Harlem on the Prairie
“Most people come to this world by stork. I came by flamingo, and Duke Ellington delivered me.” – Herb Jeffries.
I call this blog “Cowboys und Indianer” and not “Cowboys and Indians” to suggest not only the German explorers who are part of my subject, but also that there is something just a little bit “off” about this enterprise. I’m not really interested in doing anthropology. This is not ethnography. Think of this as something more akin to psychotherapy — social or cultural psychotherapy. It’s about how and what we imagine. It’s about dreams. Crazy dreams. Some crazy dreams can lead to murder. Sometimes they’re good for a laugh and sometimes they just leave you stumped, not knowing quite how to respond. Then you remember, well, it is a dream after all. Nothing to do with reality — maybe.
Herb Jeffries was born in Detroit in 1913. He became a singer with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the star of black westerns in Hollywood. You say you didn’t know Hollywood made black westerns. Neither did I. Check out Richard Friswell’s website (here). I can’t tell whether Friswell’s site is a work-in-progress or has been abandoned, but it’s still worth a look. He locates Jeffries’ career in the sociocultural tumult between the two World Wars. Dislocations brought about by WWI would contribute to some destabilization of notions about race and racial identities in black communities, if not in the country as a whole. For just one example, see Alain Locke’s The New Negro published in 1925. For another example, see the career of Herb Jeffries as Friswell has detailed it.
Cowboys und Indianer 