Lost for generations in the vaults of The Library of Congress, these remarkable essays by some of the era's finest writers, including Dorothy West and Ralph Ellison, vividly evoke daily life during the Harlem Renaissance.

The Lindy-Hoppers at the Savoy began to practice acrobatic routines, and to do absurd things for the entertainment of the whites, that probably never would have entered into their heads to attempt merely for their own effortless amusement. Some critics say that this is what happened to certain Negro writers, too -- that they ceased to write to amuse themselves and began to...