African American And The Harlem Renaissance

During the early 1920’s, African American artists, writers, musicians, and performers took part in a cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. This migration took place after World War 1 and brought African Americans of all ages to the city of Harlem located in New York (Holt). There were many inspiring young artists; one of them in particular was Augusta Savage.

Second, there was an event that occurred from the Roaring Twenties or the Jazz Age, which was called the Harlem Renaissance. During the Harlem Renaissance, a numerous amount of African American put forth their talents and intellect. This is a prime example of a form of expression or cultural expression because a trend was set for more African Americans to start “Expanding their horizons and embracing the concept of the “new Negro” movement (P. Scott Corbett, et al). Even though discrimination was still around, this progressive movement helped African Americans contribute to literature, music, politics and more. In which helped shape and form a path for African-Americans to rediscover their black culture, for African American artists, writers, and other famous leaders to “formulated an independent black culture and encouraged racial pride, rejecting any emulation of white American culture” (P. Scott Corbett, et al).

There were many notable events taking place in the years 1900-1940, some being Pablo Picasso painting one of the first cubist paintings is 1907 , the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 , the 18th Amendment being added to the Constitution (prohibiting the use of intoxicating liquors) and then being repealed in 1933 , the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote in 1920 , Amelia Earhart becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 1928 , and the list continues. Undoubtedly one of the most influential of events during this time was the Harlem Renaissance. Even with its many leaders and innovators, it wouldn’t have been nearly as effective had it not been for Alain LeRoy Locke: black writer, philosopher, and teacher who influenced black artists to look to African sources for pride and inspiration. Without Locke’s contribution, the Renaissance would not have flourished as much as it did, and black pride would have taken longer to develop and accept.

The early 1900s was a time marked with tragedy in America. Started and ended with the Great Depression in between, it was not America 's finest moment. Prohibition was in place, the Klu Klux Klan was still marching, and the Lost Generation was leaving for Paris. But despite the troubling times, people still found beauty and meaning in the world around them. They still created art and celebrated life. The Harlem Renaissance was an artistic and literary movement that developed a new black cultural identity through artistic expression. It fused African traditions with slave history and American culture, and revealed to the world what life was like as a black person in America.

The African American population in the United States have always seemed to have been oppressed and persecuted throughout the history of the country. They have been targeted and put down using emotional, physical and sometimes, extremely violent methods. The time period from 1865 to 1905 was a particularly bad period for Southern African Americans. Huge hurdles had to be crossed for the people that were newly allowed to participate in the United States as citizens.

After the Civil War, even though slavery was outlawed white supremacy was still active in the Reconstruction South. Jim Crow laws created racial segregation. Hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan formed and hate crimes were frequent (“A New”). This led blacks to want to escape the south.

Before the Harlem Renaissance, African Americans led relatively submissive lives. The race was segregated, treated poorly, and seen as second class. The African Americans moved from the rural South to the urban North during World War I in what is known as the Great Migration. The African Americans were compelled to move into Northern cities because the war created job opportunities, and they aspired to find a better life. Predominantly African American communities in the Northern cities formed that developed a culture of literature, art, and music that invigorated the African American people.

The Great Migration saw many African Americans move from the rural south to more industrial and developing areas in the northern states. Those that moved north were sought better jobs, education, and social equality. It is believed during this mass

The Harlem Renaissance is a social, cultural, and artistic eruption that happened in Harlem, New York. The outburst took place in 1925 and included the new African-American cultural expression, and it was considered the birth of African –American Arts. The movement also involved Caribbean and African writers who resided in Paris. The emergence of Harlem Renaissance was due to the fight by African Americans who wanted to be given a chance for a participation in civic matters, cultural and economic self-determination, and political equity between the whites and the blacks. This happened after the civil war was over and reconstruction of the nation was taking place. The freed and emancipated blacks begun to push for this reforms. The year 1875 blacks a total of sixteen in number were elected to the Congress and moved on giving numerous speeches. The regain of power by the white supremacist was a major challenge to the blacks in America. This was characterized with denying Africans their political and civil rights, brutalizing of black convicts, exposure to unpaid labor, and conducting lynch mobs and vigilante acts to black communities. This event led the staging of the first Harlem Renaissance with theater plays like “three plays for a negro” in 1917, been showcased to express the black suffering in the region (Wikipedia, 2016). This was followed by a series of activities to show how the blacks were stereotyped in America with Hubert Harrison writing the article “the father of Harlem radicalism” in the year 1917. This was the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance is still important in our community up to the date because it gave the contribution towards the music industry. The period led to the development of the Harlem stride style in playing piano that up to the date provides a benchmark in the piano art. The Renaissance period provided fashion clothing for which blacks can be identified with the blacks like wearing of the leather jackets (White, Shane and Graham 1998). The period helped to the rise of African-American music, the culture which up to date is one big industry contributing towards the American economy and the black society.

The Harlem Renaissance represents the rebirth and flowering of African-American culture. Although the Harlem Renaissance was concentrated in the Harlem district of New York City, its legacy reverberated throughout the United States and even abroad, to regions with large numbers of former slaves or blacks needing to construct ethnic identities amid a dominant white culture. The primary means of cultural expression during the Harlem Renaissance were literature and poetry, although visual art, drama, and music also played a role in the development of the new, urban African-American identity. Urbanization and population migration prompted large numbers of blacks to move away from the Jim Crow south, where slavery had only transformed into institutionalized racism and political disenfranchisement. The urban enclave of Harlem enabled blacks from different parts of the south to coalescence, share experiences, and most importantly, share ideas, visions, and dreams. Therefore, the Harlem Renaissance had a huge impact in framing African-American politics, social life, and public institutions.

This great migration eventually relocated hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the South to the North.African American culture was reborn in the Harlem Renaissance.The Harlem Renaissance was an artistic and intellectual

During this time, slavery was at its lowest. Many African American slaves were moving to the North to gain their freedom and actually feel free for once. Instead, white supremacy was quickly, legally, and violently restored to the New South and they didn’t believe that black slaves

During the 1920’s a new movement began to arise. This movement known as the Harlem Renaissance expressed the new African American culture. The new African American culture was expressed through the writing of books, poetry, essays, the playing of music, and through sculptures and paintings. Three poems and their poets express the new African American culture with ease. (Jordan 848-891) The poems also express the position of themselves and other African Americans during this time. “You and Your Whole Race”, “Yet Do I Marvel”, and “The Lynching” are the three poems whose themes are the same. The poets of these poems are, as in order, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude Mckay.

I always found the 1920’s a very interesting decade as it went from a lively moment to a depressing and struggling one within a split second. Therefore, I believe that I learned all of the concepts pretty well. For instance, I learned about the Harlem Renaissance, the cause and effect of The Dust Bowl, and the lasting political argument of the New Deal in the United States. First of all, the Harlem Renaissance was a time period where African Americans began to embrace their roots and create art/works to reflect their experience living in US society. However, during the Great Depression many Americans were left unemployed. In addition to drastic unemployment rates, the environmental disaster, also known as the Dust Bowl, contributed to many

Harlem Renaissance, a blossoming (c. 1918–37) of African American culture, particularly in the creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American literary history. Embracing literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts, participants sought to reconceptualize “the Negro” apart from the white stereotypes that had influenced black peoples’ relationship to their heritage and to each other. They also sought to break free of Victorian moral values and bourgeois shame about aspects of their lives that might, as seen by whites, reinforce racist beliefs. Never dominated by a particular school of thought but rather characterized by intense debate, the movement laid the groundwork for all later African American literature and had