Mumbo Jumbo

The author’s incorporation of jazz represents Black innovation and white appropriation. In the first chapter, the author includes a block quotation from Louis Armstrong (7). Shortly thereafter, he discusses Charlie Parker (16). Early in the book, it is established that jazz will have a meaningful role in the narrative. Jazz was a shocking musical innovation when it was invented by Black artists in New Orleans in the late 19th century. By the 1920s, it was flourishing in New York, and many white musicians had become faces of the genre.

Irene Castle, a famous white dancer, is discussed at various points in the text. She was an advocate of Black music and culture. However, when Jes Grew travels toward New York, she lends her support to Atonists who are trying to stop its spread. This speaks to how an appropriative artist might seem genuinely supportive only to ultimately adhere to a status quo that reinforces their own privilege.

In the 1920s, Harlem was the central home for Black artists in America. The Harlem Renaissance produced many famous writers, musicians, and visual artists, including Langston Hughes, Jacob Lawrence, and Zora Neale Hurston.

In Mumbo Jumbo, Harlem represents the aspirations of Black people who are living across a racist country. In Harlem, Black culture is thriving and Black artists are celebrated. Through the character of Woodrow Wilson Jefferson, the author illustrates Harlem’s allure to rural Black people who seek relief from white supremacy. However, while Harlem does offer greater liberation for Black people, the dangers of white supremacy are not eradicated from its neighborhoods. It is specifically because Black culture has flourished in Harlem that Atonists come to this neighborhood to resist increasing Black liberation. This proves fatal to many Black artists and intellectuals in the book, including Abdul, Berbelang, and Charlotte. While Harlem does represent aspirations for Black advancement, it would be misguided to view it as utopic.