely unsuccessful, and in 1964, when an off-duty police officer shot a black youth, a riot (see Harlem Riots of 1964) ensued. Two people were killed and hundreds injured; stores were looted for several days.

In the 1950s Malcolm X arrived to head the Harlem Mosque and soon created an independent religious and Black Nationalist movement that declared itself ready to fight - "by any means necessary", - against white racism and violence toward African Americans. In 1965, however, Malcolm X was assassinated. His death made him a martyr for Black Nationalists even as his religious movement dissipated.

Percy Sutton was Manhattan borough president for 11 years beginning in 1966. In 1970 Charles Rangel was elected to the congressional seat vacated by Adam Clayton Powell. By the late 1970s, however, deindustrialization and inflation led to widespread unemployment while poverty, drugs, crime, and a deteriorating school system plagued the community for the next decade.

When, in 1989, Harlem's David Dinkins was elected mayor of New York, racial divisions briefly lessened and some parts of Harlem were revitalized. But Dinkins's defeat in the 1993 election cut short those efforts. In the more mercantilist environment of the late 1990s Harlem has turned to private development efforts by African Americans, such as the mall planned for 125th Street, as a means for rehabilitating an impoverished community.

Cited From Africana.com