Hello!
Sit where you sat on Thursday.
Check in with me and put your
project up here…
Put your project write-up on
your desk.
The Harlem
Renaissance
“Harlem was not so much a place
as a state of mind, the cultural
metaphor for black America itself.”
The Harlem Renaissance, a.k.a. the New Negro
Movement and the Negro Renaissance
~1919-the mid-1930s
New racial attitudes and ideals on the part of AfroAmericans and an artistic and political awakening
Artistic expression = an extension of the struggle against
oppression
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How did it start?
Complex roots...
• African American migration
to industrial (urban centers)
Changing economy
WWI - jobs
• WWI offered African
Americans the chance to
serve in the military (though
in segregated troops)
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But there was more to the story...
More contact between blacks
and whites in urban
centers...more consciousness of
disparity
Soldiers found that Europe and
America were quite different
The “Red Summer” of 1919
Marcus Garvey’s radical politics
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There were 2 basic ideologies in
terms of approaches to art in
Harlem...
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First school of thought: W.E.B.
DuBois and James Weldon
Johnson
• Privileged African
Americans could lead their
race’s fight for equality
• Art as propaganda: works
of art inspired by racial
heritage & experiences
would prove the beauty
and contributions of the
race
• Achievements would foster
pride in African Americans
• Black culture = white
culture
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Second school of thought: Claude
McKay, Langston Hughes, Zora
Neale Hurston, and Aaron
Douglas.
• African-American person
should be presented
objectively as an individual
simply living
• Argued against mirroring
white society (black culture in
itself was valuable)
• Art for art’s sake
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The Harlem
Renaissance
incorporated all
aspects of African
American culture in
its literature and
several themes
emerged.
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Themes in Art, Music and
Literature:
Effort to Recapture the African-American Past:
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–
corresponded with rise of Pan-Africanism
Africanism in Afro-American politics
Marcus Garvey’s ideology
jazz introduced African-inspired rhythms and themes in
compositions
Rural Southern Roots:
– reflected in novels by Jean Toomer and Zora
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Jacob Lawrence’s art: Harriet Tubman series and black
migration
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Themes Continued…
African-American Urban Experience and Racism:
•
- represented by writers like Langston Hughes, Claude
McKay, and Countee Cullen
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“Incident” by Countee Cullen
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.
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Themes continued...
Use of Black Music & Folklore as an Inspiration for
Poetry, Short Stories, and Novels:
- Langston Hughes used rhythms and styles of jazz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpjFS3CQkKE
- Black religion as a literary source: James Weldon
Johnson’s God’s Trombones
- Sterling Brown used blues and southern work songs
in his book of poetry Southern Road
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Through all these
themes Harlem
Renaissance writers
were determined to
express the AfricanAmerican experience
in all its variety and
complexity as
realistically as
possible.
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The White Influence on the Harlem
Renaissance:
The Harlem Renaissance appealed to both a
white and black audience
But...
• Urbane whites bestowed their patronage on
young artists, opening up publishing
opportunities, and pumping cash into
Harlem’s “exotic” nightlife...
• The relationship was complex and continues
to be studied to this day
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The Cotton Club...
• Jim Crow laws enforced
Major controversy
What sense does this make?
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Other Important Places Within
Harlem & Nightlife:
Lennox and 140th Street
the Savoy Ballroom
• Major social events
and parties
• Blacks and whites
mingled on the dance
floor
• Where the Lindy Hop
was invented
• http://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=R0BHxh
UnokU
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Jungle Alley and 7th Avenue:
Jungle Alley
• Cluster of clubs and speakeasies along 133rd Street
between Lennox Ave. and Seventh Ave.
• Variety of entertainment options and an eclectic and
risqué environment
• Racially mixed and uninhibited crowd
Seventh Ave.
• Where people went to see and be seen
• Harlemites both rich and poor donned their finest
clothes and strolled down the avenue on a Sunday
afternoon
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The Apollo Theater
Opened in the 1930s the on
125th Street
Featured the finest acts and
became the most prestigious
African American performing
stage in the country.
The response of the Apollo’s
knowledgeable audience could
make or break a performer’s
career
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Rent Parties:
A way for cash-strapped Harlemites to raise money for their inflated
rent payments
Thursday and Saturday nights...Thursday was the night off for
sleep-in domestic workers and Saturday was usually pay-day for
laborers who had Sunday off
Invitations: “Parlor Social” or “Tea Cup Party”
Music, entertainment...the furniture was cleared out
Basic food and drink—bootleg whiskey or bathtub gin, with
southern staples: fried chicken and fish, chitterlings, pig’s feet,
greens, and cornbread
The admission fee and the extra charges for food and drink paid for
the entertainment, hopefully with enough left over for next month’s
rent
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Patrons were usually Harlem’s working people—
especially domestics and laborers—but all classes
attended
DuBois and others from the middle and upper classes
stayed away...
Many of the artists, writers, and musicians used them as
inspiration
Bessie Smith celebrated them in her song, “Give Me a
Beer and Another Pigfoot,” while Langston Hughes
described them in his autobiography as a place where
working-class blacks could drink and dance without a
white tourist looking over their shoulder
Whites rarely gained admittance to these gatherings
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Decline of the Harlem Renaissance:
•
1.
The Harlem Renaissance declined in the mid 1930s.
Factors that contributed to this decline were as
follows:
Harlem’s emergence as a slum:
- Within a single decade Harlem transformed from an
ideal community to a neighborhood with manifold
social and economic problems.
- Housing was overpriced, congested, and dilapidated.
- Jobs were hard to come by due to competition and
discrimination.
- As a result, most of Harlem’s residents lived in
poverty, a situation that contributed to the growth of
crime, vice, juvenile delinquency and drug addiction.
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• 2. The Great Depression
• 3. The Departure of Many Key Figures in the Movement
• 4. The Harlem Riot of 1935
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Influential Figures & Events in the
Renaissance:
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•
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Writers & Poets:
- Countee Cullen
- Langston Hughes
- Jean Toomer
- James Weldon Johnson
- Zora Neale Hurston
- Arna Bontemps
- Wallace Thurman
- Nella Larsen
- Claude McKay
- Gwendolyn Brooks
- Jessie Redmon Fauset
Musicians, Singers,
Entertainers:
- Louis Armstrong
- Bessie Smith
- Dizzie Gillespie
- Josephine Baker
- Eubie Blake
- Duke Ellington
- Ma Rainey
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Billie Holiday
- Ethel Waters
- Fats Waller
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Artists:
- Aaron Douglass
- Jacob Lawrence
- William H. Johnson
- Archibald Motley, Jr.
- Ronald C. Moody
- Palmer Hayden
- Lois Mailou Jones
Political Activists:
- W.E.B. DuBois
- Marcus Garvey
- Alain Leroy Locke
- Charles R. Drew
- Regina Anderson
- Arturo Alfonso
Schomburg
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Athletes/Athletic
Teams:
- Satchel Paige
- The Harlem
Globetrotters
- Negro National
League
Journals/Magazines:
- The Crisis
- The Survey Graphic
- Opportunity: A
Journal of Negro Life
- FIRE!!
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Final Thoughts:
The Harlem Renaissance...
• Certainly important in terms of American history
• Obviously crucial in terms of American literature
• What about its dependency on white money,
audiences and publishers?
Some are critical of this...
WE will read some poetry, listen to some music, and
view some pieces of art on Wednesday.
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Sources:
The United States in Literature & The
Harlem Renaissance: A Unit of Study for
Grades 9-12 by Nina Gifford
Harlem Speaks: A Living History of the
Harlem Renaissance edited by Cary D.
Wintz
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