"As twenty-first century Harlem gentrifies, the neighborhood's status as the center of African American life and culture has generated scholarly as well as public interest. However, the roots and implications of Harlem as a symbolic capital of black life have been more assumed than examined. This collection brings together prominent scholars in literary studies, film studies, and history to explore the cultural and social history of Harlem and to examine how the neighborhood achieved its status within African American life. For almost a century, Harlem's image has been deployed as "setting and symbol" by politicians and activists, cultural strategists, novelists and poets, painters and musicians, photographers and film makers, social scientists and journalists, all of whom have sought to root their hopeful visions of "race development"--or their indictments of racial injustice--in the concrete immediacy and specificity of Harlem. The notion of Harlem as a "race capital" has been integral to these efforts, whether Harlem has been celebrated as the vanguard of black empowerment, self-determination, and cultural maturation, or lamented as the ultimate symbol of the hypersegregation and exploitation of black people. Topics explored include what groups were left out of the mythology of Harlem; the limits of Harlem's exceptionalism; Harlem as a literary phenomenon; the history of numbers; the neighborhood's transnational character; and the ways Harlem participates in the history of gay Black life and politics. The final chapters examine contemporary public policies and commercial dynamics within historical context to understand contemporary debates regarding gentrification"--