In The Haitian Revolution, the Harlem Renaissance, and Caribbean Negritude: Overlapping Discourses of Freedom and Identity, Tammie Jenkins argues that the ideas of freedom and identity cultivated during the Haitian Revolution were reinvigorated in Harlem Renaissance texts and were instrumental in the development of Caribbean Negritude. Jenkins analyzes the precipitating events that contributed to the Haitian Revolution and connects them to Harlem Renaissance publications by Eric D. Walrond and Joel Augustus "J.A." Rogers. Jenkins traces these movements to Paris where black American expatriates, Harlem Renaissance members, and Francophones from Africa and the Caribbean met once a week at Le Salon Clamart to share their lived experiences with racism, oppression, and disenfranchisement in their home countries. Using these dialogical exchanges, Jenkins investigates how the Haitian Revolution and Harlem Renaissance tenets influence the modernization of Caribbean Negritude's development.
Tammie Jenkins has a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from Louisiana State University.
Chapter One: Sankofa: Looking Back to Move Forward Chapter Two: Haiti's Revolution: A Study in Race, Equality, and Citizenship Chapter Three: New Negroes and Harlemites' Rebirth a Revolution Chapter Four: Birthing Caribbean Negritude from a Renaissance in Harlem Chapter Five: End with the Beginning
Jenkins makes a remarkably ambitious attempt to connect three disparate historical, cultural, and literary movements spanning three centuries, beginning with the start of the Haitian Revolution (1791) and circling back to what she labels "Caribbean negritude" in the 20th century. Examining obscure and often-ignored texts, she identifies similarities of racial identity that loosely link these independent movements. For Jenkins, the culture, values, and heritage of a Black consciousness remain consistent across the African diaspora. The first chapter posits her thesis, the next three meticulously examine the cultural and artistic expressions of each literary movement, and the last valiantly ties together the threads that create a unified narrative of freedom and identity. This work's value is its in-depth analyses of primary texts that enlighten each cultural and artistic period and in the global definition of the "New Negro," a social and cultural identify that overlaps the three distinctive periods.... For novice students of cultural history, this book provides a basis to explore Black identity and cultural expressions in diaspora... Recommended. Undergraduates and graduate students. * Choice Reviews *
