The Harlem Renaissance

by Veronica Chambers, Josh Wilker

- Tells the stories of notable groups of people of color- A companion series to the award-winning BLACK AMERICANS OF ACHIEVEMENT biographies

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

About the author

Veronica Chambers is a prolific author, best known for her critically acclaimed memoir, Mama’s Girl, which has been course adopted by hundreds of high schools and colleges throughout the country. The New Yorker called Mama’s Girl “a troubling testament to grit and mother love… one of the finest and most evenhanded in the genre in recent years.” Born in Panama and raised in Brooklyn, Ms. Chambers' work often reflects her Afro-Latina heritage.

Her most recent non-fiction book was Kickboxing Geishas: How Japanese Women are Changing their Nation. Her other non-fiction books include The Joy of Doing Things Badly: A Girl’s Guide to Love, Life, and Foolish Bravery. She has also written more than a dozen books for children, most recently Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa and the body confidence Y/A novel, Plus. Her teen series, Amigas, is a collaboration between Chambers, producer Jane Startz, and Jennifer Lopez.

Veronica spent two seasons as an executive story editor for CW’s hit series Girlfriends, and earned a BET Comedy Award for her script work on that series. She has also written and developed projects for Fox and the N.

Veronica has contributed to several anthologies, including the best-selling Bitch in the House, edited by Cathi Hanuaer, and Mommy Wars, edited by Leslie Morgan Steiner.

A graduate of Simon’s Rock College at Bard, she and her husband have endowed three scholarships at the college in the fields of music and literature. She has been the recipient of several awards including the Hodder fellowship for emerging novelists at Princeton University and a National Endowment for the Arts fiction award. She speaks, reads and writes Spanish, but she is truly fluent in Spanglish. She lives with her husband and daughter in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Reviews

[Victoria Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Harlem Renaissance" by Veronica Chambers is a high-spirited, profound and intelligent book that belies its 121 pages of text with so much depth and knowledge that it took my breath away. Separated into eight chapters, and a "Picture Essay," the amazing cultural phenomenon that resulted in some of the world's most inspiring literature and art came alive for me and took me back to its heyday. When I read about A'Lelia Walker, Madame C.J. Walker's daughter, and her club, "The Dark Tower," I felt like I was hobnobbing with Langston Hughes, and others, at one of her fabulous parties. Then when I looked at William H. Johnson's painting "Jitterbugs (III)" I felt like I was at a "neighborhood rent party."
Intensely researched, with background stories about people who I'd never heard of, but had made great contributions to the movement, "The Harlem Renaissance" made me want to learn more about it and its founders.

[Kabir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great succinct overview of the artists of the Harlem Renaissance. It was so inspiring reading about the tenacity of black american artists in the early 1900s and the tension of defining work for themselves while being essentially sustained by white patrons. Many questions raised here that are still relevant to working artists who are black today.

It was also cool reading about all these artists i had already know about as individuals outside of their works. Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Aaron Douglas, Augusta Savage, WEB Du Bois, etc etc. all these people knew, influenced, and challenged one another which Is so cool. I’m considering my own relationships with my contemporaries, and come again to the conclusions that we have to spend more dedicated time together in critical dialogue. This was great, i learned about other great artists too whose work I want to explore more like the sculptor Meta Vauc Fuller

[Lea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting overview of the movers and shakers of the Harlem Renaissance.