Mercer Cook lecture, "The Harlem Renaissance Goes Abroad," at the University of Iowa, August 1970

Speaker 1: The following is a lecture by Mercer Cook. Delivered at the final session of the 1970 institute of Afro-American culture, held on the campus of the University of Iowa. The institute held August 9th through the 21st, focused on the culture of Black America, commonly referred to as the Harlem Renaissance. In this recording, Mercer Cook, professor of French at Howard University, speaks on the Harlem Renaissance goes abroad. Introducing Mercer Cook to the final session of the institute, was Professor Charles T. Davis, professor of English and director of the committee on Afro-American studies at the University of Iowa. Charles T. Davi...: You've eaten very well and it seems to be time for us to get to the main business of the hour. This is really our final due. And goodbye to each other. But happily at this time, our very great pleasure to welcome professor Mercer Cook from Howard University. I'm very pleased that Professor Cook is with us. And when I think of him I think of actually not a single man but three men. I think indeed that he is the member of a remarkable group of intellectuals and scholars who made Howard University the remarkable institution that it is now. That's people that's Frank Snowden and Arthur Davis and Sterling Brown would be in that group too, [inaudible]. Frank Frasier. Charles T. Davi...: But secondly he has been for years, a distinguished professor of French at Howard University. And as a professor of French he's been interested for a long time in French West African Literature, in the relationship between in French, relationship between this country and Africa. And he has become the leading star in that area. He must look with a certain amount of gratification on the fact that there's been a deep renewal of interest there, there's been a development of interest there. I know several young scholars who devoted themself to this field alone. Working in the literature that comes out of Senegal, out of the Ivory Coast, out of the other republics on the West African coast there. Charles T. Davi...: And the third part of Professor Cooks is the ambassador. He was an ambassador to three different African republics, including Senegal and Gambia. Serving our country with distinction there. It's a very great honor for me to welcome professor Cook here. He's going to talk on a subject which you've heard us hint at, actually it's an extension of our own concerns. And the subject is of course, the Harlem Renaissance goes abroad. Thank you. Mercer Cook: Thank you Doctor Davis. Members of the platform party, well fed. And ladies and gentleman, Doctor Davis is a most persuasive person. When he called me last week to invite me out here I said yes, and then spent the rest of the week wondering how in the world I made that mistake. But that's not the first mistake I've made in my life so it's merely continuation of an old tradition. And today mine is the unenviable task of adding a concluding observation or two, to the many words which unfortunately I haven't been here to enjoy, about the Harlem Renaissance. In blissful ignorance, I shall probably repeat, belabor, or contradict, points that have been eloquently discussed, even though in self defense I have chosen as my topic a rather out of the way aspect of that Renaissance. It's influence on certain African and West Indian authors. Mercer Cook: This is tricky business, trying to trace or to document literary influence. In many instances, the similarities I shall be citing, can be attributed to coincidence or to analogous social conditions. To establish my credentials, I was really on the fringe, much too young for the Harlem Renaissance. A year younger than Langston Hughes. Younger than Dr. Du Bois, I can assure you. And let me say that I lived a good part of my childhood on 135th Street, between Lenox and Seventh Avenue, just across the street from James Weldon Johnson, who incidentally wrote the lyrics for some of the songs that my father had composed. My mother played the role of Cora in Langston Hughes' 'Mulatto'. Credentials therefore, are parental. Mercer Cook: Later, Langston and I collaborated in translating a Haitian novel. And Countee Cohen was a friend from the early 20's. Sterling Brown was my captain in the Washington High School cadets, and for several years I was a colleague of Dr. Locke, Alain Locke at Howard University, and of W.E.B. Du Bois at Atlanta University. Mercer Cook: This influence, or these coincidences, can be most easily traced by referring to the movement called Negritude. And perhaps I, well certainly because people connected with the Negritude movement openly expressed the fact that they had been influenced by the writers of the