V .

What did I see ?

I saw a male figure with over-sized hands restraining a female figure and constricting her movements . The woman , through a lack of volition , leaned back , nearly supine , anchored only by the man ’ s arm , which encircled her trim waist . The man ’ s other hand was raised , as if poised to strike her . For an instant , this tableau seemed to my inner eye the distillation of a frequent posture in the domestic history of my parents ’ marriage and the splenetic dialogues of their life together , until the marriage could no longer sustain the rigors of their communication .

Say What ?

The foregoing autobiographical scrim overlay the one actually depicted in Johnson ’ s print , as details of the actual scene eventually emerged before me . In truth , the painter had captured the kinetic momentum of a couple in the midst of a gravity-defying movement in response to the swing music of the day . Think of Count Basie or Duke Ellington ’ s band playing “ Take the ‘ A ’ Train ” or “ Cotton Tail .” The implied setting is the dance hall or café in Harlem during World War II , when the jitterbug or swing dance was in vogue . 6 This exuberant dance , also referred to as “ jive ” or “ jump ,” involves partners holding hands while executing a series of acrobatic moves . 7 In Johnson ’ s print , the man supports the woman while she kicks high with one foot and her other foot momentarily rests on the floor . The bright colors of forest green , aqua-green , and burnt orange are repeated in the apparel of the female subject and the musical instruments ( bass drums and horns ) that hang mid-air , parallel to the woman ’ s head , which is thrown back in seeming abandon or momentary ecstasy . The couple reenacts the sweaty ecstasy reminiscent of Americans , and especially Black and Latino Americans , at the beginning of wwii in a frenzy to dance while they could , for tomorrow was not promised . Art historian Leslie King-Hammond makes the observation that dancing created a “ safe , otherworldly haven for people of African descent . In a modernistic world governed by conflicted laws , new technologies , and limited opportunities , it allowed them to locate and express psychic relief and spiritual liberation ” ( Leslie King-Hammond , 72 ). Put another way , it allowed them to express their blues and to work it on out .

I met a beautiful princess from the land of ooh bla dee .

Mary Lou Williams , In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee .

My parents are surely Johnson ’ s folk , and his work is emblematic of their youth but also the zeitgeist of the mid-twentieth century , the portentous moment when Black people demonstrated the united will to assertively push through legal , cultural , and economic means for their rights as American citizens . Long before they were Dr . and Mrs . Robert B . Harris , Bobby and Enid met as freshmen in college . He was a young Korean War army veteran returning from Japan , and she was a spirited and principled young woman from the sheltered environment of Oxford , North Carolina . Enid was in elementary school when the Lindy Hop and the jitterbug first came out , but the romance of the zoot suiter and a version of the lively dances were still around by the mid-Forties , when she came of age . In a small town where a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier stood ready for battle in the downtown business district , after Enid had practiced her scales , then a concerto or Sunday hymns , she would play the boogie-woogie music she ’ d heard on the radio .

Perhaps Bobby had listened to The Andrews Sisters on the radio singing “ Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B ,” as a teenager in Beaumont , Texas , a city divided after the trauma of the 1943 race riot . Two years later , he fled his hometown to join the Army and serve during the Korean War . Upon returning to the us , he used the g . i . Bill to attend Fisk University , where he met Enid . They were married at the end of their sophomore year , the same year Enid was pregnant with their first child and left Nashville to go to

9 BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE