Harlem Renaissance : The Harlem Renaissance

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1912 , the 18th Amendment being added to the Constitution (prohibiting the use of intoxicating liquors) and then being repealed in 1933 , the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote in 1920 , Amelia Earhart becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 1928 , and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 Modernist movement began as America began to divulge from the ideals of the Victorian Period. Modernism was provided as a response to the ongoing WWI. New artists divulged into the new writings about rationalism and individualism. Modern artists Wrote about struggles and the conflict between fragmentation and order. As time progressed the modernist movement changed, one subsection of the modernist movement was the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was influenced by the political, social and economic change of the United States during the early twentieth century and left an everlasting impact on African American culture.

The Harlem Renaissance is a very important period in history for many reasons. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, social, and artistic explosion that happened in Harlem. Harlem was a cultural center during this time. It drew black artists, musicians, writers, poets, and scholars. It was also very important because it affected black culture for the rest of time. It also advanced them greatly during that time. Black lives during the Harlem Renaissance were definitely not great still. But they were improving. People were starting to respect them more and there art, writing, and music. The Harlem Renaissance created a very new type of music. A new upbeat jazz genre was created. And with this music new dances came with it. Some popular musicians include, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday. It also brought in new poetry. Some famous poets include Langston Hughes, Claude Mckay, and Countee Cullen. Please consider adding the poems “I too”, “After the Winter”, and “Let America Be America Again” and a history of the Harlem Renaissance as an exhibit in your museum.

One of the most inspirational, upsetting, and hope inspiring pieces of history that America has to offer is the city of Harlem, New York. There might be many things that come to mind when one hears of the city Harlem such as the Renaissance, the ghetto, the hipsters, and even former President of the United States; Bill Clinton. While all of these things do embed the culture of Harlem it has feel from the heights the city once held it fell to the point where it was once even disowned by famous African American poet James Baldwin who was once seen as the city’s golden child. Even though Harlem has been through a lot of changes over the last century it is still a beautiful place and important to American history.

Over the course of time, many different movements have occurred. The most influential types have ranged from revolutionary movements to feminism. These movements have changed the course of society and kept a different outlook on new ideas. A very important idea that needed to be stressed was the freedom of African Americans. For so long they were slaves and treated extremely poorly. Eventually, they became free people. However, they were still not viewed as equal. It took many years to move even one step in the right direction. A specific movement did help the African America appear independent and equal. One of the most influential movements and still occurring to this day is the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance is the cultural movement of the 1920’s. The movement essentially kindled a new black cultural identity through art, literature and intellect.

The history of African Americans seems to be a progressing movement that continues to push itself forward in stages, especially as of the last roughly 100 years. African Americans have over come tremendous adversity since the days of slavery and continue to fight similar obstacles today. A period that experienced much expression and cultural growth was during the Harlem Renaissance. Many great artists, poets, writers, and musicians blossomed during this period that, to this day, has had a lasting cultural impact on not only the African American community, but America as nation. The Harlem Renaissance, which began in the early 1920’s and ended just shortly before the Great Depression, was due largely to a movement known as the Great Migration.

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.

The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that reflected the culture of African Americans in an artistic matter during the 1920’s and the 1930’s. Countless African Americans who participated in this faction showed a different side of the “Negro Life.” It rejected the stereotypes that were given to them. This period in history was thronged with artists, musicians, and writers who portrayed their thoughts into their pieces. Artists of such comprised of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Langston Hughes. It was an influential and intoxicating party, inspiring others to fight for what they desired believed in. The Harlem Renaissance was the start of the Civil Rights Movement. It gave African Americans racial pride, they gained more respect through the movement; additionally, the music, writing, and art challenged the stereotypes that faced them.

“The Harlem Renaissance was the development of the Harlem neighborhood in New York City as a black cultural mecca in the early 20th Century and the subsequent social and artistic explosion that resulted.” (Historycom, 2017). The movement allowed African Americans to receive exposure for their art, Moreover, it lasted for over 20 years. The African American Art provided a distinct perspective of creativity from the artists. The Harlem Renaissance was the focal point of African American Music, as a result of the movement was the birth of many Genres.

The Harlem Renaissance was significant because it gave African American people and other people of African descent, a new and improved status in the society. African Americans in the Harlem Renaissance made wonderful contributions of new kind of art, music, and literature in the world.

Taking place from the 1920’s to the 1940’s, a well-known period of time where black people’s ideas, morals, and customs were adapted and developed was known as the Harlem Renaissance. The main focus of the era for the African Americans was to establish some sort of identity and self-expression through literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts. The story behind this began in 1890 when African American slaves migrated from the rural South to the urban North as they thrashed their way to freedom. Most of them migrated to New York, particularly in the district of Harlem (Bolarinwa). Harlem was characterized as “not merely the largest Negro community in the world, but the first concentration in history of so many diverse elements of Negro

Back in the early 20th century there was a movement that took the world by storm; it was something that would change the United States forever. This movement was called the Harlem Renaissance. This movement started when African American writers and poets began to explore what it means to be an artist, what it means to be black, what it means to be an American and what it means to be all three of these things at the same time. The author of the “Cultural and Historical Context: The Harlem Renaissance”, Kelly J.Mays, goes on to say that the “Harlem Renaissance, [was] a period of ten or fifteen years in the twentieth century, when an extraordinarily talented group of people came together in uptown Manhattan to celebrate and embody the awakening

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

The Harlem Renaissance is one of the greatest eras for black culture in America, displaying in literature, fine arts and stage performance.  The vital members of the flourishing Renaissance came from South and brought with them the Great Migration.  Hurston utilizes symbolism in the novel The Eyes Were Watching God to emphasize the sense of fulfillment by searching for love and the quest for independence that only few women take. Searching for love, quest for freedom, and the lack of human interaction are used to gain independence.