Harlem is vicious
Modernism. BangClash.
Vicious the way it's made,
Can you stand such beauty.
So violent and transforming.
- Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)
The Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance (HR) is the name
given to the period from the end of
World War I and through the middle
of the 1930s Depression, during which
a group of talented African-American
writers, thinkers and artists produced
a sizable contribution to American
culture.
SOUTHERN BLACKS AND THE LURE OF THE
NORTH
BEFORE AND AFTER 1914
Most African Americans remained in the South nearly
fifty years after the Civil War.
With outbreak of World War I came many dynamic
changes- because:
1) war generates new opportunities for industry
2) much of existing labor supply leaves work force
3) immigrant labor pool evaporates.
End result: The Great Migration which congregated
black populations in northern cities like Chicago and
New York in unprecedented numbers. The
concentration, in New York city, occurred on the upper
west side, in Harlem.
Harlem, New York
Important Features of the HR
Migrants from the south brought
with them new ideas and a new
form of music called jazz.
Soon Harlem produced a burst of
African-American cultural activity
known as the Harlem Renaissance.
Important Features
• It was called a renaissance because it
symbolized a rebirth of hope for
African Americans.
• Harlem became home to writers,
musicians, singers, painters,
sculptors, and scholars. There they
were able to exchange ideas and
develop their creativity.
Features
It became a symbol and a point of
reference for everyone to recall. The name,
more than the place, became synonymous
with new vitality, Black urbanity, and Black
militancy.
It became a racial focal point for Blacks the
world over; it remained for a time a race
capital.
The complexity of the urban setting was
important for Blacks to truly appreciate the
variety of Black life. Race consciousness
required a shared experience.
Important Features
It encouraged a new appreciation of folk
roots and culture. Peasant folk materials
and spirituals provided a rich source for
racial imagination.
It continued a celebration of primitivism
and the mythology of an exotic Africa that
had begun in the 19th century.
Important Features
Common themes begin to emerge: alienation,
marginality, the use of folk material, the use
of the blues tradition, the problems of
writing for an elite audience.
The HR was more than just a literary
movement: it included racial consciousness,
"the back to Africa" movement led by
Marcus Garvey, racial integration, the
explosion of music particularly jazz,
spirituals and blues, painting, dramatic
revues, and others.
The HR. gave birth the many important
publications, such as Crisis
magazine, edited by W. E. B. DuBois, giving
black writers a forum where their voices could
be heard.
The visual art of the Harlem
Renaissance was an attempt at
developing a new African-American
aesthetic in the fine arts.
Believing that their life experiences
were valuable sources of material for
their art, these artists created an
iconography of the Harlem Renaissance
era.
Thematic content included
- Africa as a source of inspiration,
- African-American history,
- folk idioms, (music and religion of the
South), and social injustice.
Jacob Lawrence Harlem
Rooftops
Art from the Harlem Renaissance
Jeunesse by Palmer Hayden
Street Life, Harlem, by
William H. Johnson
Jacob Lawrence
Aspiration 1988
“What did I see
when I arrived in
Harlem in 1930?
I was thirteen
years of age. I
remember seeing
the movement, the
life, the people, the
excitement. We
were going
through a great,
great depression at
that time, but
despite that, I
think, there was
always hope.”
Writers of the HR
Sterling Brown
Claude McKay
Langston Hughes
Zora Neal Hurston
James Weldon
Johnson
Countee Cullen
Nella Larson
Richard Wright
Impact of the Harlem Renaissance
“Sometimes I feel discriminated against,
but it does not make me angry. It
merely astonishes me. How can
anyone deny themselves the pleasure
of my company? It's beyond me." Zora Neale Hurston.
Impact of the Harlem Renaissance
The legacy of the Harlem Renaissance
is that it redefined how America, and the
world, viewed the African-American
population.
The migration of southern Blacks to the
north changed the image of the AfricanAmerican from rural, undereducated
peasants to one of urban, cosmopolitan
sophistication.
Impact of the Harlem Renaissance
This new identity led to a
greater social consciousness,
and African-Americans became
players on the world stage,
expanding intellectual and
social contacts internationally.
Langston Hughes
“Dean of African American Poets”
Born: 1902, Joplin Missouri
Died: 1967
- Began writing in 8th grade and was
voted “class poet”
- Born to mixed- race parents who
divorced. He was raised back and
forth between grandmother and both
parents
- Attended Columbia University for
engineering but dropped out with a B
average to focus on writing
- Later graduated from Lincoln University
- Moved to Harlem where he was first
published in “Crisis”
- Wrote 16 books of poetry, 2 novels, 3
collections of short stories, 4 volumes of
editorial fiction, 20 plays, kid’s poetry,
musicals, operas, radio and TV scripts, and
many magazine articles.
Langston Hughes
Cross
My old man’s a white old man
And my old mother’s black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old
mother
And wished she were in hell,
I’m sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big
house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I’m going to die,
Being neither white nor black?
Read the attached article and list 8
facts about Langston Hughes that
were not already mentioned: