Taking a Closer Look at 1920s
Popular Culture
HOT ROC- Poetry
Analysis
What is the message of each poem?
How do the poems address the
ideals?
I Hear America Singing
by Walt Whitman, 1867
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing
on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he
stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at
noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the
girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows, robust,
friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
I, Too, Sing America
by Langston Hughes, 1925
• I, too, sing America.
• I am the darker brother.
• They send me to eat in the kitchen
• When company comes,
• But I laugh,
• And eat well,
• And grow strong.
• Tomorrow,
• I'll be at the table
• When company comes.
• Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen,"
• Then.
• Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am
• And be ashamed–
• I, too, am America.
An era of written and artistic creativity
among African-Americans that occurred
after World War I and lasted until the
middle of the 1930s Depression.
Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
• The Great Migration
– A major factor leading to the rise of the Harlem
Renaissance was the migration of African-Americans
to the northern cities. During and after WWI
• This was first known as the 'New Negro Movement.'
Later termed the Harlem Renaissance
– The movement brought unprecedented creative
activity in writing, art, and music and redefined
expressions of African-Americans and their heritage.
– Art was also used to assert rights for AfricanAmericans and fight back against racism and lynching
just as the NAACP fought back against it in the
courtrooms.
Document Based Question
• We will use primary source documents to respond to
a prompt today in a step by step manner.
• Form groups of
• Important vocab terms to remember for today:
– Race
– Segregation
– Civil Liberty
– Popular Culture
– The Founding Ideals: Democracy, Equality, Liberty,
Opportunity, Rights
– Migration
Document Based Question
• Background: It has been argued that the Harlem
Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, is the defining
moment in African American literature because of an
unprecedented outburst of creative activity among Black
writers. The importance of this movement to African
American literary art lies in the efforts of its writers to exalt
the heritage of African Americans and to use their unique
culture as a means toward re-defining African American
literary expression.
• Prompt: Analyze the themes discussed during the Harlem
Renaissance and how these themes reflect both the
successes and challenges of black Americans.
Document Based Question
Question (Prompt): Analyze the themes
discussed during the Harlem Renaissance and
how these themes reflect both the successes and
challenges of black Americans.
Step 1: Deconstruct the Prompt
– Identify the directive word(s)
– Identify people, places, and time period in the
prompt
– Re-write the prompt in your own words
• Step 2: Write out background information and
prior knowledge.
Document Based Question
• Question (Prompt): Analyze the themes discussed
during the Harlem Renaissance and how these
themes reflect both the successes and challenges of
black Americans.
• Step 3: Go through and analyze all of the documents
by using the following process:
– C- Context (author, time period, where is the
document from? What is happening around the time
period?)
– C- Content (What does the document actually say?)
– P- Point of View (What is the author’s
POV/bias/motivation for creating the document?)
HOT ROC- Poetry
Analysis
What is the message of the poem?
How does it compare to others we
have read in class?
If We Must Die
Claude McKay, 1919
• If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted 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, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O 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!
Document #1
• Lament for the Dark Peoples
• I was a red man one time,
• But the white men came.
• I was a black man, too,
• But the white man came.
• They drove me out of the forest.
• They took me away from the jungles.
• I lost my trees.
• I lost my silver moons.
• Now they've caged me
• In the circus of civilization.
• Now I herd with the many-• Caged in the circus of civilization.
• SOURCE: Langston Hughes, 1924.
Document #2
• Incident
• Once riding in old Baltimore,
• Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
• I saw a Baltimorean
• Keep looking straight at me.
• Now I was eight and very small,
• And he was no whit bigger,
• And so I smiled, but he poked out
• His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
• I saw the whole of Baltimore
• From May until December;
• Of all the things that happened there
• That's all that I remember.
• SOURCE: Countee Cullen , 1924.
Document #3
THE LYNCHING by: Claude McKay
Printed in Harlem Shadows 1922
His spirit is smoke ascended to high heaven.
His father, by the cruelest way of pain,
Had bidden him to his bosom once again;
The awful sin remained still unforgiven.
All night a bright and solitary star
(Perchance the one that ever guided him,
Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim)
Hugh pitifully o'er the swinging char.
Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view
The ghastly body swaying in the sun:
The women thronged to look, but never a one
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue;
And little lads, lynchers that were to be,
Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.
Document #4
Strange Fruit by Abel Meeropol (1936)
Sung by Billie Holliday: (1939)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs
Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
Document
#5
• Source: Aaron
Douglas, Song
of the Towers,
1934
Document #6
• Source: William
Johnson, Chain
Gang, 1939
Document #7
• Source:Archibald John Motley, Jr , Blues
1929
Document #8
• Calling Dreams
• The right to make my dreams come true
• I ask, nay, I demand of life,
• Nor shall fate's deadly contraband
• Impede my steps, nor countermand.
• Too long my heart against the ground
• Has beat the dusty years around,
• And now, at length, I rise, I wake!
• And stride into the morning break!
• Source: Georgia Douglas Johnson, 1922
Document Based Question
Question (Prompt): Analyze the themes
discussed during the Harlem Renaissance and
how these themes reflect both the successes and
challenges of black Americans.
• Step 4: Decide how each document may or
may not respond to the prompt
• Step 5: Create Organizational categories that
can respond to the prompt.
Document Based Question
Question (Prompt): Analyze the themes
discussed during the Harlem Renaissance and
how these themes reflect both the successes and
challenges of black Americans.
Theme that reflects
Theme that reflects
Theme that reflects
success and/or
success and/or
success and/or
challenge
challenge
challenge
Lynching is a common
theme in Harlem
Renaissance poetry. It
reflects on the violent and
deadly challenge posed
by racism and hatred that
prevents African
Americans from achieving
peace and prosperity.
Document Based Question
Question (Prompt): Analyze the themes
discussed during the Harlem Renaissance and
how these themes reflect both the successes
and challenges of black Americans.
• Step 6: Place the documents in
organizational categories
• Step 7: Arrive at the thesis- Can you, in a
small format, substantiate your point?
Homework
• Do research on your 1920s project.
• Outline Final Draft Due Tuesday
• Finish Harlem Renaissance Thesis
Statement