 Yet for all of the efforts by both sectors of white and conservative black America, queer culture and artists defined major portions of not only the Harlem Renaissance, but also defined so much of our culture today.Author of "The Black Man's Burden", Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote on this very subject matter, the Harlem Renaissance "was surely as gay as it was black".Many critics point out that the Harlem Renaissance could not escape its history and culture in its attempt to create a new one, or sufficiently separate from the foundational elements of White, European culture.