Harlem Renaissance. I begin with two general acknowledgments of that influence as exerted by the renaissance, on the founders of the Negritude movement. There were three founders of that movement, Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal, Aimé Césaire of Martinique, and Léon G. Damas of French Guiana. Mercer Cook: As a matter of fact, the only manifesto that Negritude has ever had, and that the writers of Negritude have accepted as their manifesto, was a paragraph that Langston Hughes wrote in 1926. It's that famous, and here I'm sure I'm repeating something that's already been quoted during the two weeks that you've been meeting here. You remember that famous paragraph, "We younger Negro artists who create, intend to express our dark skinned selves without fear or shame. And if White folks are pleased, we're glad. And if they aren't pleased, it doesn't matter, we know that we're beautiful and ugly too. The Tom Tom laughs and the Tom Tom cries. And if colored people" I'm still quoting. More or less. "If colored people are pleased we're glad, and if they're not, their displeasure doesn't matter either." Well that has gone down as, admittedly, the slogan, the manifesto of Negritude. Mercer Cook: Let me quote you two statements. One by a Belgian woman, a scholar. Lilyan Kesteloot in her book, her doctoral thesis, 'Les ecrivains noirs de langue francais: naissance d'une litterature'. The Black writers, in French, the birth of a literature. It's 1965. And she says, "this African literature already contains in essence, the principle themes of Negritude". I'm sorry, "this American literature already contains in essence, the principle themes of Negritude. And on this score, one can affirm that the true fathers of the Negro cultural renaissance in France, were neither the writers of West Indian tradition, nor the surrealist poets, nor the French novelists between the two World Wars; but the Black authors of the United States." Mercer Cook: The second statement was made by Leopold Sedar Senghor at Howard University in 1966. September of 1966 he was over here on an official visit. Senghor as you know, one of the three founders of Negritude, theoretician of the movement. He's a distinguished poet, essayist, and president of Senegal. Here's his statement. "I am pleased to render homage here to the pioneer thinkers who lighted our path in the years 1930 to '35. Alain Locke, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Carter G. Woodson. And also to pay well deserved tribute to the poets whose works we translated and recited, and in whose footsteps we try to follow. Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown. I cannot forget", he concludes, "the two magazines that we feverishly skimmed through. The crisis and opportunity. This was a time of fervor." End of quotation. Mercer Cook: And through the years, Senghor continued to translate Black American poets. To quote them in essays, lectures, or casual conversation. In 1938 I was astonished by the facility with which he and Damas, two of the three founders of Negritude, could quote our poets. Sometimes poems that I didn't even know. At the same time, the third founder of the movement, Aimé Césaire of Martinique, who invented the term 'Negritude', was repairing a memoir on quote, "the theme of the South in Negro-American literature". And in one of Senghor's earliest important essays, what the Black man has to contribute, this dates back to 1939, he quoted Hughes, Cullen, McKay, Lewis Alexander, and mentioned Jean Toomer in a footnote. In his lecture on Negro-American poetry which dates 1950, he cited verses by Sterling Brown, Frank Marshall Davis, and Richard Wright once each. Claude McKay and Jean Toomer twice, Countee Cullen and James Weldon Johnson four times, and Langston Hughes seven times. Mercer Cook: Later in the 50's, Senghor who was then a member of the French cabinet, so before, this was back in the days of colonialism. Senghor telephoned a friend Rudolph Aggrey, the son of the famous Aggrey of Africa, who was working as an American official in directing a cultural center on the Rue du Dragon in Paris. And at that time, the French government fell regularly, every week or so. And Aggrey was surprised to be told when he got to his office, that Senghor had called. Aggrey wondered what ... why Senghor, a member of the French government, would be calling an American official at such a critical moment, even though such moments recurred with alarming frequency. Mercer Cook: But he called Senghor, and Senghor asked him to come over. So he went right over to Senghor's apartment expecting, warily, that this is something that might involve him in french politics. There was Senghor sitting calmly at his desk, looking up and greeting Aggrey, saying you know, I'm glad