At The Crossroads: The Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights, and the Fight for Black Dignity

The topic of this 11th grade American history lesson is the role the Harlem Renaissance played in the African-American fight for self-respect, civil rights, and artistic expression, and how certain artists used their media to combat segregation, racism, and overt racist violence.

Learners will demonstrate an understanding of the role the Harlem Renaissance played in Black activism against segregation and more overt forms of racism and violence directed at African-Americans.

By answering one essential question and several secondary questions through an exploration of sites dedicated to the Harlem Renaissance, students will not only learn about the music, art, and literature that exploded in the 1920s, but also connect the Harlem Renaissance to the larger fight for equality and as a precursor in many ways to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.

Students will then compose answers either in essay form or develop a presentation with answers delivered by one historical Harlem Renaissance character.

Subject Matter Content Standard: 11.5 Students analyze the major political, social, economic, technological, and cultural developments of the 1920s.

[2] Analyze the international and domestic events, interests, and philosophies that prompted attacks on civil liberties, including the Palmer Raids, Marcus Garvey’s “back-to-Africa” movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and immigration quotas and the responses of organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Anti-Defamation League to those attacks.

[5] Describe the Harlem Renaissance and new trends in literature, music, and art, with special attention to the work of writers (e.g., Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes).

The Harlem Renaissance--a brief overview and resource repository. 

Biography.com--featured a February documentary on the Harlem Renaissance. 

The Harlem Renaissance--a multimedia exploration from John Carroll. University.

PBS Newshour--special documentary of the Harlem Renaissance.

Essential Question:   How did African-Americans in the early part of the 20^th century use music, art, and literature to deal with and resist the overt and covert segregation and racist violence they encountered in the South and North?

Subsidiary Questions: 

2. Who were some of the main players on the Harlem Renaissance scene?

3. What role did music play in the Harlem Renaissance?

4. How did artists use poetry as a vehicle for protest and social change?

5. How did Harlem Renaissance artists use their media to dispel the notion that Black people were unable to be creative voices?

6. What two major world events caused the power of the Harlem Renaissance to wane?

7. Which American music styles owe their origins literally to African-American communities?

8. How did the Harlem Renaissance affect the politics of the decades leading up to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s?

PBS Newshour--a special documentary of the Harlem Renaissance

WTF?!?

Twenty minutes before the Oakland A’s and the Detroit Tigers tangled in last night’s American League Division Series finale, a bunch of yahoos seated behind us started hurling a torrent of verbal abuse at Justin Verlander, the Tigers’ starter, as he strolled to the bullpen to warm up.


“Pussy, pussy, pussy,” they screamed, fingers pointed as if he were a molester or other serious criminal.

I looked over at my co-worker and friend, Erik, who was seated next to another friend of his, Ed, who’d been a groomsman at Erik’s wedding. “I paid good money for these seats,” which were four rows from the field opposite first base. “OK, they were free,” I added, “but I am not going to listen to these guys talking crap all night.”

Erik had gotten four comp seats from another friend, a season ticket holder, but I told him if these guys yelled “Pussy” one more time, I was getting in their faces. “They’re offensive,” I muttered.

Another guy, three rows behind me to my left, stood in the aisle and shouted, thrusting his finger back and forth, back and forth, “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” as Verlander approached the bullpen mound.

And all night long, guys in sections near us felt compelled to yell obscenities and insults at any Tiger player within sight. Miguel Cabrera, the man who just won the Triple Crown for the first time since 1967? The boos and taunts rained down on him from the moment he stepped into the batter’s box, as they did for Prince Fielder, the Tigers’ five-foot eleven, 300 lb. power hitter.

“Twinkie, twinkie, run after your twinkies,” they yelled at the portly Fielder, or they said, “Cecil, Cecil, Cecil,” the first name of his estranged father, a former major leaguer.

Why do some people, often emboldened by alcohol, feel the compulsion and right to be so idiotic? First, do the players even hear them amid the din of 48,000 fans? But, even if they do, why do some fans seem to take an almost cruel joy in heckling?

Several years ago, after Malcolm Kerr, a leading academic on the Middle East, was killed by terrorists in 1984 while teaching in Lebanon, a group of Arizona State students chanted at his son , Steve Kerr, an Arizona shooting guard, in 1988, “PLO, PLO . . . “and “Your father's history,” and “Why don't you join the Marines and go back to Beirut?”

Kerr said at the time, “When I heard it, I just dropped the ball and started shaking. I sat down for a minute. I'll admit they got to me. I had tears in my eyes. For one thing, it brought back memories of my dad. But, for another thing, it was just sad that people would do something like that.”

