In The Crisis, Survey Graphic, Opportunity, and perhaps the majority of black writing to come out of this time period exists not only a similar goal of the advancement of the black race, but also a yearning for a higher, more perfect way of being and living. It was not enough for Black thinkers at the time to gain freedom and equal opportunity. There seemed also to be a need for what we may now realize is mythology. Mythology meaning something that is widely believed to be real, but for which there is no hard evidence or consensus about its existence.

Concepts like “The New Negro” and a “Negro Heaven” formed and were often discussed, though what people and areas fit these ideas was seldom agreed upon. Was the New Negro a respectable, well educated individual easily able to integrate into white society, or a vibrant, self-assured young person uninterested in the white gaze? Was Harlem the true center of free Black life in America, or was it simply a safe haven for a large group of Black migrants? It seemed unfathomable to some thinkers and leaders of the 1920s that Harlem was anything but heaven for the America Negro. Harlem’s large population was often used as evidence for this idea.

“The cosmopolitanism of the city attracts the Negro. The heterogeneity of the population has generated an atmosphere of freedom and democracy. The city’s reputation has been broadcasted to every nook and corner of the Southland, and when Negroes decide to move it is natural for those along the Atlantic seaboard to think of New York and act accordingly.” (p. 413) writes Eugene Kinckle Jones in an essay in the January 1926 issue of Opportunity.

Jones, a leader of the National Urban League which produced Opportunity magazine, seems to speak with authority on the matter. Though Black people existed in large numbers in many other parts of the country, he seems fixated on Harlem.  Jones notes Manhattan’s “heterogeneity” and atmosphere of “freedom”–not accounting for the fact that Blacks congregated specifically in Harlem mostly likely because they were not welcome in other areas of New York City. Jones goes even further in his hopes for New York and the Negro:

“The Negro is probably the real test of democracy in America. Shall this democracy endure? The Negro migrant to New York State may yet give the answer.” (p. 416) writes Jones.  But was New York really that important to the Negro, or simply the location that had the largest number black people in the country in the 1920s? Not every scholar of the time agreed with Jones on Harlem being the Mecca.

“Where is the Negro’s Heaven?” an essay by Kelly Miller in the December 1926 issue of Opportunity vehemently argues that Washington D.C., as opposed to Harlem, is the “Negro’s Heaven”–a black utopia.

“The New Negro, of whom we have heard so much is nothing but the old Negro exposed to the Harlem environment.” (p. 765) writes Miller.

Miller argues that Harlem’s reputation is overblown, largely due to its population. Though New York has many more Black people than Washington, the culture of Washington better supports freedom for Black people, Miller alleges. “If every Negro should withdraw over night from the greater New York, nothing would be missed except the jazz and the blues.” (p. 765) writes Miller. It’s a harsh hypothesis that undermines how Harlem was thought of then, and even how the period of the Harlem renaissance is spoken about today. Though Miller does not destroy the idea that a Negro Heaven exists, the very disagreement on its location calls the whole concept into question. Miller is able to see the cracks in Harlem’s facade. He seems to be saying that the cultural breakthroughs found in Harlem will not protect its citizens from the cruelty of American racism.

Though Miller disagrees with many other thinkers of his time, he interestingly still has faith in a Negro Heaven. The belief in such a place may have been necessary in the 1920s, when racial hatred was on the rise and segregation was beginning to bloom after a failed period of reconstruction. With rights and privileges slowly slipping away, Black Americans may have needed a mythology like The New Negro or a  Negro Heaven in order to imagine a future. The downside of this may have been losing touch with real measures of progress. In Miller’s essay, he seems to be aware of the shortcomings of Harlem, but  is somehow blind to the downsides of Washington. Today, a century later, we know that no place in America then could have been a Negro Heaven. Despite the cultural and quality-of-life strides that many African Americans made in the early 20th century, the peak of institutionalized segregation was still decades away. And even now, after Black Americans have achieved so-called legal equality, neighborhoods in New York City and the Washington area remain heavily segregated. What is needed today is not another iteration of a New Negro or a Negro Heaven, but a Negro reality. True progress cannot be measured in population size or cultural contribution, but equity and representation in all ares of American life.