Harlem Renaissance!
1920’s to 1930’s
By: Mark Cook
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"...Our problem is to conceive,
develop, establish an art era.
Not white art painting
black...let's bare our arms and
plunge them deep through
laughter, through pain, through
sorrow, through hope, through
disappointment, into the very
depths of the souls of our
people and drag forth material
crude, rough, neglected. Then
let's sing it, dance it, write it,
paint it. Let's do the impossible.
Let's create something
transcendentally material,
mystically objective, Earthy,
Spiritually earthy. Just
Dynamic." - Aaron Douglas
Beginning
• After World War I, a cultural awakening and a new Black
identity emerged from an artistic era in centered in the heart
New York. This era was called the Harlem Renaissance
developed from Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s
and 1930s was the beginning of an “acceptance” of the Black
artist, writer and poets in White America. The mass
movement of blacks to major cities in the East was called the
Great Migration. Even though it persisted less than 20 years, it
made a significant impact in America, that is still with us
today.
ORIGIN
• The Harlem Renaissance was an era that grew solely, out of the changes that had
taken place in the African American community since the end of slavery. Until the
end of the Civil War, the majority of African Americans had been enslaved and
lived in the South, where industrialization was attracting tons of people to cities
from rural areas and gave a rise to a fresh culture. Most of the African-American
literary movement arose from a generation that had lived through the gains and
losses of Reconstruction after the Civil War. The Harlem Renaissance was directly
the result of the Great Migration out of the South and into the big cities of the North
and Midwest. Due to the fact that African Americans sought a better standard of
living and relief from the detrimental racism in the South.
• Uniting most of them was their convergence in Harlem, New York City. Like most
people know, as soon as slavery ended, blacks began to strive for equality in social
life, politics, and all aspects of life.
MEMORABLE FIGURES
Jean Toomer - (December 26, 1894 – March 30, 1967) was an American poet and novelist
and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance. His first book Cane is considered by
many as his most significant. He also was elected into the Georgia Hall of Fame in 2002.
Louis Armstrong - (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971) nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an
American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana, who was considered the
greatest of all Jazz musicians.
Marcus Garvey - (August 17, 1887 – June 10, 1940) was a Jamaican entrepreneur, orator,
journalist, and publisher, who was a loyal leader of the Black Nationalism and Pan Africanism movements. Which he actually founded the Universal Negro Improvement
Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL).
James Weldon - (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938) was an American diplomat, politician,
author, anthologist, critic, lawyer, journalist, poet, educator, songwriter, and early civil rights
activist. Remembered most for his leadership in the NAACP. He was also one of the first
African-American professors.
Claude McKay - (September 15, 1889 – May 22, 1948) was a Jamaican-American poet and
writer and is best known for his three very famous novels. 1) Home to Harlem (1928), a bestseller which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, 2) Banjo (1929), and 3) Banana
Bottom (1933).
MEMORABLE FIGURES, PART. 2
Aaron Douglas - (May 26, 1899 – February 3, 1979) was an African American
painter and a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance, who also founded the Art
Department at Fisk University and taught for 27 years.
James L. Allen - (November 21, 1904 – January 18, 1992) was one of the founders
of management businesses such as Booz Allen Hamilton and Booz & Company.
Fats Waller (Thomas Wright Waller) - (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943), was
an infamous jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer who
excelled at what he did. He was the youngest of four children.
Arthur “Art” Tatum - (October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was a brilliant
American jazz pianist, who is widely compared to Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder
due in part to his partial blindness. He is also widely recognized as one of the
greatest jazz pianists of all time.
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington - (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an
extremely prominent composer, pianist, and big band leader of jazz. He wrote over
1,500 compositions in jazz music. It’s been argues that there hasn’t been a greater
composer since him.
Long-Term Impact
• The Harlem Renaissance will be forever remembered as
the era that changed not only African American culture,
but American culture in general. Americans overall
became more accepting of the Black voice in literature,
music, art and society.
Religion
• The Harlem Renaissance was arguably the most significant
when it came to encouraging the thinking patterns and
impeccable creativity, related to “religious and philosophical
ideals” (Cradle). It inspired religion in many ways to flourish
and prosper into many different natures and ways during this
time. During the 1920's -30's, different types of
Christianity/Catholic churches were formed. In 1920, the
African American Pentecostal (a movement within Christianity
that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of
God through the baptism in the Holy Spirit) was made. This
new run through offered a new experience in relation to the
prior traditions practiced by majority of African Americans. In
1921, Marcus Garvey organized the African Orthodox Church
which is similar to Orthodox Christianity in Africa.
Religion, pt. 2
• Charles A. Tiney was the first African American to write and
publish church hymns. The style of the hymns ranged from
Gospel to Blues, and held tons of expression concerning
religion and faith. Most people across the Harlem Renaissance
Era accepted neo-orthodox and traditional Christianity as
popular religions to follow. This epidemic resulted in the up
and coming projects, like: “mega-type churches; sect/cult
approaches; religious nationalists; and highly emotional
storefront churches” (Michaels). Ultimately, the Harlem
Renaissance directly resulting in upbringing of modern
Christianity, Catholicism, and House of God churches.
ART
• In his 1925 essay, "The New Negro", Howard University
Professor of Philosophy Alain Locke encouraged African
American artists to create a school of African American art
with a distinguishable and beautiful style. Also, he wanted
them to look to African culture and African American folk life
for subject matter and inspiration for then and modern projects
affiliated with Black History from the Harlem Renaissance.
ART, PT. 2
• Locke's ideas along with a new ethnic awareness that was
happening in urban areas around major cities such as Chicago
and Harlem, inspired up and coming African American artists
to jump on the bandwagon. These artists “rejected landscapes
for the figurative, rural scenes for urban and focused on class,
culture and Africa to bring ethnic consciousness into art and
create a new black identity” (Douglass and Maverick).
