The 1920s Harlem Renaissance encompassed poetry, prose, literature, painting and sculpture, jazz, swing, opera and dance. By the time Geraldo Rivera’s documentary, ‘Drugs Crisis in East Harlem’ 1971 aired, the renaissance had become a dream, perhaps something that had never actually happened. The downfall during the 1930s and 1940s, brought on by, amongst other things the Great Depression and the racism of white landlords. The riots of 1933 scared away wealthier whites who had long supported the Jim Crow entertainment of the Cotton Club and others. During the war many Harlemite’s found work in the military or shipyards, but by the war wars end unemployment and decline would follow. By the 1960s, many groups mobilised, fighting for better schools, jobs and housing, human and civil rights ostensibly. Riots, poverty and slum conditions, drugs and school closures would follow, arguably as a result of the external hand that encouraged that fruitless crop from the racially charged seeds they had planted. These transitional times are depicted in my series, with the words of Langston Hughes, poet, columnist, playwright and social activist.