On Tuesday evening in the Memorial Chapel, Robert Hill, a professor of history at UCLA gave a lecture entitled, “The Remains of the Name: The Harlem Renaissance and the Impact of the Egyptian Revival, 1922-1924.” Hill had been on campus since Sun. to be part of the Back to Africa series of events that is taking place during Feb., in honor of Black History Month.
Hill is also Director of the Marcus Garvey and University Negro Improvement Association Papers project in the African Studies Center. Garvey popularized the theme of African American rebirth in light of Egyptian archeological findings and coined the term “the Negro Renaissance” in 1922. Hill is internationally recognized as a leading authority on the Garvey’s life and the history of the Garvey movement.
Hill’s talk was delayed by some computer problems, and while he waited he walked around the chapel introducing himself to the 30 or so students, administrators, and faculty gathered to see his talk.
Hill began his lecture by thanking the Snowden fund, the Office of the Dean of the College, and the Center for African American Studies. He also got an early laugh out of the audience by thanking, “the man, if that’s what he is, who controls the weather.”
Hill had a busy time on campus, beginning with attending a discussion on Sun. on what it means to be black. The discussion was made up of Wesleyan students from a number of organizations of different races and focused on identity and the different ways in which it affects students’ lives. Hill also toured the archives and the campus.
The focus of Hill’s lecture was his hypothesis that the Harlem Renaissance, beginning in 1925, was a direct product of the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt. The discovery of the tomb in 1923 is known as the greatest archaeological discovery ever. Immediately following the discovery of the tomb, Alain Locke of Howard University traveled to Egypt.
Locke was sent to Egypt by the black intellectuals of his time in order to discover King Tut’s real ethnicity. Although that argument was never fully resolved, the effort in itself provided a unity and common cause for blacks all over America.
Hill used the term “Egyptomania” to describe the craze that went on in America after 1923. He used slides to show old clippings and advertisements from the time, in which it was evident that this Egyptian obsession influenced everything from baby’s names to fashion. As blacks all over America began cutting their hair in “the Egyptian bob,” they were united by their new identity as descendents of the kings of ancient Egypt.
Benefactor Alfred Barnes met with Locke after his travels to Egypt in the middle of this “little renaissance” that had begun. Barnes persuaded Locke to give up on trying to prove the Negro race’s claim to the Egyptian kingdom, but instead to focus on primitive African Art. French and European artists were putting great emphasis on this newly discovered art form.
Locke was persuaded and the renaissance that had begun in Africa turned into a celebration of African Art. Staring from this point of interest the Harlem Renaissance was born.
Professor Hill became interested in this phenomenon when he was editing the Garvey papers and spent months reading reels and reels of newspaper. He was struck by the coverage of archaeology taking place in Africa around and before 1920. He eventually found the time to work with a graduate student on the meaning of this archaeology. This was how he discovered the Egyptian movement that was the genesis of the Harlem Renaissance.
Some students found the lecture applicable to their own research.
“[I attended the lecture because I plan to] write a thesis on negritude,” said Faraneh Carnegie ’05.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, negritude is “an aesthetic and ideological concept affirming the independent nature, quality, and validity of black culture.”
The Edward W. Snowden Fund is a rolling donation to support public events and lectures at Wesleyan. This year in addition to bringing Professor Hill, the Snowden fund has supported the prose and poetry in the Russell House and the Sonnenblick science lectures.
“I am very interested in African Studies and am here to learn more,” said Arturo Rivera ’07. “I am glad to have this opportunity. I just try to take advantage of these things.”
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