Miss Anne in Harlem

by Carla Kaplan

  Miss Anne, after all, has descendants among us. In 2008, for example, Riverhead Books published a book called Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival. It was a story of growing up biracial in the Los Angeles gang the Bloods, written by Margaret B. Jones. Michiko Kakutani called it “humane and deeply affecting” and praised its “amazing job of conjuring” South-Central and the “bonds of love and loyalty” that thread through the violence of gang life there. Rebecca Walker, Alice Walker’s daughter, praised it as a “must-read” book that could deepen our understanding of race.

  The problem was that Margaret Jones was actually Margaret Seltzer, raised in well-off Sherman Oaks, never in a gang, and not biracial. She “fabricated” the entire story. Asked to explain why she did it, Seltzer said that she had been moved to concoct the story out of her love for black students she’d met in her high school. She believed that she could give “a voice to people who people don’t listen to.”

  Margaret Seltzer’s response is redolent of Edna Margaret Johnson’s “A White Girl’s Prayer” to become “yellow . . . bronze . . . or black.” Her belief that she could speak for blacks evokes Nancy Cunard’s “I speak as if I were a Negro myself.” Like Miss Anne, Seltzer mixed selfish motives with noble ideals.

  Learning of Margaret Seltzer’s fraud just before Love and Consequences appeared, the publishers quickly recalled the book and canceled Seltzer’s book tour. It is hard to blame them. The false-memoir phenomenon has been agonizing for publishers and unnerving for writers. One wonders what Seltzer was thinking and whether, in some small way, she was channeling Miss Anne’s desires. Her questions, after all, are Miss Anne’s questions (though taken to dangerous extremes), as pressing now as they were almost a hundred years ago: Can we alter our identities at will, and, if so, how? What, if anything, do we owe those with whom we are categorized? Does freedom mean escaping our social categories or inhabiting those that don’t seem to belong to us?

  In a recent essay on the sudden rise of wiggers and the contemporary youth culture of cross-racial fascination, race theorist David Roediger reminds us not to romanticize white-to-black identification. A “tremendous attraction toward nonwhite cultures,” he notes, can lead toward “hideous reassertions of whiteness” as easily as it can lead to antiracism. Cross-racial identification, he argues, is often a mess. But “messiness,” he also avers, is precisely what demands our analytical attention.

  Miss Anne was as messy as it gets. But she was not always thought of as “crazy.” In fact, many in Harlem were firmly convinced that she was onto something. Harlem Renaissance novelist Rudolph Fisher, for example, amazed by the way whites were “actually playing Negro” in the 1920s, wondered if the impersonation might change them, tuning them in to a black “wave-length . . . [helping them] learn . . . to speak our language . . . at last.” He saw that possibility in Miss Anne’s efforts. In 1927, white poet Lucia Trent, born in the former slave state of Virginia in 1897 and the daughter of a college professor, published a poem called “A White Woman Speaks” in Opportunity. About an innocent black man lynched by a mob, her poem preceded Scottsboro by four years.

  A White Woman Speaks

  So the law’s agents left you to the throng;

  You, whom the Court found innocent of wrong;

  You, who could only stare and only sob;

  They gave you over to that bawling mob,

  Who shot at you like bullies from the back,

  Because—poor devil—yes, your skin was black!

  I do not pity you, my friend, who go

  To sudden solitude of those who know

  Only the ancient silences of death,

  Who hear no more the feet of rain, the breath

  Of low waves folding on the April seas,

  But, O! deep in my heart I pity these

  Poor human blunderers who have to-night

  Made me, God knows, ashamed of being white!

  As Fisher hypothesized, Trent spoke as a white woman in an attempt to change her own whiteness. One sign of that change is her phrase “my friend.” That seems innocuous now. But white women in 1927 rarely claimed black men as friends, whether the men were victims of racist violence or novelists such as Rudolph Fisher. Her imaginary friendship helped her rewrite social norms. Identifying with a black man, Trent wrote, also made her “ashamed of being white.” That shame is the flip side of the poem’s pleasure in friendship. Pleasure and shame are both, the poem suggests, how we learn to listen to others. Trent’s pleasure and shame, Edna Margaret Johnson’s, and Nancy Cunard’s are neither crazy nor outside the civic realm where social struggles are waged. Both emotions are crucial—if messy—aspects of meaningful social change. Miss Anne always understood that.

