The African American roots of modernism : from Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance / James Smethurst.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-245) and index.

Introduction : new forms and captive knights in the age of Jim Crow and mechanical reproduction -- Dueling banjos : African American dualism and strategies for black representation at the turn of the century -- Remembering "those noble sons of Ham" : poetry, soldiers, and citizens at the end of reconstruction -- The black city : the early Jim Crow migration narrative and the new territory of race -- Somebody else's civilization : African American writers, Bohemia, and the new poetry -- A familiar and warm relationship : race, sexual freedom, and U.S. literary modernism.

Print version record.

In identifying the Jim Crow period with the coming of modernity, Smethurst upsets the customary assessment of the Harlem Renaissance as the first nationally significant black arts movement, showing how artists reacted to Jim Crow with migration narratives, poetry about the black experience, and more.

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