Ushers and other stadium officials are instructed to remove anyone from major league ballparks and stadiums if they use inappropriate language. I am not a Puritan, but I do draw the line at offensive comments, obscenities, and other foul remarks. I am there to enjoy the game, socialize with friends, converse with strangers, and there is no excuse for real fans to act so stupidly, drunk or not.

Now that I am about to climb off my soapbox, I did have one way to sort of shield myself from the abuse going on around me. I started reading the book I’d brought. You can only imagine the comments I got.

Breast Cancer Awareness?!?

May I climb atop my soapbox yet again? God, I wish George Carlin were still alive. What would the master of identifying cultural and linguistic oxymorons (jumbo shrimp, military intelligence) do with Breast Cancer Awareness?


Breast Cancer Awareness? WTF? Who isn’t already aware of breast cancer? What we need is more money for research into a cure for metastatic breast cancer, the rates of which have not dipped at all. What we need is for people to stop pouring dollars into companies for pink products without asking if those companies and their products contribute to the increased rates of breast cancer.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and it makes me want to scream! When I see sites such as Fundraising for a Cure, with a portion of proceeds for pink trinkets donated to “breast cancer awareness and research” or how professional sports teams sell pink merchandise or cloth their players in pink, I want to scream even more.

I am marginally glad that Carolina Panthers’ quarterback Cam Newton plans to wear pink cleats this Sunday to stymie his opponents with a bright color. But it ain’t about pink awareness. It’s about a real cure and sharing accurate information about breast cancer treatments, pharmaceuticals, mammographies, and fighting all the pink washing that seeks to overwhelm us.

I am tired of groups like the Susan G. Komen Foundation focusing on she-roes, those heroic women who fit their singular narrative about all powerful Wonder Women slaying the cancer beast. And, as Gayle Sulik, author of the excellent book, Pink Ribbon Blues, says about all the misinformation, some of it pushed by Komen, “It is now widely known that the benefits of wholesale mammography screening were overpromised. Rates of over-diagnosis (i.e., when a diagnosed tumor lacks the potential to progress to a clinical stage, or is so slow-growing that the person would die from other causes) are higher than previously realized.”

Sulik continues: “Despite the efforts of millions who run, walk, hike, bike, and raise money for the cure the eradication of breast cancer has become a figment of our collective imagination…For those who continually worry about recurrence, face decisions about prophylactic treatments, lack adequate care and support, rely on inadequate screening technologies, suffer the ongoing side effects of treatments, do not have access to the most successful cancer centers, do not experience the transcendence that pink culture demands, are not represented in the culture, and who fear for the future of a cancer ridden society, I implore everyone to take a step back to look honestly at the system’s outcomes, and to recalibrate. After all, we want the same thing. We want to be healthy, free, and with the people we love.”

Awareness, to me, is a superficial response by corporations, companies, businesses, agencies, or institutions to make them feel good about doing something and then sell their participation in order to enhance their brand and make more money.

Awareness is meaningless. The time for a cure, more funding for research, with an emphasis on metastatic breast cancer, is now.

Verna Wefald, my late wife, would have turned 48 today. She died from metastatic breast cancer on August 30, 2010.

Happy Heavenly Birthday!

Verna didn't like me when we first met at a summer day camp in 1990. I thought she was frosty because she gave me an almost cross look when I cracked a joke. She'd just returned from a family reunion in Minnesota, and her muscled cyclist legs were dotted with purple welts from all the mosquito bites she'd endured during the humidity in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. She had on jeans shorts and a white t-shirt, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore red lipstick. Verna put on makeup maybe two or three times in the 20 years I knew her, but she always wore some shade of red or ochre lipstick, like her physical calling card for the world.

But we became friends by accident. She was forced by our boss to leave the quiet and comfortable confines of the administrative office and help me run the activity-adventure camp for 12 and 13 year olds. She asked me one day to drive her to her mechanic's. Then we started sharing lunches. I made the sandwiches, she brought the fruit. One time, she tired of my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on wheat bread, so she made her first ever vegetarian quiche in order to accomodate me.

She later said that the drive to pick up her car convinced her I was a pretty nice guy.

She arranged our first "date" with another camp colleague, a woman I later learned had a crush on me, to fix up the colleague and me. I spent most of the afternoon talking to Verna and ignoring our friend. I invited Verna to see Wynton Marsalis with me for our first real date. She hadn't heard of him. I made dinner--swiss chard frittata--and when she showed up at the door clad in a black leather mini-skirt all I could blurt was, "You look awesome!" before I rushed into the kitchen to tend to dinner, which I feared might burn.

