graphic and torrid depictions of gay street life
the use of crack cocaine, a profound, irreversible
influence on hip-hop culture. Hardy has chosen
to grapple with the issues that can best serve and
inform his readers directly. In his novel Love the
One You’re With (2002), Hardy tackles issues of
infidelity and monogamy between gay men. He
also returns to Mitchell “Little Bit” Crawford
and Raheim “Pooquie” Rivers. Hardy suggests in
the acknowledgments of A House Is Not a Home
(2003) that he was writing the final chapter on
these familiar characters.
Hardy’s novels render true characters and rep-
resentations of the ordinary daily struggles most
black gay men face. He explores the intricacies of
sexual orientations within the 1980s hip-hop cul-
ture, a period of uncertainty, purposefully to de-
stroy black male stereotypes that are still too often
perpetrated by the media. Economic discrepancies
between black homosexual lovers, homosexuality
and fatherhood, the complexity of being straight
and turning gay, AIDS, and family are other strong
Hardy themes. His characters are immersed in
family, though, which shows that the fundamental
concerns of gay black men are not really different
from other men. Further, Hardy introduces his
readers to acronyms like SGL (same-gender lov-
ing, used by African Americans instead of LGBT)
and DL (on the down low, or men who live dual as
gay and heterosexual men), deepening his reader’s
knowledge of gay black life.
Hardy has been showered with accolades for his
work. He has earned grants from the E. Y. Harburg
Arts Foundation and the American Association of
Sunday and Feature Editors, two Educational Press
Association Writing Awards, a Columbia Press As-
sociation Feature Writing Citation, a Village Voice
writing fellowship, and scholarships from the Paul
Rapoport Memorial Foundation and the national
and New York chapters of the Association of Black
Journalists. His byline appears in Entertainment
Weekly, Newsweek, The Advocate, and The Wash-
ington Post.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Greene, Beverly, ed. Ethnic and Cultural Diversity
among Lesbians and Gay Men: Psychological Per-
spectives on Lesbian and Gay Issues. Vol. 3. Thou-
sand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1997.
Hawkeswood, William G. One of the Children: Gay
Men in Black Harlem. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1996.
Reid-Pharr, Robert F., ed. Black Gay Man: Essays. New
York: New York University Press, 2001.
Lawrence T. PotterHarlem Renaissance
(New Negro Renaissance, New Negro
Movement, or Negro Renaissance)
Although scholars and critics often disagree
on whether the so-called Harlem Renaissance
was a formal movement, most agree that from
post–World War I America to the beginning of
the Great Depression, African-American cul-
ture blossomed like never before, imprinting the
mainstream with its music, particularly blues and
jazz; nightlife in the cabarets of its black mecca,
Harlem; and, above all, the proliferation of its
artistic, visual, critical, and literary voices, major
and minor, including MARITA BONNER, ARNA BON-
TEMPS, COUNTEE CULLEN, W. E. B. DUBOIS, ALICE
DUNBAR-NELSON, JESSIE REDMON FAUSET, LANGSTON
HUGHES, ZORA NEALE HURSTON, AARON DOUGLAS,
GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON, NELLA LARSEN, ALAIN
LOCKE, CLAUDE MCKAY, BRUCE NUGENT, GEORGE
SCHUYLER, WALLACE THURMAN, JEAN TOOMER, ERIC
WALROND, DOROTHY WEST, WALTER WHITE, and
many others.
Given the renaissance’s celebration of racial
consciousness and black culture, many scholars
consider Harvard graduate DuBois’s The SOULS OF
BLACK FOLK (1903) its genesis; in Souls DuBois not
only delineated the complexity of African-Ameri-
cans’ experience—from slavery to freedom—but
also declared their undeniable gifts to American
culture. He wrote, “And so by faithful chance
the Negro folk song—the rhythmic cry of the
slave—stands to-day not simply as the sole Amer-
ican music, but as the most beautiful expression
of human experience born this side the seas...
[I]t still remains as the singular spiritual heritage
of the nation and the greatest gift of the NegroHarlem Renaissance 229