ART, PT. 3
•
In major cities between 1920-1930 an unprecedented outburst of creative
activity among African-Americans occurred in all fields of art. Photographic
artists “played a key role in creating depictions of the New Negro” (Michaels).
Fortunately, not only artists did major projects like this, “their counterparts in
literature, music, and theater, painters Palmer C. Hayden, Malvin Gray
Johnson, and Laura Wheeler Waring, among others, exhibited bold, stylized
portraits of African Americans during this period, as well as scenes of black
life from a variety of perspectives” (Owens).
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Aside from being the, “center for artistic and religious movements,”
(Owens) Harlem was also a hotbed for “political movements and heated
debates”(Owens). In this portion of history, the Harlem Renaissance
“introduced people to the political leaders, discussions, and major art forms
used today” (Owens). Although, the fight between various races for social and
political justice and equality always had a major impact on US history, this
battle began to rage during the 1920s.
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Harlem, New York was considered the, “Ground Zero” during the Harlem Renaissance for
Blacks because they were never freer anywhere else. Malcolm X reminisced in his autobiography,
“In one night, New York-Harlem- had just about narcotized me.” (Malcolm X).
However,
throughout the country an atmosphere of institutionalized racism and hatred abounded. Racism
was not only confined to the white community. Many Blacks in Harlem “were under the spell of
the West Indian caste system, which has three groups, white, yellow and black. In-group racism
was common in Harlem and still persists to this day in which Marcus Garvey mentions this
system in many of his writings” (Parks and Jeffries). Since Harlem was as close to heaven as
possible as far as freedom from daily racism goes, the rest of the country (especially the South)
was extraordinarily cruel and violent.
 It’s been debated over time, that the Harlem Renaissance, or
the New Negro Movement, was an essential moment in
African American literature, due to an exceptional outburst
of creativity of most African American authors and writes.
Trudier states that, “The importance of this movement of
Black 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.” This, in other words simply states that
Blacks simply wanted to put their life, heritage, and
persevering history on paper for all to read and see.
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The “Literacy Boom” of the Harlem Renaissance began in “the lower Manhattan
(Greenwich Village) and upper Manhattan (Harlem) sections of New York City, it
gained national force when Charles Spurgeon Johnson, editor of Opportunity, the
official organ of the National Urban League, encouraged aspiring writers to migrate to
New York in order to form a critical mass of young black creative artists” (Trudier). For
more recognition toward their works, African American authors Harlem Renaissance
“produced a sizable body of work, often exploring such themes as alienation and
marginality” (Trudier).
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The majority of the literary works from the time period of the Harlem Renaissance mirrors
the various ways that blacks experienced life in. Many of the well-known poets, authors, and
writers were Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Helene Johnson, Zora Neale
Hurston, Nella Larsen, and Jean Toomer. From their popular and memorable works “the literature
of this period helped to facilitate a transformation from the psychology of the “Old Negro”
(characterized by an implied inferiority of the post-Reconstruction era when black artists often did
not control the means of production or editorial prerogatives) to the “New Negro” (characterized
as self-assertive, racially conscious, articulate, and, for the most part, in charge of what they
produced)” (Trudier). The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), edited by James Weldon
Johnson and The New Negro (1925) by Locke are popular books from this period.
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Before the Harlem Renaissance was called that it was known as the “New Negro Movement,” due
to the uprising of African American advancement. The Harlem Renaissance was mainly an African
American cultural movement that reached its height between 1920 and 1937 in a borough of New York
City called Harlem. It was “more than a literary movement and more than a social revolt against racism,
the Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American
expression” (Isaacs). African-Americans began to encourage one another to celebrate their heritage,
inheritance, legacy, and persevering history. Also, they wanted to become "The New Negro, (Olive)" a
term coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke. In his influential book The New Negro
(1925), Locke described the southern migration of blacks as "something like a spiritual emancipation.”
(Locke)
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This period marked the first time that white Americans gave serious attention to African American
culture. One of the major factors that contributed to the rise of unique culture during the Harlem
Renaissance was the great migration of African-Americans to northern cities (such as New York City,
Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) between 1919 and 1926. This single event, sparked one of the greatest
and most modern influential time period ever. Harlem attracted the most “prosperous and stylish black
middle class from which sprang an extraordinary artistic center.” (Isaacs) Like movements in Europe, it
embraced almost all art-forms, containing music, dance, film, theatre and cabaret. People during this
period also prided themselves on having a good fun time partying, making the modern, “Nightlife,” come
alive. The Harlem Renaissance was more than a literary movement and more than a social revolt against
racism, the Harlem Renaissance “exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined AfricanAmerican expression.” (Isaacs)
End of the Era
While many people still debate the exact reasons for this
era’s demise, most generally loosely say it lasted through
the 1920s through into the mid-1930s. Although other
factors came into to play to unravel the movement, most
scholars say that the most significant cause of the death of
the era was the Great Depression.
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It was more of a literary revolution for the African Americans
rather than a social, political, or economic gain.
Occurrence in the city of Harlem, New York during the 1920's and
1930's.
Though centered in Harlem, New York City, USA, the movement
impacted urban cities throughout the United States.
Has had an everlasting mark on the nation and the world that can
never be erased.
The first time, African Americans in America were able to
determine who they are for themselves and their children.
Although blacks were advancing during this time, they were still
discriminated against especially in the Great Depression.
The Great Depression caused the Harlem group of writers to
scatter; many were forced to leave New York or to take other jobs
to tide them over the hard times.
Cotton Club, was a center-piece for the great African-American
entertainers, such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Louis
Armstrong, and Ethel Waters.
Pleasurable Truths