A month after we started dating that summer, she invited me home to meet her parents, an aunt and uncle, her two brothers, their wives, a nephew, who was almost four, and her five-week old niece. Verna made a vegetarian lasagna, and throughout the meal her two brothers kept shouting like announcers at a sporting event, "Verna, this dinner is awesome."

Verna would have turned 48 tomorrow--October 5--had she not died two years ago from the ravages of metastatic breast cancer.

I lost my best friend, the kids lost their mother. Verna and I complemented each other. We truly made up a whole or complete person. I was the gregarious and obnoxious half, she was the shy and relaxed (most of the time) part. I helped her to loosen up and she showed me how to relax, even if I generally ignored the examples she offered me daily.

While Verna was so reserved and had overcome painful shyness as a kid, she forced herself to grow when she decided in college to become a teacher and thrust herself in front of people everyday. Even though she hated, hated, hated public speaking of any kind, she agreed to do a presentation for a national group of educators, one of whom was Albert Shanker, the unpleasant head of the American Federation of Teachers. He questioned Verna about why she couldn't finish the entire textbook and several centuries of history in the 4th grade social studies curriculum. She responded that the quality of instruction and being able to go in depth about a shorter time frame trumped the quantity of material.

She'd stood up to one of the most powerful educator advocates in the nation. A few weeks later she received a commendation from the Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District for her outstanding presentation.

A few years later, after she'd been a paralegal for the city of San Francisco, we attended a 10 year anniversary celebration for the city's daycare program, a pioneering one begun by then SF City Attorney Louise Renne, who was the 2nd most powerful person in San Francisco behind the mayor. She was an affable grandmother who wielded her power behind the scenes but with firm convictions.

I approached Ms. Renne and thanked her for the daycare program that Miguel had enjoyed for several months before I left teaching to become an at-home father. I said to her, "I am Verna Wefald's husband and I just wanted to thank you..."

As soon as I mentioned Verna's name, Ms. Renne's face lit up and she said, "Verna, Verna, we just love Verna."

She may have been quiet, but she certainly had an impact on people. She worked as hard as anyone I've ever known. She took on tasks whenever anyone asked and never complained. She received a gazillion compliments from co-workers and attorneys about her amazing attitude and work ethic. She often bitched later at home about being dumped on, but at work she was the consummate professional.

She was my best friend, and I looked forward to life with her. It wasn't perfect, but it was our life. Even before she got sick with breast cancer, even before the cancer returned and metastasized and she was forced to take steroids, which made her face puffy and her behavior yo-yo like someone on steroids, we fought--as all healthy couples do. Verna worried incessantly about having enough money. I was usually, "Don't worry, it'll all work out", which often infuriated her and caused me to sulk when she didn't trust me.

Our other area of contention was that I took things way too personally (and still do). I never cut her the slack she deserved because I felt she was intentionally slighting me. But our love never wavered, even after cancer assaulted Verna's body and she knew she was going to die. Before she got really sick she would call me at work, two or three times a day, maybe for a minute or two, just to check in. I always liked coming home to her. We enjoyed each other's company, reading, hiking, vacations with and without kids.

The week we spent in Cabo in 2008 to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary was legendary, seven sun splashed days along the beach, snorkeling, seeking out restaurants, absorbing the local culture, and imbibing a few, um, a few more margaritas as Verna went way beyond herself and danced on a table as part of a contest at a local pub.

Now that I have fallen in love again, some people have strangely said that I have moved on. As if Verna was merely a chapter in my life, turn the page, erase the past, fast forward. While I do want to scream at them, I also know that moving on is not possible. I think about Verna on my own every single day. And I think about Verna when Maya implores me two or three times a week to bring her Mommy down to her "right now. I want Mommy right now."

But because I was able to love Verna so fiercely and passionately and because I think I am a better person now for having loved and lived with Verna, I was able to find romance another time. A gift for which I am truly grateful and believe that Verna blesses, sanctions, and, maybe, helped direct.

Tonight, as Maya drifted off to sleep, I held her hand and said, "Mommy is looking down from Heaven and she loves you so much, is so proud of you."

Verna made me better and isn't around to reap the benefits. She would have been two years away from turning a half century tomorrow. Happy Birthday, Verna. We miss you.

