The Harlem Renaissance
Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City, was the center of the African American political, cultural, and artistic movement in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Can you see any evidence from this map that this is an African American community?
1930
1911
1920
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What It Was
• Harlem Renaissance– A flowering of African
American art, literature, music and culture in the United States led primarily by the African American community based in Harlem, New York City.
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Who?
• Descendants from a generation whose parents or grandparents had witnessed slavery and Reconstruction
• Lived in a country governed by Jim Crow laws.
Based on these pictures, describe what life was like in Harlem in the early
1930s.
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Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population in the North rose by about 20 percent overall. Cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Cleveland had some of the biggest increases.
CausesWhat events and movements do you think may have helped lead to
the Renaissance?
Great Migration: the movement of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from rural areas in the South to urban areas in both he North and South.
What push factors led to the migration? What pull factors led to the migration?
CausesGrowing African American Middle Class: developed as a result of improved educational and employment opportunities for African Americans.
The Harlem section of New York became the center of this new African American class.
CausesPolitical Agenda For Civil Rights by African Americans: leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and the NAACP helped to inspire racial pride in the middle and working class.
Marcus Garvey pushed for the Back to Africa movement
Du Bois, author of The Souls of Black Folks, was instrumental in the foundation of the NAACP.
The NAACP published The
Crisis, a journal used to share the literary works of
African Americans.
Du Bois believed that artistic and literary work could be used as a form of propaganda to help combat racial stereotypes and gain new respect for the race.
What message does
this song, written by an
African American, send to the
general public?
How do images like this hinder the efforts of African Americans like Du Bois?
Du Bois also believed in the “talented tenth.” This was the idea that a small percentage of the African American population who were exceptionally skilled should be designated and educated as artistic and cultural leaders. He proposed absolute equality for the "talented tenth" and technical training for the black masses.
The Negro Speaks of RiversLangston HughesI've known rivers:I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.My soul has grown deep like the rivers.I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.I've known rivers:Ancient, dusky rivers.My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Dubois’ Influence on LiteratureIncidentCountee CullenOnce riding in old Baltimore,Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,I saw a BaltimoreanKeep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small,And he was no whit bigger,And so I smiled, but he poked outHis tongue, and called me, "Nigger."I saw the whole of BaltimoreFrom May until December;Of all the things that happened thereThat's all that I remember.
African American Poet, Claude McKay memorialized the bloody summer of 1919 with the poem, “If We Must Die,” which was published in the magazine Liberator.
If We Must DieIf we must die--let it not be like hogsHunted and penned in an inglorious spot,While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,Making their mock at our accursed lot.If we must die--oh, let us nobly die,So that our precious blood may not be shedIn vain; then even the monsters we defyShall be constrained to honor us though dead!Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!What though before us lies the open grave?Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
What is the imagery used in the poem?What message is the author sending to African Americans?
Do you agree or disagree with the author? Why?
ImpactThe Harlem section of New York City was transformed from
a deteriorating area into a thriving middle class community.Before
After
Modernism & the Harlem Renaissance• Blacks view surge in art, music and literature as the
creation of a new cultural identity.• Whites see it as another new, exotic, and trendy form
of entertainment.
As Modern Artists look to “make it new” they turn to the “New Negro”
arts movement.
Jazz Shapes American Culture
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Music
• Jazz– Brass and woodwind
instruments with trumpets, trombones and saxophones playing lead parts
– Characterized by intricate leads and accidentals
– Complex chords, syncopated rhythms
– Improvised solos
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Music
• Big Band or Swing• No microphones
meant that musicians increased band size to increase sound
• Used composers and arrangers
• Little room for improvisation
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Notable Musicians
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Notable Artists
Self Portrait with Bandana, William Johnson
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Les Fetiches, Lois Mailou Jones
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Notable Writers
Zora Neale Hurston
Langston Hughes
Countee Cullen
Differences in Artistic Vision
What do you believe was more important: fighting racial prejudice and stereotyping, or true personal expression?
Dubois & Locke
• “Thus all art is propaganda and ever must be despite the wailing of the purists.”
• “The great social gain in this is the releasing of our talented group from the arid fields of controversy and debate to the productive fields of creative expression.”
Hughes & Hurston
•“We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.”