Gender Inequality In Harlem In The 1920's

The Harlem Renaissance was “variously known as the New Negro movement, the New Negro Renaissance, and the Negro Renaissance, the movement emerged toward the end of World War I in 1918, blossomed in the mid- to late 1920s, and then withered in the mid-1930s. The Harlem Renaissance marked the first time mainstream publishers, critics took African American literature seriously, and that African American literature and arts attracted significant attention from the nation as a whole (1).”

     The Harlem Renaissance was a time of racism, injustice, and importance. Somewhere in between the 1920s and 1930s an African American movement occurred in Harlem, New York City. The Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. It was the result of Blacks migrating in the North, mostly Chicago and New York. There were many significant figures, both male and female, that had taken part in the Harlem Renaissance. Ida B. Wells and Langston Hughes exemplify the like and work of this movement.

The Harlem Renaissance acted as the crossroads for black to interact with others and expand their contacts, even internationally. Also, African Americans began to change their image from rural to urban. In other words, they were transforming themselves from peasants to sophisticates. The Harlem Renaissance allowed for African Americans to be a force in America even if they couldn’t be employed and seen as equals to whites. It was so influential that African Americans began to gain power in northern cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia. The Harlem Renaissance phenomenon sparked the idea of “New Negro” and led to the drive for change, giving a sense of Black Nationalism and the ability to express their ideas and concerns in ways they were

Beginning after World War II, another major force – the mechanization of agriculture – also contributed to the northward migration.

African Americans were highly influential in politics, music, and literature during the period of Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. A great migration of African Americans made their way north, specifically to Harlem. As a result, Harlem, a neighborhood at the northern end of Manhattan, became a center for Afrocentric art, music, poetry, and politics” (P. Scott Corbett, et al). According to the article called “The Harlem Renaissance” published by Stevenson Keira states “As more African Americans became politicians, new political groups also developed alongside

Around 1914 to 1920, over 500,000 African Americans had gathered their belongings and embarked on a journey to the North. World War I and the economic boom that accompanied it created the conditions that made the entrance of black migrants into northern industries possible. However, until then European immigrants had been arriving at an annual rate that surpassed the North’s total black population, thus providing employers with

From the early 1900s – 1920s the Great Black Migration occurred. In addition, the Great Migration occurred in the early 1900s and ended shortly after the Great War. The Great Black Migration was a time where blacks left the south to seek a better lifestyle in the Midwestern, Northern, and Eastern states. Blacks fled the South to seek better jobs, escape racism and discrimination, and to look for better schooling for their children. The Great Black Migration mostly occurred in the states of Illinois, Missouri, New York, and California. During the Great Migration, more than 100,000 blacks migrated to Harlem, New York. In Chicago and New York City, blacks were empowered by black-owned businesses, newspapers, and communities. Newspaper

What if social tensions between whites and blacks were relieved? For most African Americans, that was not the case. The early twentieth century was characterized by racial segregation and great economic hardship. While many were subject to the threat of Jim Crow laws on a daily basis, others became victims of farmers’ debt. Unsurprisingly, this phenomenon fueled the Great Migration, where more than six million African Americans escaped from the rural South and migrated to major communities in the North and West in search of economic opportunity and success. Located in the heart of New York City, Harlem served as a transit neighborhood, harboring around 200,000 African Americans in 1920 (Norton, Sheriff, and Blight). An acclaimed historian, Clement Prince, once said, “Notwithstanding the memories of slavery, and in the face poverty, ignorance, terrorism, and subjugation still deeply woven into their lives, the embittered past of blacks was taken onto a much higher plane of intellectual and artistic consideration during the Renaissance,” (Clement). The words of Clement Prince describe the Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement, an intellectual explosion that brought unprecedented changes to African American music, poetry, dance, and literature. One of the many influential figures in the Harlem Renaissance was Adelaide Hall, a prominent African American entertainer and jazz singer. Through her pioneering of jazz and scat singing, Adelaide Hall sparked an

African Americans which had been widely concentrated in the South had experienced discrimination, mistreatment and segregation under the Jim Crow Laws. The detrimental effects these laws had cause African Americans to seek a better life in the North in West(Document 6). This movement of African Americans to North and West is referred to as the Great Migration. This migration is a racial demographic change that displays the blacks no longer will allow themselves to be subject to the oppression and injustice of the South, as well as it provides them with an opportunity for a better life. As a result of the Great Migration, a time of musical, intellectual, and artistic creation called the Harlem Renaissance occurred during the 1920’s in Harlem, New York.

Harlem, New York became a black cultural mecca where blacks could escape the realities of the world and let their emotions run wild through music, art, literature, stage performance. The Renaissance was caused by a combination of the Great Migration during and after World War I and the social and economic boom of the “Roaring ‘20s.” Originally Harlem was meant for the upper class whites in the 1880s however, the neighborhood was rapidly overdeveloped and landlords were frantic to fill those empty buildings. So they opened the spaces up for the lower class. From 1910 to 1920 large African American populations migrated from the South to the North in attempt to be relieved of civil injustices, as they were intensified the farther south you went.

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.

Migrations, which led the Negroes of the rural South to the North, turned them into townspeople Harlem, becoming the largest Negro enclave in the country, gathered people with very different interests and background: African Americans from the South and North, immigrants from Africa and from the Caribbean islands, hereditary townspeople and still mentally rural residents. Among them were students, workers, businessmen, artists, musicians and other these groups share experiences with each other, gradually finding a common identity and becoming a close-knit community. The development and use of art as a voice for African Americans during the New Negro Movement was the main force that allowed people of all races in America to understand the issues of race at

The Harlem Renaissance opened doors to the African American people who traveled from the south. This huge movement was known was the Great Migration, where over six million African Americans were driven from their homes by insufficient economic opportunities and punitive segregationist laws, many blacks headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that first arose during the First World War. A teacher and critic by the name of Alan Locke coined the name “Harlem Renaissance” because of its essence. Locke states “Negro life is seizing its first chances for group expression and self-determination” (Staff). With this name Harlem became the center of a divine coming of age in which Locke’s “New Negro” altered “social [discouragement] into

The abolition of slavery in the United States presented southern African Americans with many new opportunities, including the option of relocation in search of better living conditions. The mass movement of black people from the rural areas of the South to the cities of the North, known as the Black Migration, came in the 1890s when black men and women left the south to settle in cities such as Philadelphia and New York, fleeing from the rise of Jim Crowe Laws and searching for work. This migration of blacks from the South has been an important factor in the formation of the Harlem Renaissance. The period referred to as the Harlem Renaissance, was a flourishing period of artistic and literary creation in African-American culture and

     Between 1910 and 1920, in a movement known as the Great Migration, hundreds of thousands of African Americans uprooted from their homes in the South and moved North to the big cities in search of jobs. They left the South because of racial violence and economic discrimination. Their migration was an expression of their changing attitudes toward themselves, and has been described as "something like a spiritual emancipation." Many migrants moved to Harlem, a neighborhood on the upper west side of Manhattan. In the 1920's, Harlem became the worlds largest black community; also home to a highly diverse mix of cultures. This unprecedented outburst of creative activity exposed their unique culture and encouraged