Essay On Harlem Renaissance

Over one hundred and fifty years later, another door was opened that led African-American artists into an era that aided in shaping a new black cultural identity. This new cultural identity was called the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural manifestation that lured African-American writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars to Harlem, New York. The Harlem Renaissance shifted the paradigm for cultural and social settings. The blueprints for the Harlem Renaissance began years earlier with African-American genre of literature. James Weldon Johnson was one such writer who sifted through the roughage to promote great writers.

The Harlem Era was a time of rebirth of African American arts in all forms. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in the early 1920’s. During the time of this Era it was known as the “New Negro Movement”. Poets like W.E.B Dubois and Langston Hughes Were great supporters of this movement. Although, they were on different sides, one of the big questions during this time was Racial Pride. Pride in being black became a huge part in essay, art and poetry of this generation. However, many black Writers had opposed ideas of how to show racial pride. W.E.B Dubois thought that by creating high art that would prove themselves as intellectual equals to white people. On the other hand, Langston Hughes spoke against this idea and thought the best way to show pride in being black is to create folk art, which celebrated African American culture and the lives of everyday people lives. Anyways, which one actually does show racial pride?

 Harlem Renaissance 2015, Wikipedia, accessed 23 August 2015, .  Harlem Renaissance n.d., History, accessed 23 August 2015, .  Harlem Renaissance n.d., Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 23 August 2015, .  Great Migration 2015, Wikipedia, accessed 23 August 2015, .  Claude McKay 2015, Wikipedia, accessed 24 August 2015, .

History.com (2009) describes the Harlem Renaissance movement as “a literary, artistic, and intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity.” The 1920s and 1930s emcompass a time in history where blacks found themselves ostracized from mainstream society. It was uncommon to see the expressions of black artistry in everyday life, especially on a literary level.

The 1920’s were a period or rapid growth and change in America. After World War I American’s were introduced to a lifestyle of lavishness they had never encountered before. It was a period of radical thought and ideas. It was in this time period that the idea of the Harlem Renaissance was born. The ideology behind the Harlem Renaissance was to create the image of the “New Negro”. The image of African-American’s changed from rural, uneducated “peasants” to urban, sophisticated, cosmopolites. Literature and poetry abounded. Jazz music and the clubs where it was performed at became social “hotspots”. Harlem was the epitome of the “New Negro”. However, things weren’t as sunny as they appeared. Many felt that the Harlem Renaissance itself

The Harlem Renaissance was different than I thought it was. I had imagined it was a time of African American’s gathering together in small groups and reading poems and writing stuff. When I began researching, the things that I found blew my mind. Seeing all of the big names of the Renaissance was cool because I have heard these names all my life, but never realized why those names were significant. Being a student in band, the name Louis Armstrong has been a name I have heard since 6th grade. Up until this project, I never knew the extent of the impact he made on the world of music.

In Harlem between the 1920’s and 1930’s the African American culture flourished, especially in areas such as music, art, literature, dance, and even in film. This soon became known as the Harlem Renaissance. With the entire positive and the negative situations of this time period the African Americans still seemed to have it all. The Harlem Renaissance came about because of the changes that had taken place in the African American community after the abolition of slavery because of World War I and the social and cultural changes in early 20th century in the United States. After harsh conditions for African Americans after the Plessy vs. Ferguson Trial many of them decided to move to the North to New York. By

Aberjhani once stated "The best of humanity’s recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance. Although the Harlem Renaissance underlines the trouble of ethnic issue knowledgeable by African Americans all through the twentieth century. There were numerous critical impacts, for instance, artistic the growth. The Harlem Renaissance was an energetic affiliation amongst the 1920s where African Americans started composed and transported artistry and writing one of a caring to their race, motivating a countless many dark's kin to complete in a white overwhelming society.

The Harlem Renaissance was a time of great commotion spanning the 1920s, also known as the “New Negro Movement.” One of the more well-known movers and shakers of the Harlem Renaissance is Langston Hughes. He amongst other artist brought new forms of black cultural expressions into urban areas that had been affected by The Great Migration. Harlem was the largest area affected by said Great Migration. Though the Harlem Renaissance was centered in Harlem the power and strength contained in the words of artist such as Langston Hughes reached Paris and even the Caribbean. Langston Hughes was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance movement. His vast amounts of work are what brought attention to the struggles and realities of the time

Langston Hughes seemed to be the “Father of the Harlem Renaissance”. Some of the poems that he wrote were some of the most famous of the movement. He was the first poet to capture what was going on in his poems. He had the capability of colorfully portraying black life during this time period through his poetry. Hughes would not differentiate between his experience, and

The period after the Civil War was a time of Reconstruction. During this time the Southern states had passed laws placed a racial caste system that placed African Americans into a second class citizen. They were pretty much segregated in all aspects of life, from schools to the drinking fountains. The set of laws in the South was known as Jim Crow. Before World War 1 almost ninety percent of the African Americans lived in the South and seventy five percent of them in the rural South. As the war began blacks started to migrate more and more to the North because of the demand of labor, the destruction of the cotton crops in the South, and because of the rise in white terrorist, such as the Ku Klux Klan. This group had become very popular in the 1920’s and its members reached to about four million people. It only took ninety days for the African Americans to leave Mississippi. In the mid 1910’s around three hundred thousand Southern blacks moved to the north, this was known as the Great Migration. In New York the Great Migration created a cultural group which has described that era as the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance

A group of people who had at one point held no power and position in society were now thriving in the nation, as they spread their culture and ideas. It was the start of an era known as the Harlem Renaissance. This was a more than a literary movement, it was a cultural movement based on pride in the Africa-American life. They were demanded civil and political rights (Stewart). The Harlem Renaissance changed the way African Americans were viewed by society. It, “changes the image of the African-American from rural, undereducated peasants to one of urban, cosmopolitan sophistication”. This era expanded from the early 1920s to the mid 1930s (Wikipedia). It generated great pride in the people

She later moved to Eatonville, Florida with her family where her father was elected mayor of the town in 1897 and in 1902. Saldy In 1904, Hurston's mother died and her father remarried to Matte Moge shortly after. Hurston then was sent away to a Baptist boarding school in Jacksonville, Florida where eventually her father stopped paying her tuition and the school had no choice but to expelled her. Nonetheless, she began working and saved up enough money to begin attending Morgan College in 1917 where she began her literary career. Hurston was closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance being one of the pre-eminent writers on the twentieth century in African American literature. Her famous novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” was

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.

The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the social, cultural and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem during the end of World War 1. The time of the 1920’s was a time of change for everyone. During the 1920’s, the Harlem Renaissance was the most influential movement where African Americans came together and created multiple things that was unique to their race such as; music, literature, poetry, and much more which really impacted the way African Americans stood up together in a country controlled by whites.