A Revival in Harlem

By: Monique Elwood

There was a Revival in Harlem:

The New Negro Movement

They called it; a Renaissance

We wrote, we danced, we sang a song,

But they didn’t know we was doing it, all along

They just wasn’t paying attention

We been long singing and dancin’

But our color was much, too much to mention.

There was a Revival in Harlem:

To make a poet Black and bid him to sing

Had never heard of such a thing.

Gave a pen and paper to Langston Hughes

And he brought forth “The Weary Blues”

There was a Revival in Harlem:

A love story, like no other had ever been told

Black Love was wrong, would never unfold

But Zora Neal Hurston gave it a nod

She told the story of “Their Eyes Were Watching God”.

There was a Revival in Harlem:

All over Uptown we was getting’ down,

Jazz and Blues moved our limbs

Made our heads bop, fingers snap

And if only for the night

We forgot about “them”.

There was a Revival in Harlem:

The Duke and his band

Made the whole world stand

In ovation and in admiration

‘Cause who knew

We could read and play music, too.

There was a Revival in Harlem:

Cab Calloway at the Cotton Club

As it was shamelessly dubbed:

WHITE ONLY

Hiddie, Hiddie, Hiddie Ho

See we could perform and give the people a good show

But we still wasn’t good enough to enter

The front do’

There was a Revival in Harlem:

Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters and Claude McKay

Langston Hughes, Jelly Roll Morton and Billie Holliday

There was a Revival in Harlem:

Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, and Duke Ellington

Louis Armstrong, Count Bassie and Zora Neal Hurston

There was a Revival in Harlem:

The New Negro Movement

They called it; a Renaissance.