Scope and arrangement
The collection consists of fifty-one cassette tape sound recordings. They are primarily interviews David Levering Lewis conducted with and about notable Harlem Renaissance figures from 1974 to 1978. The collection includes some recordings in which Lewis alone recounts earlier interviews, as well as recordings of unidentified Paul Robeson 78s.
The interviewees in the collection are Raoul Abdul, Wilhelmina Adams, Regina Andrews, Helen Armstead-Johnson, Poppy Cannon, Mercer Cook, Carl Cowl, Ida Mae Cullen, James Daniels, Arthur P. Davis, Miriam Hapgood DeWitt, Irene Diggs, Owen Dodson, Aaron Douglas, Arthur Huff Fauset, Pearl and Ivy Fisher, G. James Fleming, Emerson "Geechie" Harper, Jean Blackwell Hutson, Aida Immerman, Ivie Jackman, C.L.R. James, Mildred Johnson, Bruce Kellner, Alfred A. Knopf, Rayford Logan, Gerri Major, May Miller, Henry Lee and Mollie Moon, A'Lelia Ransom Nelson, Richard Bruce Nugent, Louise T. Patterson, Mae Wright Peck, George N. Redd, Maurice V. Russell, George Schuyler, Charles Sebree, James Spady, Amy Spingarn, Marjorie Content Toomer, Charles H. Wesley, Dorothy West, Leigh Whipper, Edith Wilson, and Corinne Wright.
In addition to their own lives, interviewees discuss figures such as Countee Cullen, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, J.A. Rogers, Carl Van Vechten and his 1926 book, Nigger Heaven, and Walter White.
The collection is organized alphabetically by subject's last name. Because the original items are cassette tapes, the bulk of the cassettes are one digitized item with two parts, one for each side of the cassette. They were made for personal reference and as such, the quality of the recordings varies; poor audio quality is indicated in the relevant item's content notes. Information regarding each interviewee's significance to the Harlem Renaissance, largely derived from description in related collections material, is also indicated in the content notes.