On March 21, 1924, Jessie Fauset sat inside the Civic Club in downtown Manhattan, wondering how the party for her debut novel had been commandeered.
The celebration around her was originally intended to honor that book, “There Is Confusion.” But Charles S. Johnson and Alain Locke thought the dinner could serve a larger purpose. What if the two Black academic titans invited the best and brightest of the Harlem creative and political scene? What if, over a spread of fine food and drink, they brought together African American talent and white purveyors of culture? If they could marry the talent all around them with the opportunity that was so elusive, what would it mean to Black culture, both present and future?
What the resulting dinner led to, nurtured over the years in the pristine sitting rooms of brownstones and the buzzing corner booths of jazz clubs, was the Harlem Renaissance: a flowering of intellectual and artistic activity that would give the neighborhood and its residents global renown.
While there are plenty of galas and gatherings today, the goal of the 1924 dinner was far broader: It was intended to bring together that talent and those opportunities.
“Benefits are celebrations. They’re not operational meetings,” said Lisa Lucas, the senior vice president and publisher at Pantheon and Schocken Books who was the first woman and African American to head the National Book Foundation. “It’s unusual to really have an honest space for people to meet and hammer out what’s working and what’s not.”
