Notes on the work:

I began writing A Hug for Harlem to answer one deceptively simple question: How did Harlem become so “Black, Brown and Beige,” to borrow Duke Ellington’s phrase?

Many newer residents point to affordable rent—a familiar explanation for countless inner‑city neighborhoods. Affordable rents attract lower‑income families who contribute to a growing Black middle class. There’s some truth in that, but it barely touches the deeper, harder, more expansive story of Harlem’s place in the American narrative.

Because these simplified assumptions persist, the fuller history needs to be told—again and again, in every medium. My contribution is a 45‑minute musical and poetic telling.

But where does one begin?

If you want to talk about the roots of Black affluence, you must talk about the Civil Rights era and the Harlem Renaissance. If you talk about the Harlem Renaissance, you must talk about the Great Migration. If you talk about the Great Migration, you must talk about Jim Crow and the white citizenry who enforced those laws with violence.

It’s a vast, interconnected story—one many of Harlem’s newest residents may not know. A Hug for Harlem is my attempt to illuminate that lineage.

Movement I — “Postcards”

At the turn of the 20th century, lynching in the United States was not only a tool of terror—it was a spectacle. Photographers documented these killings, and people mailed the images as postcards. By 1908, the practice had become so widespread and grotesque that the U.S. Postmaster General banned such cards from the mail. This movement confronts that reality, because the Great Migration cannot be understood without acknowledging the violence that drove it.

Movement II — “The North Star”

Polaris—the North Star—guided enslaved people seeking freedom and later symbolized hope for the millions who left the South between 1910 and 1940. Fleeing segregation, terror, and limited opportunity, they reshaped the cultural and economic landscape of northern and midwestern cities. Their journey is central to Harlem’s story.

Movement III — “Harlem After Dark”

From this migration emerged the Harlem Renaissance—a cultural and artistic explosion that transformed Harlem into the epicenter of Black creativity. Jazz clubs, speakeasies, and literary salons became spaces where high and low society mingled. This movement offers a brief tour through that world: its brilliance, its nightlife, and its reinvention of Black identity.