Book review: Spectres of 1919: Class and Nation in the Making of the New Negro

Abstract

Excerpt: Barbara Foley's book is a well-written, well-researched, and extensively supported analysis of the links between the American Left and the New Negro movement. Arguing that 1919 was a year when issues of race and class were closely tied, Foley traces the continuation and then the lessening of that connection through the early 1920s, using Alain Locke's 1925 anthology, The New Negro, as a barometer of a shift away from the more radical New Negro movement and toward the more culture-focused Harlem Renaissance.