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The Niggerati was the name used, with deliberate irony, by Wallace Thurman for the group of young African American artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. "Niggerati" is a portmanteau of "nigger" and "literati". The rooming house where he lived, and where that group often met, was similarly christened Niggerati Manor. The group included Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and several of the people behind Thurman's journal ''FIRE!!'' (which lasted for one issue in 1926), such as Richard Bruce Nugent (the associate editor of the journal), Jonathan Davis, Gwendolyn Bennett, and Aaron Douglas.〔 At a time when homophobia and sexism were common, and when the African American bourgeoisie sought to distance itself from the slavery of the past and seek social equality and racial integration, the Niggerati themselves appeared to be relatively comfortable with their diversity of gender, skin colour, and background. After producing ''FIRE!!'', which failed because of a lack of funding, Thurman persuaded the Niggerati to produce another magazine, ''Harlem''. This, too, lasted only a single issue.〔 ==Origin== In his autobiographical novel, ''Infants of the Spring'', Thurman referred to the Harlem literati, whose pretensions he often considered to be spurious and whose achievements he often considered to be second-rate, as the Niggerati. (In the novel, Sweetie May Carr, a character modelled on the real-life Hurston, christens the Harlem rooming house where Dr Parkes, modelled on the real life Alain Locke, establishes a salon of artists, Niggerati Manor, just as Thurman's own rooming house was in real life.) Thurman himself was infamous amongst that literati, although popular amongst the younger, bohemian, crowd. Thurman rejected what he called "society Negroes". He himself, as many others of the literati did, would hold parties on Saturday nights, which Langston Hughes described in ''The Big Sea'' by observing that "at Wallace Thurman's you met the bohemians of both Harlem and the Village." Recalling the days of Niggerati Manor, Theophilus Lewis wrote: All three of Hughes, Hurston, and Thurman enjoyed the shock value of referring to themselves as the Niggerati. Hurston's biographer Valerie Boyd described it as "an inspired moniker that was simultaneously self-mocking and self-glorifying, and sure to shock the stuffy black bourgeoisie". Hurston was actually the coiner of the name. The quickest wit in what was a very witty group, which encompassed Helene Johnson, Countee Cullen, Augusta Savage, Dorothy West (then a teacher), Harold Jackman, and John P. Davis (a law student at the time), as well as hangers-on, friends, and acquaintances, Hurston dubbed herself the "Queen of the Niggerati". In addition to Niggerati Manor, the rooming house at 267 West 136th Street where both Thurman and Hughes lived, Niggerati meetings were held at Hurston's apartment, with a pot on the stove, into which attendees were expected to contribute ingredients for stew. She also cooked okra, or fried Florida eel.〔 Whilst Hughes, Hurston, and Thurman were comfortable with the appellation, others were less so. Cullen, for example, found Carl Van Vechten's novel ''Nigger Heaven'' so offensive that he refused to talk to him for 14 years. Hurston, though, had no trouble with language that challenged the sensibilities of others. She dubbed the well-heeled white liberals who were involved in the Harlem Renaissance "Negrotarians" (c.f. rotarian).〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Niggerati」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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