Introduction

I don’t deny that these sociological formulas are drawn from life. But I do deny that they define the complexity of Harlem. They only abstract it and reduce it to proportions which the sociologists can manage. I simply don’t recognize Harlem in them. And I certainly don’t recognize the people of Harlem whom I know. Which is by no means to deny the ruggedness of life there, nor the hardship, the poverty, the sordidness, the filth. But there is something else in Harlem, something subjective, willful, and complexly and compellingly human. It is that “something else” that challenges the sociologists who ignore it, and the society which would deny its existence. It is that “something else” which makes for our strength, which makes for our endurance and our promise.