Hazards of Travel—Who Will Free the Contemporary Traveler?

摘要

Anative of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Romare Bearden was theoffspring of a middle-class family established in Charlotte, where the rail-road and cotton industries flourished after the Civil War. His paternal great-grandparents, with whom he spent considerable time, were described in the1915 publication Colored Charlotte as "former servants of Dr. Joseph Wilsonthe father of President Woodrow Wilson…." (1). His maternal grandparents,who were also influential in his development, ran a boarding house inPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, serving migrant steel mill workers from the South. Around 1914, Bearden's family moved north to New York and settled inHarlem. In their apartment at 154 West 131st Street, he grew up with the artis-tic, intellectual, and political influences of the cultural movement of the 1920sand 30s known as Harlem Renaissance. His circle included writers LangstonHughes and Ralph Ellison, musicians Duke Ellington and Fats Waller, activistW.E.B. DuBois, and artists Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence (2). Althoughhe spent most of his school years in New York, Bearden visited Pittsburghoften, enjoying life in his grandparents' boardinghouse, where mill workersreturning from work would sit on the steps and "tell stories about down-homein the South" (1).