So much of the Black folk personality came from folktales. Southern blacks would often identify with characters from folktales, such as Brer Rabbit. They thought they were wittier and trickier than their white superiors, and would express this through the fictional stories they told. When blacks migrated to Harlem, New York, they continued to identify themselves with the characters from their childhoods. This helped them get ahead, in some regards, by acting as a confidence boost, but also restrained them, because it was almost as if they were living in a folktale fantasy. Writers like Zora Neale Hurston kept Afro-American folklore alive by using traditional folk stories in literature.
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"Here (Folktales) is no uppish white writer straining every nerve to present the as a clown and imbecile, but rather a revelation of the humor, wit, philosophy, hopes and fears of the humble negro peasant" (Diepeveen). |
Zora Neale Hurston was a Harlem Renaissance writer that was inspired by Afro-American folklore. Her book, Mules and Men, is a collection of folklore. The main character of most of the tales in her stories, John, is “a slave figure who appears in a variety of situations which allow him to display the wit and cunning that enable him to overcome his enemies. John’s master underestimates his cunning. His seeming humility and obedience allow him to pit himself successfully against stronger opponents. If circumstances warrant, John is not above using trickery” (Riccio). John is essentially “putting on the man,” playing dumb for his master, but truly being very intelligent. He can be connected to Brer Rabbit from Uncle Remus’s stories. Brer Rabbit appears to be inferior and dumb, but is actually tricky and cunning, always outsmarting the characters that degraded him, much like John.
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Yams were a huge part of the typical African diet. When these people were brought to America, they brought their food too. In Harlem, restaurants like Sylvia’s served that soul food that emanated from the minds of the slaves. Those old cooks had to improvise with the food they got to make it decent and edible, so they fried it. Yams were extremely popular at the time. Slaves ate it and when they moved to Harlem, they roasted, boiled, fried and baked them to bring back their culture through their cooking.