Over lunch today I finished Kelefa Sanneh article in the anniversary issue (Feb. 17 and 24) about a very interesting character named Carl Van Vechten. I'm sure I've come across Van Vechten's name once or twice before, but I knew nothing about him. Turns out he was quite involved, in more ways than one,
![Cool 8)](http://bettermost.net/forum/Smileys/cowboy/cool.gif)
with figures of the Harlem Renaissance. I admit I also don't really know much in detail about the Harlem Renaissance, either, so it came as a surprise to me that Sanneh quotes no less a respected scholar than Henry Louis Gates that the Harlem Renaissance was "surely as gay as it was black."
Sanneh's article is accompanied by some amazing color photographs taken by Van Vechten of Billie Holiday, James Earl Jones (so young looking in 1961 that I would not have recognized him), James Baldwin, and Mahalia Jackson.