tributed to his friend Langston Hughes. He wrote
immediately to Hughes, cautioning him about the
legal aspects of republication and the problems that
could arise from the reprinting of two Hughes
poems. “Of course, you know that you cannot pub-
lish in book form anything included in your own
book without permission from Mr. Knopf,” he wrote
earnestly. While he admitted “there could be no ob-
jection to using the poems in the Survey Graphic,”
he noted that “Locke had a further section labeled
‘Jazzonia,’ and I think it would be a decided mistake
to publish any of the jazz poems in book form before
your book appeared.” Van Vechten could not stop
there; he was quite concerned about how any sense
of impropriety might jeopardize his young col-
league’s pending publication and future reputation.
“You see,” he wrote, “this anthology will appear a
good three months before your book appears; every-
body will buy it and if it contains a sufficient num-
ber of your best poems it will take the edge off the
sale and reviews of your own book. If it were coming
out after your book there could be no such objec-
tion. Even so, it is the part of wisdom to be sparing
in contributions to anthologies” (Bernard, 23).
The New Negrowas one of the most well-
known anthologies of the Harlem Renaissance pe-
riod. Locke’s efforts to present a persuasive and
absorbing collection of writings ultimately resulted
in one of the most earnest assessments of African-
American culture, literature, and history.
Bibliography
Bernard, Emily. Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of
Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten.New York:
Knopf, 2001.
Byrd, Rudolph. “Jean Toomer and the Writers of the
Harlem Renaissance: Was He There with Them?”
In The Harlem Renaissance: Revaluations,edited by
Amritjit Singh, William S. Shiver, and Stanley
Brodwin. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1989,
209–218.
Linneman, Russell, ed. Alain Locke: Reflections on a Mod-
ern Renaissance Man.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University, 1982.
Locke, Alain. The New Negro: An Interpretation.1925;
reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1968.
Scarborough, Dorothy. “From Cotton Field and Levee to
the Streets of Harlem.” New York Times,20 Decem-
ber 1925, BR 19.
New Negro Arts Movement
The name that was used first to describe the liter-
ary and cultural awakening known as the HARLEM
RENAISSANCE.New Negro Art Theatre
A theater company based in NEWYORKCITYand
founded by Hemsley Winfield, a dynamic figure in
the world of dance and theater who was commit-
ted to creating a respected and sophisticated
African-American dance tradition. The theater
company included a number of extremely talented
individuals, including Ollie Burgoyne, Edna Guy,
and Randolph Sawyer.
Winfield was a recognized presence in the
New York performance world. He made his debut
in 1927 in Wade in the Water,a play by his mother
that was produced at the Cherry Lane Theatre in
Greenwich Village. In 1933 he would choreograph
and perform dances in the Metropolitan Theatre
ballet productions of EUGENEO’NEILL’s THEEM-
PERORJONES.
The year 1931 was a stellar one for Winfield.
In addition to founding the New Negro Art The-
atre, he and Guy had starred in a groundbreaking
dance performance in April that was billed as the
“First Negro Dance Recital in America.”Bibliography
Perpener, John O., III. African American Concert Dance:
The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond.Urbana: Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, 2001.New Republic, The
One of the nation’s most prominent political
weekly journals, founded in 1914 by Dorothy and
Willard Straight and journalist Herbert Croly.
Croly served as the magazine’s first editor. The
magazine was a left-wing and liberal publication
dedicated to providing its readers with scrupu-
lous reports and analyses of current issues, soci-
ety and culture, and government policies. In its
early years, the magazine endorsed President
Theodore Roosevelt and was an advocate of the
Progressive movement. Croly later supported
Woodrow Wilson and the efforts to wage war
against Germany. The decision prompted criticismNew Republic, The 383