When Politics Become Personal

Normally I do not like to blog about politics, but lately I have been assaulted by such weirdness and absurdity via social media that I just had to comment:


When I was an at-home father I met a woman at the park. She and her husband and their twins lived just down the road, and she was the sister of a friend. As we got talking, she shared that she’d been a staff person on the Republican Senate National Committee. I shared my liberal political affiliations, the canvassing I’d done for consumer groups in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and the get-out-the-vote campaign in New York.

We didn’t actually argue, but discussed, much like two people in a bar or at a party, with fervor and mutual respect. She was bright, articulate, clearly a good mother, and I liked her brother a lot. Her grandfather, a general, had been part of Kennedy’s cabinet during the Cuban missile crisis. She thought I was wrong about most issues (and I felt the same about her), but our conversation never slipped into the realm where two people (or more) start hurling outrageous accusations at one another over political opinions.

After our initial meeting, I’d run into her at the park or Whole Food’s, and we’d talk about life, politics, whatever was on our minds. She inquired about Verna after Verna was originally diagnosed with cancer. She once said, “If you think I’m conservative, you should talk to my husband.”

I looked forward to talking with her because she was friendly and open about her views without denigrating mine. I believe I treated her with the same respect.

Fast forward to today and another acrimonious election season is upon us. Two weeks ago I saw on my Facebook homepage side-by-side pictures from a former student of mine comparing Michelle Obama and a lipstick-wearing pig. I sent her a private message complaining about such an ugly promotion, and she responded: “She’s such an anti-Semite. She deliberately avoided Jews when she was in college.”

Over the past few days several people have claimed, again on Facebook, that Obama wants to destroy America, is purposely emulating the Nazis and the Bolsheviks, and he controls the media in the same manner as Hitler. These are, I think, reasonably intelligent people.

One of them actually said, “If you were a smart man, you’d do all he could to learn about the man who could be shaping the future of your precious children on your Facebook wall photos. Some folks can't look beyond the now. Sad.”

One friend claims I am close-minded because I refuse to see Dinesh D’Souza’s “documentary” 2016. An avowed conservative, she plans to view Koch Brothers Exposed, a left-wing documentary. I avoid most political movies and have little time for 2016. This analogy might not work, but I don’t have to know much about root canals to know I don’t ever want one.

I fully understand that vitriol and absurdity goes both ways. Some people compared Dubya to Hitler and slung other allegations about him, Republicans, and right-wingers etc. And still do.

What also bothers me is that once I allow myself to be drawn into these posts not passing for civilized debate, I sometimes lower myself and make fun of someone or his or her beliefs. I hope I haven’t been mean, but in the heat of the moment I often get passionate about values, not politics, and when I hear someone say, “You are brainwashed. You are close-minded. You support someone who wants to destroy America. How can you support someone like that with your children’s future at stake,” well that’s when the veins bulge in my neck and I pop a gasket or two.

So, obviously, the best option is to avoid political discussions in such impersonal forums. They are fraught with the potential for us to feel way too emboldened by the lack of accountability inherent in social media. We can be caustic because we are not actually engaging with another person, just spewing words via cyberspace.

And it’s not like any of us are going to change anyone’s minds. So, in an effort to maintain my low pressure, I am going to shun Facebook political conversations.

Until…

The Many Moms of Maya.

Maya’s had many moms even before Verna died just a little over two years ago. Out of necessity, both Verna and I needed help because Maya was born six days after Verna’s first cancer diagnosis. Without assistance, Verna could not have survived chemotherapy and I my full-time job as an auto broker and support system for Verna.

First, there was Jane, an angel and our night nurse five evenings a week (I subbed in the other two nights) who taught Maya without using the cry-it-out method to sleep through the night within four months. She and Verna also hiked together and talked and talked.

The mantra of “It Takes A Village” has been overwhelmingly true for me for 7 years because family, friends, and strangers have been invaluable. From food delivered to our doorstep, to money, to babysitting, to shoulders to cry on, we cope[d] and thrive[d] because of people’s generosity.

No one has benefitted more than Maya. Miguel has had me, and the bond we forged when I was an at-home father for six years. Maya has me, but there are some things for which the learning curve has been inordinately steep.

A few weeks ago, before school started, I dragged Maya to my office for a photo shoot. The Home Office had authorized a picture taking session with residents, families, and cute kids for our new marketing brochures. I rushed into the office, with Maya, her hair uncombed, her choice of clothing more suited for day camp, which is where she was heading after the session.

“What is she, homeless?” asked one of my co-workers, who was helping to coordinate the day. She ordered me home to get a brush and a dress. By the time my co-worker was done Maya looked radiant.

So I’ve been thinking lately about all the moms Maya has even if she still implores me two or three times a week, “To just bring me Mommy, down from heaven. I want her here right now.”

