Bringing Professionals Together for an "Inter-Racial Dance" in 1930s Harlem

[African Americana]: [American Vanguard]:

Help Build Unity of Negro and White Professionals, Intellectuals, and Students [caption title].

[New York]: American Vanguard, 1935. Broadside, 11.75 x 8.25 inches. Moderate tanning, some edge wear with some short closed tears and a few tiny chips, some faint creasing and spots of stray ink. About very good. Item #5892

A rare handbill for an "Inter-racial Dance" held at a Jazz club called the Dunbar Palace in Harlem in 1935. The dance was planned to celebrate the recent launch of an obscure organization called American Vanguard, which was "based on the common trade interests of all Negro and White professionals and students." The broadside announces the formation of the group, which hoped to "combat all defense of oppression and segregation in cultural and professional spheres. We believe that full equality for the Negro people cannot be reached by the submissiveness and inactivity of the methods of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, but by bolder, more effective and more strategic methods." The dance "to launch our campaign" was to include "greetings" from professional organizations, colleges and universities, and musical numbers from the Juilliard String Quarter and the Harlem Jazz Band. It was scheduled for a Saturday night at Harlem's Dunbar Palace, known for hosting Jazz concerts as well as social dances sponsored by anti-racist and anti-fascist groups throughout the 1930s.

While information on the American Vanguard is scant, the following passage by Vibert L. White in the UCLA National Black Law Journal lends some context: "In the late 1920s, signs of classism became apparent in the lifestyles of African Americans. Many members of the Black intelligentsia had begun to label themselves, as Du Bois had done in 1905, as the 'Talented Tenth' or the 'Black Vanguard.' They saw themselves as the class that would liberate the masses from the clutches of white America. Yet they argued subtly that the freedom of the underclass must come after they, as a separate interest group, received equality with white Americans.... The Black upper class of the 1930s was somewhat different from the elite of the nineteenth century.... Not only did they represent the academic and political arena, but also areas of entertainment, sports and business. Outstanding personalities such as Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Angelina Grimke, Roscoe Bruche, and Mary M. Bethune were involved in promoting the concept that their class was the vanguard of the Black race."

A rare promotional for an event intended to foster good relations among Black and white professionals and "intellectuals." OCLC shows just two holdings, at Harvard and the Library of Congress.

Price: $750