Failing, succeeding, and being failed: Harlem Renaissance Scholarship, 1925–2025

Abstract History is written by victorious assumptions, of course, and in recent historical scholarship on the Harlem Renaissance, faith in the movement’s success has thankfully held sway. But what if we consider responsibly loosening the reins of this faith as the rebirth celebrates just one of its 100th birthdays? What if we reapproach the old specter of Harlem Renaissance failure, in other words, with due respect for the critical advances of the last three decades, but with greater empathy for the historical experience of the groundbreaking scholars whose own present days were shadowed by loss? For too-obvious reasons, that empathy shouldn’t be too hard to come by in 2025. In line with earlier cohorts that lived through Popular Front U-turns, McCarthyite repressions, and assorted backlashes to the long Civil Rights Movement, custodians of Harlem’s renaissance in the time of MAGA’s own revival have been reeling with the painful hindsight of political reversal. As unlikely as it sounds after all that recent pursuit of success, the centennial of Alain Locke’s consolidation of the literary Harlem Renaissance, a moment made for celebration, also marks one of the most punishing years in a century for African American literary study.