There’s Michele, who has been caring for Maya since preschool with her husband and two children, one of whom, also Maya, is Maya’s best friend.

There are Fernanda and Liz, who live in our neighborhood, and watch Maya on Fridays and Mondays, respectively. Between them they have five kids. There is Torhalla and Renee, each with two kids, who host Maya for play dates and sleepovers. There was Reena and Rhea, two teenaged sisters, who volunteered after Verna died to play with Maya on a regular basis.

There are my three sisters-in-law, Liz, Donna, and Amy, who shop for clothes and toys with Maya, cuddle with her, take her on adventures. And there is Shauna, my neighbor, who may not have her own kids, but she paints Maya’s nails, invites her for the night, gives her bubble baths and braids her hair.

As I see the journey of my life stretched out like a ribbon of highway, I know Maya may actually get another Mommy, one with whom she already has a great relationship, baking muffins, cleaning house, and playing library.

But there are no guarantees, so Maya’s many moms will always be there to do what I cannot do and what Maya craves: braid her hair, support her fashion sense, and nurture her in a special female way. And for that I am very grateful.

Writing Your Life

I just wanted to get away from her. I quickened my pace in the hallway that snakes through the retirement community where I work.


Just don’t talk to me, I thought. Please, don’t talk to me.

She’d been a drain on our time, her family’s time, on the time of other residents. Sleeping past noon, skipping meals, answering the door without any clothing, wandering the hallways dazed and confused, misplacing her keys and cell phone, drinking copious amounts of alcohol, begging people to drive her to the market to buy more wine, growing agitated without provocation.

“So how long have you worked here?” she asked.

I was tempted to say, “Sorry, rushing off to a meeting.” But I couldn’t. So I answered.

“What did you do before?” she persisted.

“I worked at a funeral home,” I said.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Why did you start working here?” she asked.

“It was right after my wife’s cancer had come back,” I said. “It was better to work so close to home. I live a mile away.”

“And how is your wife?”

“She died in 2010.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, narrowing the gap between us. “You know, we don’t get to write the script of our life.”

Profound words from a woman, who did walk across the country twenty-eight years ago, but is now somewhat demented, her brain battered by years of alcohol abuse.

I inhaled and considered my words carefully before saying them. “You’re right,” I said, “we don’t. But we do get to choose how to respond to life.”

Not that I felt I had or wanted a choice after Verna died. I just put my head down and did what I had to do: cared for the kids and myself. I wasn’t a martyr and I didn’t do it alone (I had and still have a village of people supporting me). But I never saw my life going any other way; I certainly didn’t imagine myself curled into a fetal ball, helpless, agonized, unable to live or parent. I didn’t rise to any challenge or muster up some hidden reserves.

I kept on living.

And for me that included being the best parent possible, showing up for work each day, and finding moments to celebrate, be grateful, grieve.

Several days later I was sitting in the woman’s apartment, after she’d been found again in another hallway, undressed and unable to find her way, after she’d gone through a two-day treatment program for her dependency, and after her doctor said any more alcohol might kill her.

“I just want to let you know that we’re here for you,” I said.

“Thank you so much,” she said, stringy hair spilling across her face, a floppy beach hat atop her head. “I do have problems.”

“Do you remember when we spoke a couple of weeks ago?” I started. “You asked me about working here and I told you how my wife had died? And you said, ‘We don’t get to write the script of our lives.’ And I responded by saying that we do get to choose how to live that life, though?”

She nodded.

“Well, my response was for me and for you,” I said. “I was acknowledging to myself how I’d responded back then, but I was also sending you a message. How you can be in control of your life. And we are here for you.”

Part of me wanted to shake her and rail about wasting and destroying one’s life. How she’d ambled across the country, the entire country, with her only her dog and some serious fortitude. How life was for living, how I’d seized moments big and small over the past two years and chosen life. And I’ve been rewarded by those decisions with abundant blessings: travel with the kids, deeper friendships, falling in love again.

Not that I expected to jolt her into a sudden epiphany, some kind of magical made-for-TV moment where she rises and says, “You are right and I have been saved,” for I am fully aware that the success rate for conquering alcoholism among elders, even with a treatment program, is under 10%.

In the end, though, I chose not to lecture her (I’ll save my alleged wisdom for my teenager). I opted to repeat that we would support her, just let her know that she had her own team—village—caring for her.

Will my words sink in? Will she heed her doctors and her sons? Will she straighten up and fly right? I truly don’t know. We don’t get to completely script our lives. But we do get to choose our reactions to life and living.