to see you, I'm translating this poem by Langston Hughes and I can't understand this word. In 1965, addressing a group of aspiring young poets in Mali, a country just next door to Senegal, Senghor quoted this poem by Langston Hughes, as an example for these young poets to follow. It's a poem called Florida Road Workers. You probably know but short enough for me to read. "Hey, buddy! look at me! I'm makin' a road For the cars to fly by on, Makin' a road Through the palmetto thicket For light and civilization To travel on. I'm makin' a road For the rich to sweep over In their big cars And leave me standin' here. Sure, A road helps everybody. Rich folks ride - And I get to see 'em ride. I ain't never seen nobody Ride so fine before. Hey, Buddy, look! I'm makin' a road!" Mercer Cook: Now in all probability, Senghor selected that poem to prove that the deaf touch of irony could be much more effective than the propogandistic sledgehammer. Another incident involving Senghor and Langston Hughes occurred in 1966 at the Dakar festival. Senghor was expecting Emperor Haile Selassie to attend and he was giving a, they were planning, the Senegal government was planning a big luncheon honoring Haile Selassie. Well Langston Hughes was there in Dakar also for the festival, and Senghor called me one morning to say, I have translated a poem that Langston Hughes wrote about Ethiopia, the time of the Italian invasion. And I'm sending you the translation, please show it to Langston and see if he approves because I want to read it at this luncheon. Mercer Cook: I called Langston and I told him what the situation was, and Langston said, well read me a few lines. And I read a few lines and Langston said "gee, that beautiful. Only I didn't write it". And so I call Senghor back and I said Langston disclaims any authority of that work but he admires it. And Senghor asked for Langston to come over to his office, which Langston did, I [inaudible] him. And Langston said, I didn't write that. And then Senghor said oh yes you did, you wrote it and it was published in Opportunity. Which was a magazine then published by the National Urban League. At that time, Langston understood, he remembered, he said oh yes I did, it was for a demonstration that was going to be held at Madison Square Garden in New York City in favor of the Ethiopian victims of the Italian invasion. Mercer Cook: I'd always assumed that Senghor and Langston Hughes had met back in the 30's on one of Langston's visits to Paris. Many visits to Paris. But to my surprise I learned that theirs was purely a literary friendship until the early 1950's when Senghor first came to the United States. In truth, Senghor wrote in the letter on September 8th, 1967, I did not meet Langston Hughes until very late. That is to say the first time I went to the United States. On that occasion, I visited his home in Harlem several times. We fraternized immediately. Of course I had read almost all his poems. I've always thought that if Langston is not the greatest Negro American Poet, a statement that doesn't have much meaning because it's still Senghor. He was without doubt the most spontaneously Negro poet. In other words, he best fulfilled a notion that I have of Black cultural values, of Negritude. I believe furthermore, that Langston felt everything that linked us, Césaire , Damas, and me, to him. Mercer Cook: Birago Diop, also a Senegalese, was another member of the older generation of African writers in Paris who felt the impact of Hughes' genius. This future author of the delightful, 'Tales of Amadou Koumba', decided to try out in French a rhythm that Langston Hughes had used in a poem which he called "Danse Africaine". You remember the Langston Hughes poems, the low beating of the tom toms, the slow beating of the tom toms, low, slow, slow, low, stirs your blood. Dance. And then it goes on. Mercer Cook: Well, Diop, the African, called his poem "Accords" and it went like this in an awkward translation. Rough hands, scratch and scrape the tough soil. Tough hands, rough soil, tough, rough, rough, tough. Caresses please you, farming appeases you, tough soil, rough soil, caresses of tough hands, farming by rough hands, tough, rough, rough, tough. Caresses please you, contacts appease you, Black girl with firm breasts, caresses of rough hands. Contacts with tough hands, rough, tough, tough, rough. Then by couples their bodies supple, supple couples, couples supple. Well he was doing all right until he got to that two syllable word, you see? What Langston had done was to take a one syllable word, low, slow, slow, low, and Birago Diop did all right with rough and tough and so forth. When he got to couple supple and [cupla supla supla cupla...] now Birago Diop himself has characterized that poem as an attempt, quote, "to