exclaims, “Sometimes I hate Niggers” (26). Snob-
bish Mrs. Albright and her daughter, Hester,
decry the African art Mary is trying to champion
and anything else “low” associated with their
race. While readers learn that blacks are by nature
tardy to meetings, Byron detests the working-
class blacks with whom he briefly works for their
dress, dialect, and lack of education. Intellectuals
are, one critic notes, stifled by “black snobbery
on the one side and white bigotry on the other”
(Worth, 464).
Herein, however, lies the irony. Within this
overwhelming tumble of primitive images, read-
ers also find debates about racism, the New Negro,
and the future of race relations. Characters debate
the merits and costs of passing, the absurdity of
white supremacism, the trap of black “exception-
alism,” the economic exploitation of Harlem, and
the racism of U.S. foreign policy. Mary also praises
the race for producing the beauty of its spirituals.
Though they are set piece debates, they are put in
the mouths of sympathetic characters. Van Vech-
ten seems to be acting as the ally of African Ameri-
cans in these sections. He shows white readers the
indignities faced by educated blacks, yet the text’s
narrative framing device of Anatole Longfellow,
the Scarlet Creeper, suggests that Van Vechten ul-
timately defaulted to a more primitive depiction
of Harlem and blacks than the inclusion of New
Negro characters can overcome. The Creeper is a
womanizing cabaret folk hero who slinks through
speakeasies in which “Hottentots and Bantus” sway
to the music, and even the waiters Charleston on
the tables. Ultimately he guns down a rival who
has stolen “his woman” and inadvertently frames
Byron for the murder.
The stereotypes and primitive imagery seem
puzzling coming from Van Vechten, who tried to
help blacks. They clearly increased sales and ac-
ceptance from white readers, who would be the
target audience. The title itself arises from an
image of racism, “linking the life of blacks in Har-
lem to the segregated balcony section of theatres”
(Worth, 464). Van Vechten was exercising privi-
leges denied black writers, who, above all, did not
enjoy the access to publishing that he did. Beyond
that, any more authentic depiction of Harlem and
black culture offered by a black author would not
find a market.
The self-referential nature of the text reinforces
this conclusion. Van Vechten never tired of tell-
ing his black friends that the Great White Market
awaited the proper portrayal of Harlem and black
culture. He proved his point, when he became that
white author and Nigger Heaven became a best
seller, going through nine printings in its first four
months, eventually selling better than all books
written by black authors in the Harlem Renais-
sance. At several points in the text, Van Vechten
seems to critique his own enterprise, while illus-
trating his own power. Van Vechten seems to have
understood, even if he could not resist.BIBLIOGRAPHY
DuBois, W. E. B. Review of Nigger Heaven. 1926. In
Nigger Heaven, vii–x. New York: Harper & Row,
1971.
Kellner, Bruce. Carl Van Vechten and the Irreverent
Decades. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1968.
Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue.
New York: Penguin, 1997.
Worth, Robert F. “Nigger Heaven and the Harlem Re-
naissance.” African American Review 29, no. 3 (Fall
1995): 461–473.
Jay HartNugent, Richard Bruce (1906–1987)
An artist, writer, actor, dancer, dilettante and bo-
hemian, Bruce Nugent was born Richard Bruce
Nugent to middle-class, light-skinned Washing-
ton, D.C., socialites Richard Henry Nugent and
Pauline Minerva Bruce Nugent. His father was
a Pullman porter, his mother a biracial prod-
uct of African and French blood. According to
David Levering Lewis, Nugent “bore a striking
resemblance to Langston Hughes—a handsomer,
more bohemian, Hughes” (196). Nugent attended
Washington, D.C.’s Dunbar High School. After
his father’s death, Nugent’s mother moved the
family to New York, where Nugent, then 13 years
old, worked at various odd jobs through age 18.396 Nugent, Richard Bruce