Harlem Nocturne by Farah Jasmine Griffin Page A

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    Typeset in 11.5-point Arno Pro by the Perseus Books Group
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Griffin, Farah Jasmine.
    Harlem nocturne : women artists and progressive politics during World War II / Farah Jasmine Griffin.—First [edition].
    pages cm
    Includes bibliographical references and index.
    ISBN 978-0-465-06997-2 (e-book) 1. African American women artists—New York (State)—New York—History—20th century. 2. African American women artist—Political activity—New York (State)—New York—History—20th century. 3. Petry, Ann, 1908–1997. 4. Primus, Pearl. 5. Williams, Mary Lou, 1910–1981. 6. New York (N.Y.)—Intellectual life—20th century. 7. Harlem (New York, N.Y.)—Intellectual life—20th century. I. Title.
    NX512.3.A35G75 2013
    704'.04208996073—dc23
    2013010855
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For My Mother,
Wilhelmena Griffin,
With Love and Gratitude

In America’s bosom we have the roots of Democracy, but the roots do not mean there are leaves. The tree could easily grow bare. We will never relax our war effort abroad but we must fight at home with equal fierceness. This is an all out war; we will not stop fighting until everyone is free from inequality.
    P EARL P RIMUS
    There is a deep public reverence for—a love of—democracy in America and a deep democratic tradition. This love of democracy has been most powerfully expressed and pushed forward by our great public intellectuals and artists.
    C ORNEL W EST
    Nations rely on artists and intellectuals to create images of, and to tell stories about, the national past. Competition for political leadership is in part a competition between differing stories about a nation’s self-identity, and between differing symbols of its greatness.
    R ICHARD R ORTY

PROLOGUE

    N ew York beckoned, and they came. One came as a child, brought by immigrant parents. The other two came as adult women seeking the freedom to create themselves and their art.
    They were shaped by this city: their sense of the possible, the movement of their bodies, their style. They walked. They looked. They listened. They gave to the city. They danced for it, wrote it, set it to music. New York beckoned; they came.
    New York told them anything was possible, told them there were no boundaries. There were. Though the city welcomed them as visitors, students, teachers, and entertainers, as residents they were not always received with enthusiasm. So at some point, they all lived in Harlem: the Black Mecca, born of the migration of black peoples from the Caribbean and the American South, the antiblack violence that erupted in other parts of the city, and the entrepreneurial energies of African American real-estate developer Philip A. Payton Jr. Harlem, race capital. Eventually, the immigrant’s daughter moved to another historic black neighborhood—Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.
    Harlem: Who wanted to live anywhere else? If given the choice, they probably would have chosen Harlem, but theywould have liked having the choice. So each, in her own way, protested the limitations placed on her life and her people, meanwhile helping to build a city within a city: a place full of black and brown faces speaking a multitude of languages, living high and living low, making love, making music, making word-worlds, making new peoples. It was a city of swinging rhythms and bebop changes; a city of weary brown-faced children and adults—some enraged, others resigned; a city that danced the Lindy Hop, modern choreography, and African isolations.
    Certainly, these women were not Harlem’s only architects; nor were they its