Primus danced in venues throughout New York; Petry spent most of her time uptown, where she lived and worked from 1938 until the mid-1940s. Harlem provided Petry with ample material and inspiration, and she created a body of work that earned her an international literary reputation. Petry used fiction to map Harlem, both as a space constructed by forces outside of its control and as a place created by its inhabitants. The two were necessarily at odds with each other. While Harlem the place fought against racism, the space existed as a black neighborhood because of forced residential segregation. It grew into a global black cultural and political capital because of the creativity and determination of those who lived there. In Petry’s fiction, the space is plagued by substandard housing; the place was filled with individuals trying desperately to create meaningful lives for themselves and their children. Like the characters about whom she wrote, Petry walked the streets of Harlem. She navigated them as an activist, journalist, and writer of fiction.