try out the technique of Langston Hughes' Tom Toms". Mercer Cook: A somewhat similar experiment inspired perhaps by Langston's use of the jazz idiom in poems like 'The Weary Blues' and 'The Trumpet Player' is a poem by a Congolese. From the French Congo, not the old Belgian Congo but the ex-french Congo which is just across the Congo river. And the end of that poem is as follows in translation. "Trumpet, trumpet Oh Armstrong, master of jazz. Trumpet, trumpet to arouse all Black Africa. Trumpet, trumpet to awaken sleeping Africa. Oh sweet trumpet of jazz, oh rocking xylophone, oh Congolese and [sambi], (which is a kind of guitar.) Oh [inaudible] Oh [inaudible] rock us, rock us, keep on rocking us 'til the creation of a new Africa. New but always Black." Mercer Cook: And by the same token, Guy Tirolien a poet from Guadeloupe, writes a poem called 'SATCHMO' which goes as follows. No, don't tune out the hiccups, the sobs, the subtle glissando's the stridence, the insistence, the cadence of the blues. Swinging oh in the trumpet of Satchmo. Complaint choked in the throat of the Black man lynched, gurgle of blood sliding down the powerful current of the Mississippi. Slow swaying bodies, frenzied sermons and long hysterical cries in the Black mans churches in Missouri. Green flashes spurting from crackling funeral pyres of Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia. Red hot desire warming nights of Alabama, Oklahoma, the Bahamas, no, don't tune out the hiccups, the sobs, the subtle glissando's. The stridence, the insistence, the cadence of the blues, swinging oh in the trumpet of satchmo. Don't tune out the laughs, the sighs, the delicious, delirious, joyous [wah wah] outbursts as they clash, yeah man. And they crash, hot damn. In the trumpet of satchmo. Excuse me, sisters. Mercer Cook: Tiroliens poem continues for a few more stanzas. But perhaps this would be a good time to pause for word of caution. Without detracting from Hughes' originality, we should not overlook the fact that by his insistence on jazz, boogie woogie, blues, drum and trumpet, Langston was simply going back to his roots. As Senghor has pointed out, the basic rhythm of an African poem is marked by percussion instruments, or by the clapping of hands. In the preface to his anthology, 'Poems from Black Africa', Hughes remarks that the style of Langston's poem is, quote, really that of a chant. End quote. He then cites his Senegalese friend, again I quote this time from Senghor, "I insist that a poem is perfect only when it becomes a song. Words and music at once. It is time to stop the decay of the modern world and especially the decay of poetry. Poetry must find its way back to its origins, to the time when it was song and danced as it was in Greece. Above all in the Egypt of the Pharaohs, and as it still is today in Black Africa". End of quotation. Mercer Cook: It should be noted in passing that more than half of Senghor's poems specify the desired musical accompaniment. Tom-tom, the kora (the guitar), balafon (xylophone), jazz orchestra and so forth. Some of the most striking similarities in this writing, reflect not so much the influence of one writer on another, as relationships between Blacks and Whites in various countries. Thus, Langston Hughes can write, "I am the American heartbreak, rock on which freedom stumps its toe, the great mistake that Jamestown made long ago." While Bernard Dadié of the Ivory Coast can compare Harlem to quote, "a wart on the face of New York, a bone in the throat of New York, or a cavity in the white teeth of New York" end of quotation. And whereas Sterling Brown in his poem "Strong Men" which goes all the way back to 1932, can say "Today they shout prohibition at you, thou shall not this, thou shall not that, reserved for Whites only. You laugh, one thing they cannot prohibit, the strong men coming on, the strong men getting stronger, strong men stronger". Mercer Cook: And what do we find 18 years later? A poet from French Guiana, Léon Damas, one of the three founders of Negritude, can put this into a love lyric of all places. Just two lines. Attention, ici danger, déviation, chasse garde, terrain privé, domaine réservé, défense entrée, chien ni nègres sur la gazon. It isn't necessary but I'll translate. Attention, danger here, detour, private hunting grounds, reserved domain, entrance forbidden, neither dogs nor Negroes on the lawn. And the third example is the same phenomenon. Countee Cullen writes of a lady he knows. She even thinks that up in Heaven her class lies late and snores while poor Black cherubs rise at seven to do celestial chores. You know that one. Mercer Cook: Now in his novel, Masters of the Dew, a Haitian Jacques Roumain strikes the same note. His hero says, "There's Heavenly business and there's