Sara Rosen

Writer, Curator and Brand Strategist
Miss Rosen
    
Location: New York City
Nationality: American
Biography:         Miss Rosen is a journalist, curator, and brand strategist specializing in art, photography, and contemporary culture. She has contributed essays to books by Janette Beckman, Dennis Busch, Carlos Batts, Joe Conzo,... MORE
News
Dawoud Bey: Harlem Redux
sara rosen
Nov 15, 2016

Harlem. The name speaks for itself, eliciting images of African-American life in its many-splendored forms throughout the twentieth century. Harlem came into vogue as the Great Migration sent thousands of southern black folk up north beginning in 1905. By the 1920s, the neighborhood became a focal point for artists from all walks of life, giving birth to the legendary Harlem Renaissance.

Harlem, which had originally been developed in the nineteenth century as an exclusive suburb for the white upper class, was home to stately homes, grand avenues, and places like the Polo Grounds and the Harlem Opera House. With this backdrop, a new culture came forth, one that celebrated African Americans and Afro Caribbean arts and history.

But with the Great Depression and the deindustrialization of New York City after World War II, Harlem fell victim to de facto segregation practices like red lining, which denied services like banking, insurance, healthcare, mortgages, credit cards, and retail to the black community. Adding to this, there was an influx of drugs in a war waged by the Nixon White House designed to corrupt and criminalize African American communities.

By the 1970s, Harlem, like much of New York's black and Latino communities, had been decimated, left as a shell of its former glory. Yet at the same time, it was a strong, committed community, one built by Mom and Pop businesses going back decades. This was the Harlem that photographer Queens-native Dawoud Bey (b. 1953) documented for his first completed project, Harlem USA, made between 1975-1979.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Photo: Former Renaissance Ballroom Site, 2015. © Dawoud Bey, Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Galler

LinkedIn Icon Facebook Icon Twitter Icon
2,496

Also by Sara Rosen —

Journals News Spotlight

on Dazed: A Tribute to Arlene Gottfried

Sara Rosen
News

Hamburger Eyes Goes Monthly

Sara Rosen
News

Sean Maung: All Knowing

Sara Rosen
News

Only the Oaks Remain

Sara Rosen
News

Jim Jocoy: Order of Appearance

Sara Rosen
News

Thousands of Works by the "Father of Photography" William Henry Fox Talbot Go Online

Sara Rosen
News

In Memoriam of Cacy Forgenie

Sara Rosen
News

Long Live Frederick Douglass, Man of the New Millennium

Sara Rosen
News

Meet Awol Erizku, the Man Who Took Beyoncé's Mystical Maternity Photos

Sara Rosen
News

Devin Allen Awarded the Inaugural Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship

Sara Rosen
News

Film Stills: Photography Between Advertising, Art and the Cinema

Sara Rosen
News

Yuri Dojc: Last Folio

Sara Rosen
News

Gordon Parks: I AM YOU

Sara Rosen
News

Joseph A. Rosen: Blues Hands

Sara Rosen
News

Whose Streets? Our Streets! at the Bronx Documentary Center

Sara Rosen
News

Anthony Friedkin: The Gay Essay

Sara Rosen
News

Ming Smith at Steven Kasher, New York

Sara Rosen
News

"Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." on His 88th Birthday

Sara Rosen
News

Brassai: Graffiti

Sara Rosen
News

Yoav Horesh: Aftermath

Sara Rosen
News

photo l.a. Returns for its 26th Edition

Sara Rosen
News

Witness at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Sara Rosen
News

Iwan Schumacher: 1972

Sara Rosen
News

CONTACT at Fahey/Klein Gallery

Sara Rosen
Dawoud Bey: Harlem Redux by Sara Rosen
Sign-up for
For more access