  The racial divides that Miss Anne crossed could not have been changed—and still cannot be—by individual identifications alone, however much those cross-racial indentifications might strain against our norms. But such identifications do have “political edges” with the power to point to and help push along the systemic and structural changes we seek. And Miss Anne always understood that as well.

  Acknowledgments

  It is a great pleasure to thank those who aided this book.

  Initial institutional support was provided by the University of Southern California, and I am especially grateful to the Department of English, Dean Beth Meyerowitz, and my USC research assistants: Carolyn Dunn, Ruth Blandon, Lucia Hodgson, and, particularly, Jennifer Stoever-Ackerman. Northeastern University provided much-appreciated research and subvention support. Help with research and proofreading came from an excellent team of research assistants: Allison Rodriguez, Lauren Kuryloski, Tabitha Clark, and, particularly, Brent Griffin, Aleks Galus, and Hania Musiol, who began working on the project even before I arrived in Boston. Department staff members Jean Duddy, Melissa Daigle, and Linda Collins were always helpful. The staff and faculty who helped to found the Northeastern University Humanities Center—Kumarini Silva, Hilary Poriss, Amílcar Antonio Barreto, Jen Sopchochkai, Allison Rodriguez, and Nakeisha Cody—eased the transition from Los Angeles to Boston, as did Deans Bruce Ronkin, Uta Poiger, and, especially, James Stellar. I benefited from the encouragement and friendship of Northeastern president Joseph E. Aoun and Zeina Aoun.

  Foundations and libraries provided the release time from teaching and access to archival resources without which this book could not have been written. I thank the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin. I especially thank the Guggenheim Foundation, for the miraculous gift of time free from other obligations. Two residential centers provided invaluable camaraderie and time: the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers of the New York Public Library and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research; both are special places. At the Cullman Center, I would especially like to thank the staff and my colleague Sharon Cameron. At the Du Bois Institute, I owe special debts of gratitude to Vera Grant, Krishna Lewis, Tom Wolejko, Donald Yacovone, and Abby Wolf; to Karla F. C. Holloway for bonding over Fannie Hurst; and, most especially, to Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who gives back to other scholars like no one else in academia.

  The archives listed under Manuscript Sources were all generous with time and resources. Some librarians went out of their way to help me track difficult sources and obscure illustrations, and I would especially like to thank Melissa Barton, Nancy Kuhl, and the staff at the Beinecke Library; Alice Birney at the Library of Congress; Jennie Cole and the staff at the American Jewish Archives; Nicolette Dobrowski at Syracuse; JoEllen El Bashir at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center; Andrea Felder at the New York Public Library; Marlayna Gates at Yale University; Lois Conley, Yves Hyacinth, and Tricia Reinhart at Northeastern; Donald Glassman and the staff at the Barnard College Archives; William LeFevre at the Reuther Library; Diana Lachatenere, Mary Yearwood, Steven Fullwood, the late André Elizée, Colin Palmer, and the staff at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Cul
ture; David Smith and the staff at the New York Public Library; Thomas Staley, Richard Watson, Richard Workman, and the staff at the Harry Ransom Center; and Anne Woodrum and the staff at Brandeis. Genealogist extraordinaire Chris McKay of the Schomburg Center oriented me to census research and accompanied me to the municipal archives; her skills are remarkable and her enthusiasm is infectious.

  Among the many other individuals who provided support and encouragement, I would like to thank Carol Bemis, Dorothy and Leo Braudy, Wini Breines, Amy Cherry, Erin Cramer, Stewart and Kathie Dalzell, Laurie and John Deer, Jeffrey Elmer, Laura Frader, Judy Glass, Laura Green, Kathryn Hayes, Selma Holo, Elsa Jacobson, Clair Kaplan, Emily Kaplan, Coppelia Kahn, Ann Kogen, Lori Lefkovitz, Jane Marcus, Roxanne Davis May, Gabriela Redwine, Dinky Romilly, Susanne Salem Schatz, Doris Shairman, Adam Shatz, David Kaplan Taylor, Tracy Vancura, and Louise Yelin. Three friends passed away before I could thank them, but I want to remember here John Glass, Liz Maguire, and Hazel Rowley, who was always a ready sounding board for my work. In Boston and New York, I encountered a community of biographers and cultural historians notable for their generosity and good spirits, and I am especially thankful to know Debby Applegate, Paul Fisher, Gretchen Gerzina, Charlotte Gordon, Martha Hodes, Megan Marshall, Sue Quinn, Judith Tick, Diane McWhorter, Suzanne Wasserman, and all the women of the Women Writing Women’s Lives Seminar. Special gratitude is due to Rachel Berger, Jo Chaffee, Jessica Douglas, Ryan Hollohan, Gail Reid, Dan Ryan, Peter Tighe, Pete Viteretti, Diane Weisenberg, and, most especially, Mo Sila, who keeps the faith.

  Interviewees were unfailingly gracious. For giving their time and answering my many questions, I thank: Carolyn Ashkar, Knoxville College; Frances Biddle, Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; Steven Biddle, Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and Quakertown, Pennsylvania; Alfred Bredenberg; the late Schuyler Chapin, New York; Lady Bee Coleman, Evanston, Illinois; Phoebe Eaton, Pennsylvania; the late Odessa Franklin, White Pine, Tennessee; Violet Franklin, White Pine, Tennessee; Joanne Rhome Herring, Soldotna, Alaska; Lisa Illia, Las Vegas, Nevada; the Reverend William James, New York City; Britt Juliff, College Station, Texas; the late Walter Juliff, College Station, Texas; Diane Locke, Granbury, Texas; Cody Martin, Granbury, Texas; Barbara Mason, Morristown, Tennessee; Clara Osborne, Morristown, Tennessee; Toby and Barbara Pearson, Morristown, Tennessee; Mary Saltarelli, Granbury, Texas; and Claudia Southern, Granbury, Texas. Special thanks are also owed to Robert Bell of the Cunard estate; Lisa Illia of the Garth estate; and especially to Britt Juliff for so generously sharing photographs, documents, and memories of Josephine Cogdell Schuyler. My debt to Frances and Stephen Biddle for sharing their Charlotte Osgood Mason materials is immense; their friendship was a great gift of this book.

  Many Harlem Renaissance scholars were also gracious about answering my questions. I especially thank Emily Bernard, Todd Decker, Jeffrey Ferguson, Clive Fisher, Bruce Kellner, Michelle Patterson, Arnold Rampersad, Kathryn Talalay, and Carolyn Wedin.

  I benefited from the opportunity to share work-in-progress with undergraduate and graduate classes at Northeastern University and with audiences at the American Literature Association, the American Studies Association, the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Modernist Studies Association, the New York Public Library, Northwestern University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Stanford University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Vanderbilt University, and the Women Writing Women’s Lives Seminar, New York City.

  Profound gratitude goes to those who read portions of the manuscript or the proposal in draft: Joseph Allen Boone, Alice Echols, Lynn Enterline, Karla Holloway, Amy Kaplan, Bernard and Rosalyn Kaplan (great readers who taught me to value books and ideas), Elaine McArdle, Marilyn Neimark, Carla Peterson, Necee Regis, Ramón Saldivar, Alisa Solomon, Tracy Vancura, and Suzanna Danuta Walters. My writing group was instrumental in helping me give narrative shape to a mountain of material, and I thank Carol Bundy, Kathleen Dalton, Carol Oja, and, especially, Susan Ware—who read the entire manuscript and many of the chapters more than once; I was fortunate to have her discerning eye and support.

  The HarperCollins editorial and production teams are stellar. Their commitment to books and the importance of cultural history runs deep. My appreciation goes to Lynn Anderson, Leigh Brumesch, and the meticulous Susan Gamer. Special thanks go to my publicist Jane Beirn and to Maya Ziv (my Wemberly). The permissions work for the illustrations, as well as obtaining high-resolution copies, was handled with professionalism and good humor by the wondrous Neil Giordano, who never said no.