Earthly business. They're two different things, not the same. The sky is a pasture land of the angels. They're fortunate, they don't have to worry about eating and drinking. Of course they have Black angels to do the heavy work like washing out the clouds or cleaning off the sun after a storm. While the White angels just sing like nightingales all day long, or else blow on little trumpets." End of quotation. Mercer Cook: In all these instances, the authors knew each other. Dadié has certainly read Langston Hughes in translation, if not in the original. And may have met him personally while visiting New York in 1963. Damas and Sterling Brown have been close friends for many years. Countee Cullen had met Roumain in New York, possibly in the late 30's or maybe even earlier, and was much impressed by the talented Haitian. Consequently there was contact between the authors of those six extracts. But I would be most reluctant to suggest that one influenced the other directly. Part of the Black experiences, the Black experience, the passages quoted could have occurred to a gifted Negro writer anywhere. When the South African author Richard Reeve, in a book of short stories dedicated to Langston Hughes, relates the return with the name of the story, imagining Christ revisiting the Earth as a colored man and being rejected from a South African church for Whites. Mercer Cook: We are first tempted to think of 'Not for Publication' a poem by Langston Hughes. Where he says, it would be too bad if Christ were to come back Black. There are so many churches where he could not pray in the USA. Where entrance to Negroes, no matter how sanctified, is denied. Where race and not religion is glorified. But if you say it, you may be crucified." Mercer Cook: And remembering Countee Cullen's title, 'The Black Christ', in a line or two from his poem Heritage where he fashions dark Gods too. In other examples in Negro poetry and Negro life, I'm quite ready to believe that the return would still have been written, even if 'Not for Publication' had lived up to its title. There are of course works in which a direct reference to a title or an author, obviously indicates influence or at least contact. In this magnificent poem entitled, 'New York', Senghor mentions Gods trombones and ends with lines vaguely reminiscent of the style used by James Weldon Johnson in those sermons. Just three lines but it's enough to open your eyes to the [April] rainbow and your ears, above all your ears to God, who with the laugh of a saxophone created Heaven and Earth in six days, and on the seventh day he slept the great sleep of the Negro. Mercer Cook: Down through this literature, there's so many examples I could quote a writer from the Congo, Congo [inaudible] again, talking in a poem about singing the weary blues. He spells it wary blues but it's ... there might be a connection after all. But anyhow, it's the weary blues and that's the title of Langston's first book. In his autobiography, Tell Freedom, the South African Exile, Peter Abrahams talks about having an opportunity to go either to London or to New York. He says England beckons but Harlem, a Negro city, imagine Countee Cullens walking down the street and meeting Langston Hughes. And then imagine Paul Robeson joining them, and Du Bois, and Sterling Brown. Go on, [inaudible] too, and then let them talk. Imagine. And then he goes on talking about souls of Black folk, and how souls of Black folk, I know it isn't an example of the Harlem Renaissance literature, but it's written by a member of that group. He talks about souls of Black folk and how it recaptures an atmosphere that Abrahams had known not in Harlem, because Abrahams had never been to Harlem. But in his Native South Africa. Mercer Cook: Contacts, literary or personal with Haiti, were more numerous and deserve a special paragraph. James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Rayford Logan, Alain Locke, Du Bois and others, had visited the Black republic between 1920 and 1950. And most of them had written about Haiti. La Revue Indigène founded in 1927 by a group of young Haitians including Jacques Roumain, told its readers about the new Negro writing in the United States. And five years later the first two issues of another magazine, La Relève, carried an article on the Black Renaissance in the United States. By Dr. John Price-Mars who has been called the father of the Negritude movement. On October 20th, 1931, a Haitian newspaper published a poem by Jacques Roumain which we quote in a translation by Edna Underwood. Mercer Cook: The title of the poem, 'Langston Hughes'. [inaudible] sad faced girls, silver circle their ankles, they offer themselves to you naked as the night. Gold circled by the moon. You saw France without uttering a shop born, a