EPIC HARLEM

A cauldron of culture in Upper Manhattan.

In 84 episodic chapters, Boyd, a journalist and retired teacher of Black studies, creates a sweeping history of Harlem, from its colonial beginnings as an expansion of New Amsterdam to its current identity as a site of gentrification and historical preservation. A warm foreword by the late U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel introduces Boyd’s abundantly populated narrative, accounting for many who lived in or visited Harlem, however briefly. George Washington strategically placed his troops on a promontory in Harlem Heights in 1776. In 1960, Fidel Castro and his entourage moved from a Midtown hotel to Harlem’s Hotel Theresa, where Castro met with Malcolm X. Mayors, governors, and heads of state walked Harlem’s streets, as did famous figures in the arts, politics, entertainment, sports, and business, among them: Oscar Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Sammy Davis Jr., Scott Joplin, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, Marcus Garvey, Bayard Rustin, Madam C.J. Walker, Paul Robeson, James Baldwin, and Zora Neale Hurston. The neighborhood changed as the city’s population changed: Blacks appeared as African indentured servants, arriving in 1625 under the aegis of the Dutch West Indian Company, and as enslaved people traded on Wall Street, some owned by New Yorkers. Throughout the 19th century, Harlem’s Black population grew, attracting manumitted slaves and runaways (Frederick Douglass was one). Between 1890 and 1900, Boyd reveals, New York’s Black population increased by 25,000, and the area also became home to waves of immigrants—Italians, Germans, Jews, Irish, and Puerto Ricans. The author notes recurring eruptions of racial clashes and riots; the growth of activist movements, such as the Black Panthers; and the creation of such notable cultural institutions as the Apollo Theater, the National Jazz Museum, the Dance Theater of Harlem, and the Studio Museum.

A lively, panoramic chronicle.