The life of a black person living in Harlem in the early twentieth century was not an especially easy one. In order to provide her children with the opportunity for a better life, Barbara Monk boldly left her husband and moved to San Juan in 1922 with her three children. During this time, racial tensions not only between whites and blacks, but also between Southern and Caribbean blacks, were largely prevalent in day to day life. Kelley states that “San Juan Hill’s reputation as a violent community was as strong as ever by the time the Monks settled there” (Kelley, 19). Despite these unsettling tensions, Thelonious Monk worked with the hand he was dealt, made the best of his surroundings, and tried to celebrate the art of music by disassociating his music with politics.
When Monk was around eleven years old, his family acquired a free piano and, not wanting to let it go to waste, learned how to play. As he got older, Monk noticed the racial tensions around him and noted that “besides fighting the ofays, you had to fight each other. You go in the next block and you’re in another country” (Kelley, 19). In his high school years, Monk joined the Columbus Hill Neighborhood Center, the “true center of social life for black youth in the neighborhood” (Kelley, 28). Monk and his sister enthusiastically participated in different activities at the center, which helped to develop Monk both as a person and a musician. The center and other venues in his hometown would actively hold competitions for music, encouraging the local youth to take an interest in music. This was an opportune environment for Monk to grow up in. The community around him promoted and nurtured art. This idea of celebrating the beauty of art and music, rather than its political implications, stuck with Monk and can be seen in his philosophies later in life.
Monk’s thoughts on the correlation between music and racial politics were recorded in an interview with jazz critic Frank Brown. Monk stated that “my music is not a social comment on discrimination or poverty or the like. I would have written the same way even if I had not been a Negro” (Kelley, 249). Here Monk expresses his views of music as an art form, rather than a collage of political statements. Monk had a tendency to disassociate being white or black with racial issues that would pop up in his life. When a friend of his expressed that he was sick of whites calling him “boy,” Monk responded that it “ain’t no drag, Larry, ‘cause everybody wants to be young” (Kelley, 417). Monk took race out of the equation with his friend, and simplified the racial issue to a matter of age envy. His ignorance of race came up again in 1951 when he was arrested and had his cabaret card pulled by the NYPD. Monk was driving with his friends Nica and Rouse when they stopped at a hotel in Delaware, where the Jim Crow laws still prevailed, to get a glass of water. The hotel owner’s wife felt threatened by Monk’s presence and called the cops, who promptly arrived and ordered Monk to exit his car. Monk stubbornly refused and ended up being beaten by the cops and taken to jail. Even in court, Monk refused to acknowledge authority and tried to do the opposite of what anyone told him to do. Rouse recalled that “if they told him to sit down, he stood up, if they told him to say something, he said nothing” (Kelley, 254). Even though Monk understood that he was in a bad area for blacks, he refused to give in simply because the whites thought they could assert authority over blacks. This is a prime example of Monk’s unwillingness to acknowledge political tensions between whites and blacks. He simply wanted to live life and make music for all to enjoy, regardless of color.
Monk grew up in a community that nurtured and rewarded art, and tried to do the same with his musical career. He didn’t put much thought into the racial tensions he grew up with and tried to give his music to the community to enjoy. Even when he was arrested for simply stopping in area that didn’t take kindly to blacks, Monk tried to transcend traditional racial politics by not conforming to popular opinion. Monk was one of the few musicians who made music simply for enjoyment with no monetary or political motives in mind, even though the Civil Right movement was blossoming around him.
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