shop made phrase, here we are Lafayette. The sin seemed less lovely than the Congo. Venice. You sought the shade of Desdemona, her name was Paola and you said sweet, sweet love, and sometimes baby baby. Then she wept and asked for twenty lire. (Her name was Paola, you'll remember.) Your nomad heart wandered from Harlem to Dakar. The sea sounded on in your song, sweet rhythmic wild. And its bitter tears of white foam, blossom born. Now here in this cabaret as the dawn draws near, you murmur the blues again play for me. Oh for me again play the blues. Are you dreaming tonight perhaps of the palm trees, the Black men down there who paddle you down the dusk. Mercer Cook: Interestingly enough, it was in Haiti that what Langston called, quote, "the first book about me in any language", Langston Hughes, [en champ nouveau] was published in 1940 by a Haitian. These contacts resulted not so much in imitation as in a broadened perspective. A growing appreciation for the values of the black word. A lessening of an inferiority complex planted deep by centuries of brainwashing and assorted tortures. After all it was about time for someone to suggest that Black Beauty did not have to be a horse. Mercer Cook: One of the most effective and influential illustrations of this new attitude, was Claude McKay's 'Banjo'. Published in 1928, translated into French the following year, this novel created a sensation among French speaking African and West Indian intellectuals. Basically it urged the Black man to be himself, without fear or shame as Langston had said in his manifesto back there in 1926. And it did so with artistry and humor. Knocking around on the docks of Marseilles the hero who calls himself Banjo, decides to make a little money by getting together a small combo. Mercer Cook: His conversation, he's trying to recruit somebody to play along with him. "Banjo, is that what you play?" Exclaimed Goosey. "sure that's what I play" replied Banjo, "don't you like it?" "no. Banjo is bondage, it's the instrument of slavery. Banjo is Dixie, Dixie is the land of cotton and massuh and missus and Black mammy. We colored folks have got to get away from all that in these enlightened, progressive days. Let us play piano and violin. Hark and flute. Let the White folks play the banjo if they want to keep on remembering all the Black Joes singing and the hell they made them live in." "That ain't got nothing to do with me" replied Banjo. "I play that there instrument because I like it. I don't play no Black Joe hymns, I play lively tunes. All you talking about slavery and bondage ain't got nothing to do with us starting up a little orchestry". Mercer Cook: Now if you'll hold onto that banjo for a minute, I'd like to read a part of a poem by Damas of French Guiana. Damas, this poem was first published in 1937. Notice the title of Damas' book. This is the first book published by any of these authors. The poet called his poems Pigment. Pigment, pigmentation you'd say. Well Countee Cullen had called his first poems color you see. And this obviously it's a superficial similarity but you can trace it on down through Senghor's poems, Senghor's first book of poetry 1945 was called Chants d'Ombre, Songs of Shadow. Now what did Claude McKay publish in 1922? His poems were called Harlem Shadows. Mercer Cook: As I say this thing goes on and on and I do want to read this poem, a part of this poem by Damas called 'Hiccups'. "In vain I drank seven mouthfuls of water, three or four times in 24 hours. My childhood returns in a hiccup, shaking up my instinct like the cop, the robber, disaster. Tell me of the disaster. Tell me about it. My mother, warning a son with good table manners. Hands on the table, bread is not to be cut, bread is to be broken. Bread is not to be wasted, Gods bread. A bone must be eaten with measure and discretion. A stomach must be sociable, and any sociable stomach gets along without belching. A fork is not a toothpick, you are forbidden to blow your nose in the knowledge and sight of others. And then sit up straight, a well brought up knows to not sweep the plate. Disaster, tell me of the disaster, tell me about it. My mother warning a son very do, very re, very mi, very fa, very sol, very la, very ti, very do-re-me-fa-sol-la-ti-do. I heard you missed your violin lesson. A banjo? Did you say a banjo? What are you saying? A banjo? Are you really saying banjo? No sir, here we shall tolerate neither ban nor jo nor gui nor tar. Mulatto's don't do that, leave that to Blacks. Mercer Cook: Now even if the original impetus came from McKay, you see it tied in with memories of Damas' childhood in Cayenne in [Fort-de-France. Closely enough to inspire a poem that is typically authentically and exclusively Damas. You see what happened in the West Indian... Mercer Cook: Am I talking too long? Speaker 4: No, no. Mercer Cook: What happened to these, so many of the West Indian writers, they were fed up by this time, with the tradition in places like Martinique, in which the writers felt, many of them felt that if they just ignored the question of color and the differences between Whites and Mulattos and Blacks, the problem would just go away. You see this was the ostrich-like attitude, and this is what these, so many of these authors like Césaire and Damas and the rest of them were attacking to a great extent, under the inspiration of the writers of the Harlem renaissance. In this connection, let us consider two poems on a perennial theme. I'm almost finished. Mercer Cook: Again we go back to Claude McKay. This time selecting his Harlem dancer. Which you probably remember. Applauding youth, laughed with young prostitutes and watched her perfect half-clothed body sway. Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes, born or blown by Black players upon a picnic day. She sang and danced on, gracefully and calm, the light gauze hanging loose about her form. To me she seemed a proudly swaying palm, grown lovelier for passing through a storm. Upon her swathy neck, black shiny curls luxuriant fell. And tossing coins and praise the wine flushed bold eyed boys and even the girls devoured her shape with eager passionate gaze. But looking at her falsely smiling face, I knew herself was not in that strange place. Mercer Cook: That was 1922. 20 years later the same inspiration struck a Haitian poet Roussan Camille who happened to be visiting Morocco. And he called his poem Nedje. Not quite 16, you said you came from Danakil. Ethiopia. You whom vicious Whites crammed with anisette and whiskey in that smoke filled café in Casablanca. Through the narrow window the dust was dripping blood on the burnous of the Spahis leaned against the bar. And tracing above the desert outside, epic visions of clashes, pursuits, defeat and glory. One bloody evening which was but a minute of the eternal bloody night of Africa, so sad a night your dance became imbued with it and made me sick at heart. Like your song, like your glance, riveted to my glance and blending with my soul. Your eyes were full of countries. Of so many countries that on looking at you I saw new in their wild light, the dark suburbs of London. The brothels of Tripoli, Harlem, ever pseudo-paradise where Negros dance and sing for others. Mercer Cook: The nearby call of your mutilated Danakil, the call of Black fraternal hands infused into your dance of love a virginal purity and echoed in your heart, great familiar song. Your frail arms raised in the smoke yearn to embrace centuries of pride, kilometers of landscape, while your steps on the waxed mosaic sought the highlands and lowlands of your childhood. The window opened on the anxious East. 100 times your heart returned there, 100 times the red rose brandished in your dainty fingertips adorned the mirage of the gate of your village. Your sorrow and nostalgia were known to all the debauches, sailors on maneuvers, soldiers on leave, the idling tourists crushing your Brown breasts with a vast boredom of travelers. But you alone know, little girl from Danakil, lost in the smoke filled cafes of Casablanca, that your heart will find its happiness when in the new dawns that bathe your native desert, you will return to dance for your dead heroes, for your living heroes, for your heroes yet unborn. Then each step, each gesture, each glance each song will show the sun that your land belongs to you. Mercer Cook: And now to conclude. Perhaps the Harlem renaissance failed to produce the flood. Political, economic and cultural, that would instantaneously wash away exploitation, prejudice and oppression. Those are stains to discourage the strongest detergents, even those with enzyme. But as we have tried to show, the renaissance set in motion waves that have flowed and continue to flow to distant shores, bringing inspiration and hope to lands desecrated by similar problems. By similar evils, I should say. Here at home, at the very least, the Harlem renaissance has salvaged a literary heritage for those who, with deep apologies to Countee Cullen because I'm about to massacre what James Weldon Johnson called the two most poignant lines in American literature. Those who determine to do their marvelous, curious things, despite their blackness, still go on and sing. Speaker 1: That was Mercer Cook. Professor of French at Howard University, with a lecture on "The Harlem Renaissance goes abroad". This presentation was delivered at the 1970 institute of Afro-American culture, held on the campus of the University of Iowa, August 9th through the 21st. And was recorded by the broadcasting service of the University of Iowa.