After reading Langston Hughes’s “Weary Blues” and listening to Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street,” I understood that both of these works depicted the difficult early life experiences of African Americans in New York City. The places in which people of color lived in is hinted as being marginal and at times even dangerous. In “Across 110th Street,” Bobby Womack tells the life of a character living in Harlem. The character is said to be “the third brother of five” who had to do whatever was at reach in order to survive. The character of the song goes on to explain the difficult reality of living in Harlem with the lines “Trying to break out of the ghetto was a day to day fight/ You don’t know what you’ll do until you’re put under pressure.” In “Weary Blues” a character listens to the singing of an African American “down on Lenox Avenue.” The man sings about his dissatisfaction with life, and how being alone made him long for death.

 

While looking through the works of art on display in the “We Go As They” exhibit at the Studio Museum, one artist that captured my attention was Andy Robert. Robert’s Check II Check work depicts a check cashier in Harlem near the museum. Reading the depiction of the painting helped me understand the possible motives behind the authors choice of focus for Check to Check. By making the check cashier place the main focal point of the painting in Harlem, Robert perhaps wanted to get across the idea that people in Harlem get ready day after day for what will come. Financially, making a living is does not come without its problems. The painting captures the vibrancy of Harlem at night on Malcom X Boulevard with bright, almost glowing, colors that create a sense of change in the neighborhood from the previous descriptions of Langston Hughes and Bobby Womack. With Check II Check, Robert in this was is able to capture the life in Harlem today. By walking the streets of Harlem today, one is able to appreciate the evolution of the neighborhood through the countless of new businesses running as well as through the greater diversity of the people living in the area.