Langston Hughes And The Harlem Renaissance

The beginning of the 20th century many African Americans migrated from the south to the north in what we call today, the Great Migration. Many African Americans found themselves in a district of New York City called Harlem. The area known as Harlem matured into the hideaway of jazz and the blues where the African American artist emerged calling themselves the “New Negro.” The New Negro was the cornerstone for an era known today as the Harlem Renaissance (Barksdale 23). The Harlem Renaissance warranted the expression of the double consciousness of the African Americans, which was exposed by artists such as Langston Hughes. James Mercer Langston Hughes was an African American poet, journalist, playwright, and novelist whose works were

The Harlem Renaissance brought a great amount of value to the African American group. The visual art, the jazz music, fashion and literature changed. During this time writer Langston Hughes shined out with amazing works. The harlem reneisance made It was a time for expressing the African American culture. It has many names other than Harlem Renaissance, such as, the Black Literary Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement. Many famous people began their writing or gained their recognition during this time. The Harlem Renaissance took place during the 1920’s and 1930’s. “This movement known collectively as the Harlem Renaissance developed at the end of World War I in 1918, which thrived in the mid- to late 1920s, and faded in the mid-1930s.

     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.

Harlem Renaissance was undoubtedly a cultural and social-political movement for the African American race. The Renaissance was many things to people, but it is best described as a cultural movement in which the high level of black artistic cultural production, demanded and received recognition. Many African American writers, musicians, poets, and leaders were able to express their creativity in many ways in response to their social condition. Until the Harlem Renaissance, poetry and literature were dominated by the white people and were all about the white culture. One writer in particular, Langston Hughes, broke through those barriers that very few African-American artists had done before this

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural and social movement that occurred due to black migration to the north increasing the social and economic boom. Langston Hughes is one of the influential African Americans that contributed to the Harlem Renaissance, by writing about events and his surroundings, his work was able to help struggling African Americans. Langston Hughes was born in February 1, in 1902 in Missouri. He began writing poetry while living in Lincoln, Illinois and years later he launched his literary career with his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Most of his writings were influenced by his upbringing in New York City’s Harlem, which was a predominantly black community.

One of the many revolutionary eras in history was the Harlem renaissance. This was a sudden cultural revolution that was realized in the 1920s and it became popularly known as the “Harlem Renaissance” or “The New Negro movement”. This is a particular era that the African American people draw pride in. the era saw a cultural, social, music and art explosion of epic proportions This was aimed at shifting the stereotypical view of black people as uneducated, intellectually deprived farmers to one of a complex, organized and intellectually equal to the whites. The Harlem renaissance took place in 1920s thru 1930s. This era saw a phenomenon rise in famous black writers and marked the onset of blues, musical theatre, blues, dance and poetry. The new art caught on an appealed to the whites as well. Harlem became a cultural and literature center. The African Americans artists and writers were gaining recognition from the white. [2]

The Harlem Renaissance, was part of the larger "New Negro" cultural and intelligent movement of the 1920s, remains one of the most studied and popular periods of American and African American literary and cultural history. It was also was a period between World War I and the Great Depression when black artists and writers flourished in the United States. Critics and historians have assigned varying dates to the movement 's beginning and end, but most tend to agree that by 1917 there were signs of increased cultural activity among black artists in the Harlem area of New York City and that by the mid-1930s the movement had lost much of its original vigor.

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

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, social, and artistic movement that took place in Harlem, New York. This mainly took place starting from the end of the First World War until the mid-1930s. Harlem, at this time, was the center of the African-American culture, and Harlem appealed lot of black artists, writers, scholars, musicians, poets, and photographers. Lots of these artists had fled from the South because they needed to get away from their oppressive caste system so that they could express themselves freely, and display their talents. The Harlem Renaissance was considered to be the “rebirth of African-American arts”. This movement mainly started around 1918 and ended during the mid-1930s. Some of the major writers during this time of the Harlem Renaissance were Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Countee Cullen, Zoe Neale Hurston, and Marcus Gravey. Lots of these themes that these writers wrote about are themes that to this day artists try to make a point of emphasis, including the American Dream, effects of racism on the black population, black identity, and human rights (Wormser).

The era in American history known as the Harlem Renaissance was a turning point in the lives of blacks in the United States. Harlem, a predominantly black urban community in New York, was the primary destination of the Great Migration. As such, it became the birthplace of a historic cultural movement. The movement of blacks from the southern states to the northern states after the Civil War kick-started the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement among blacks in the 1900’s that positively affected not only black Americans but the world around them.

The Harlem Renaissance was a movement of cultural appreciation of African Americans looking for better life in the neighborhood of Harlem. Producing works in music, literature, and art, stressing the importance of equality and appreciation amongst their different cultures between Whites and Blacks. After The Migration, very important figures of the time of the Harlem Renaissance emerged such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer, Arna Bontemps, and Claude McKay who contributed literary works which had large influences. The Harlem Renaissance changed the lives of African Americans and viewpoints of their own culture along with other cultures viewpoint of their own.

It was a safe haven for the historically tyrannized black community; Harlem was a place the black community could flourish without the fear if other groups’ unapproval or obstruction. In this time, African American culture blossomed, and names such as Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Alain Locke became household name. This era, which would become to be known as the Harlem Renaissance, allowed blacks to break free of the limitations they had felt in the South; African Americans went from being objectified and devalued, to being misplaced in Southern society, to finding their cultural voice in Harlem. Through artistic pursuits by the age’s most memorable blacks, the Harlem Renaissance changed the social perception of blacks in America and heavily contributed to the rise of the mid-1900’s Black Civil Rights

The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that spanned the 1920s. It was the name given to the cultural, social and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York. During this time, it was known as the “New Negro Movement” named after the 1926 anthology by Alain Locke. The movement also included the new African American Cultural expression across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United State affected by the Great Migration of which Harlem was the largest. The Harlem Renaissance was considered to be a rebirth of African American Literary Movement arose from generation that lived through the gains and losses of Reconstruction after the American civil war. Art and music also flourished during Harlem’s golden age. Plays and concerts

during this time he quickly became a part of the Harlem Renaissance. Four years later,

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement and the enlightenment of black minds as a whole. This movement sparked the minds of many leaders such as Marcus Garvey, W.E.B Dubois, and Langston Hughes, these men would also come to be known as the earliest Civil Rights activists. While Garvey and Dubois expressed their views in speeches and rallies Hughes had a different approach and chose to articulate his thoughts and views through literature more specifically poetry. Through his poetry, Hughes became a world renown poet for such works as “Let America Be America Again”, “Harlem” and “I Too” taken from his first book “The Weary Blues.” These poems while written and inspired by the everyday struggles of being an African-American were arguably targeted at white Americans. Hughes wrote a majority of his work during the Harlem Renaissance and as a result focused on “injustice” and “change” in the hopes that society would recognize their mistake and reconcile, but in order for this to happen he would have to target the right audience.