  I am especially fortunate in my agent, Brettne Bloom, and my editor, Gail Winston, great readers and astute critics. Both believed in this project from the first, and I treasure their friendship and suggestions. They were exceptionally generous with their time, loyalty, and feedback; both were sensitive to the difficulties of group biography and insightful about strategies for drawing together a group of women who resisted definition. They read many drafts and pushed this to be a better book. I could not ask for a better agent or a better editor.

  I am one lucky writer.

  My greatest debt is to my husband, Steve Larsen, the most eclectic reader I know and the most generous partner I could imagine for a writer. From building bookcases to mulling over titles to reading and commenting on every chapter (in almost every draft), Steve’s keen eye, Norwegian understatement, and steadfast encouragement have been invaluable. His respect for my work, belief in this book, and willingness to make space for Miss Anne made all the difference. This book is dedicated to him.

  Notes

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was made. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature on your ebook reader.

  Principal Archives and Abbreviations

  AJA

  Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio

  Barnard

  Barnard College Archives, New York, New York

  Beinecke

  Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

  Brandeis

  Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections Department, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

  Georgetown

  Special Collections Research Center, Georgetown University Library, Washington, D.C.

  HRC

  Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin

  LOC

  Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  MSRC

  Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C.

  Quakertown

  Collection of Mrs. Edmund Randolph Biddle and Stephen G. Biddle, Quakertown, Pennsylvania

  Reuther

  Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan

  Schomburg

  Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

  Syracuse

  Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, New York

  Introduction: In Search of Miss Anne

  xvii

  “There were many white faces”: Watson, The Harlem Renaissance, 95.

  xvii

  “You know it won’t be easy to explain”: Van Vechten, Nigger Heaven, 204.

  xviii

  “midwife”: The term “midwife” appears in many different sources. See, e.g., Quarles, The Negro in the Making of America, 233; Harris and Molesworth, Alain L. Locke, 40, 107, 179, 182, 253, 381.

  xviii

  described with the same few sentences: One example is an often-told but apocryphal story in which Mason is said to have “her brown godchildren perched on a stool before her throne-like ancestral chair” when she didn’t have them up and about the apartment, dancing like “primitive
s.” Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, vol. 1, 157. Robert Hemenway, who related this story in his earlier biography of Hurston, suggests that his source for it was Louise Thompson Patterson—but Patterson both detested Mason (and with good reason, as Mason detested her as well) and appears never to have been in Mason’s Park Avenue apartment when both Hughes and Hurston were present. See Hemenway, Zora Neale Hurston, 107. David Levering Lewis, Steven Watson, and others have repeated this story, as did I in Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters, 48. See Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue, 151, and Watson, The Harlem Renaissance, 144.

  xix

  Historians and critics: Mumford, Interzones; Gubar, Racechanges, 152, 156; Douglas, Terrible Honesty, 101, 373; Dreisinger, Near Black.

  xx

  These biographies typically dispense with their time in Harlem: See, e.g., Chisholm, Nancy Cunard, and Gordon, Nancy Cunard.

  xx

  for white women: Racial “crossover” remains a largely male prerogative according to Roediger and others. See Roediger, Colored White, 235–6. On gender and racial crossover, see also Wald, Crossing the Line, and McDowell, “Pecs and Reps,” in Stecopolous and Uebal, eds., Race and the Subject of Masculinities. On the appeal to white women of midcentury racial crossover, see Breines, Young, White, and Miserable.

  xxi

  “race spirit” of the Harlem Renaissance: Alain Locke, “Foreword,” in The New Negro, xxvii. This collection, an expansion of the special edition of The Survey Graphic published the previous year, is often considered the “definitive text” of the Harlem Renaissance. In his introduction to the 1992 edition of this much-reprinted text, Arnold Rampersad discusses the “energy and joy” that came from “subversive” race politics in the 1920s. Rampersad, “Introduction,” xxiii.