Beloved Harlem

September 1, 2005
This anthology celebrates the literary history of Harlem from the early 20th century to the present. Banks, executive director of the Harlem Writers Guild, includes stories, a play, novel excerpts, memoirs, and articles either about Harlem or by writers associated with it; among those represented are James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, Zora Neale Hurston, Dorothy West, Ossie Davis, Toni Morrison, Brian Keith Jackson, Rosemarie Robotham, and Ayesha Randolph. James Baldwin's "Fifth Avenue Uptown: A Letter from Harlem" is curiously absent, although Baldwin is represented by an excerpt from "Go Tell It on the Mountain". The pieces, arranged chronologically, touch on subjects ranging from poverty, racism, riots, religion, and segregation to jazz clubs, numbers running, and libraries. Moreover, Banks dedicates the book to "all librarians -&God's first and best search engines." Amen to that. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries. -William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2005
The Harlem Writers Guild, created in 1950 by John Oliver Killens, Rosa Guy, Walter Christmas, and Dr. John Henrik Clarke, has provided a haven for writers to encourage and disseminate black culture and to speak out against injustice. Banks offers a collection of 29 excerpts and short stories that celebrate black culture, prefacing each selection with a short biography and the piece's literary context. Part 1 focuses on the 1910s through the 1930s, the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance, and includes works by James Weldon Johnson, W. E. B. DuBois, white author Carl Van Vechten, Claude McKay, and Zora Neale Hurston. Part 2, the 1940s through the 1960s, includes works by Dorothy West, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes. Part 3 focuses on the years 1970--2000 and includes Louise Merriweather, John A. Williams, Grace F. Edwards, Toni Morrison, and Walter Dean Myers. Part 4 explores new voices reinventing Harlem literature, including those of Rosemarie Robotham and Brian Keith Jackson. Readers will appreciate the chronological and literary breadth of the collection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)