Drop Me Off in Harlem: Classroom Activities for Grades 6-8

A photo of a street view of the Cotton Club, featuring its main building sign and nearby billboards promoting performers at the venue. Two old-fashioned vehicles—one white and one black—are parked on the street. The black and white photo has been modified so the top half of the image has colorful tints in pink, green, yellow, and orange tinting the billboards.

Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City, was the epicenter of African American culture between the years of 1917 and 1935. Here artists, writers, and activists came together and transformed the neighborhood.

In turn, Harlem itself inspired an incredible array of artistic, philosophical, political, and social works, many of which were created in an attempt to capture the mood and energy of this extraordinary place.

This activity poses the question: “Why Harlem?” What was it about Harlem that allowed it to play host to such a prolific creative movement?

Use the activity below to guide students through exploring and learning about impactful destinations in Harlem and the importance of those places.

Download the printable capture sheets for this activity here.

Part 1: Harlem: A Poem

Listen to “Harlem: A Poem” by Walter Dean Myers. You can also read along as you listen. Imagine being in the Harlem that Myers describes and the moods and feelings that Myers creates.

“Harlem: A Poem,” written and read by Walter Dean Myers

“Harlem: A Poem”
By Walter Dean Myers

They took the road in Waycross, Georgia
Skipped over the tracks in East St. Louis
Took the bus from Holly Springs
Hitched a ride from Gee’s Bend
Took the long way through Memphis
The third deck down from Trinidad
A wrench of heart from Goree Island
To a place called
Harlem

Harlem was a promise
Of a better life,
of a place where a man
Didn’t have to know his place
Simply because
He was Black

They brought a call
A song
First heard in the villages of
Ghana, Mali, Senegal
Calls and songs and shouts
Heavy hearted tambourine rhythms
Loosed in the hard city
Like a scream torn from the throat
Of an ancient clarinet

A new sound, raucous and sassy
Cascading over the asphalt village
Breaking against the black sky
Announcing Hallelujah
Riffing past resolution

Yellow, tan, brown, black, red
Green, gray, bright
Colors loud enough to be heard
Sun yellow shirts on burnt umber
Bodies
demanding to be heard
Seen
sending out warriors

From streets known to be
Mourning still as a lone radio tells us how
Jack Johnson
Joe Louis
Sugar Ray
Is doing with our hopes.

We hope
We pray
Our black skins
Reflecting the face of God
In storefront temples
The mood indigo.

A carnival of children
People in the daytime streets
Stickball heroes
Living out their own slam-dunk dreams
Listening
For the coming of the blues
A weary blues that Langston knew.

There is lilt
Tempo
Cadence
A language of darkness
Darkness known
Darkness sharpened at Mintons
Darkness lightened at the Cotton Club
Sent flying from Abyssinian Baptist
To the Apollo.

One people
A hundred different people
Huddled masses
And crowded dreams

Cracked reed and soprano sax laughter
Floats over
a fleet of funeral cars
In Harlem
The wind doesn’t blow past
It stops to listen to the sounds

Serious business
A poem, rhapsody tripping along
Striver’s Row
Not getting it’s metric feel soiled
On the well-swept walks
Hustling through the hard rain at two o’clock
In the morning to its next gig.

Sometimes despair
Makes the stoops shudder
Sometimes there are endless depths of pain
Singing a capella on street corners
And sometimes not.
Sometimes it is the artist
looking into the mirror
Painting a portrait of his own heart.

Place
Sound
Celebration
Memories of feelings
Of place

A journey on the A train
That started on the banks of the Niger
And has not ended

Harlem.

Next, review the Listening Guide.

Then listen to the poem again.

This time, list the references to people and places with which you are unfamiliar.

Show your list to other students and ask if they can help you identify some of the items.

As you explore this resource, keep your list nearby. Add notes about each person or place you learn about.

Part 2: A Place Called Harlem

Visit the section of this resource titled A Place Called Harlem. Here, you will get a sense of the important places that made up the neighborhood. Explore the map and the gallery. As you explore, add notes to your list of unfamiliar places and people in Myer’s poem.

As you explore, think about how these places reveal the spirit of Harlem—the values and interests of its residents during the Renaissance.

Begin by locating the places mentioned in Myers’ poem “Harlem” (Smalls’ Paradise, Abyssinian Church, Strivers’ Row etc.).
Scroll the places gallery and review the map to visit a sampling of Harlem’s churches, businesses, and residences. Which buildings are next to each other? What kinds of activities and interactions might have taken place in these locations?
Visit the YMCA, Dunbar Apartments, and 267 House. Who lived in these places? How did each inspire creativity? Community building? Intellectual pursuits? Political debate? Collaboration?
Locate Connie’s Inn and the Cotton Club and read about them. These were places that were either segregated or too expensive for lower- or middle-class African Americans. If you lived in Harlem, how would you have felt if you were not allowed to enter these places? If you were an artist during the Harlem Renaissance, you would need a job to earn money for food and rent. You would face the difficult question of whether of not to perform at a place that would not accept you as a guest or audience member. What would you do?

After exploring the Harlem map...

Compare and contrast the sites in Harlem with where you live or another place with which you are familiar. Think about places in that community that might be similar, such as libraries, apartments, museums, cultural centers, performance venues, churches, etc. What are some of the ways people can gather and have shared cultural experiences? Share the results of your investigation orally or in writing.
Return to your list of unfamiliar people and places from Myers’ poem. Which items on the list were you able to identify? If any item(s) on your list are still unidentified, ask other students or your teacher for help.

Part 3: Re-visiting the Poem, Listening with Knowledge

Listen again to “Harlem: A Poem” in light of your research.

In what ways is your understanding different from the other times you listened to it? Share your reactions.