Narrative: South Harlem In The 1960's

Art has always been used to voice emotions or stories in a way that can easily be understood. Conquering nations used art to immortalize their leaders, warriors and conquests. Similarly, conquered nations used art to keep their cultures alive. This pattern of dueling voices, those in power versus the oppressed, is shown throughout American art. From slavery and the Civil War to World War II to the modern day, art has been there to stand up to oppressors and keep faith alive for the oppressed. No era better shows a revolution against oppression and cruelty through art than the Harlem Renaissance of the early 1920s.

The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York between the conclusion of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. During this period, Harlem was a cultural center, drawing black writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars. Many had come from the South, fleeing its oppressive caste system in order to find a place where they could freely express their talents; this became known as The Great Migration. Among those artists whose works achieved recognition were Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Arna Bontemps, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jean Toomer. The Renaissance involved racial pride, fueled in part by the violence of the "New Negro" demanding civil and political rights. The Renaissance incorporated jazz and the blues, attracting whites to Harlem speakeasies, where interracial couples danced. However, the Renaissance had little impact on breaking down the rigid barriers of Jim Crow that separated the races; while it may have contributed to a certain slackening of racial attitudes among young whites, perhaps its greatest impact was to reinforce race pride among blacks. The importance of the social movement we refer to as the Harlem Renaissance cannot afford to be overlooked. Like the musicians of their day, Harlem Renaissance poets advocated for an equal society, and incorporated personal anecdotes and historical snippets into their compositions to make the

Over a significant time frame, African Americans have been forced to endure numerous hardships – one of which being the negatives stigmas that unfairly generalize their people, culture and way of life. Therese stereotypes of a whole nationality label Blacks as, “superstitious, lazy, ignorant, dirty, unreliable, (and even) criminal,” (“Stereotypes”). Such generalizations are products of the public’s perception, which has been diluted by rooted historic and current prejudice as well as the media’s conveyance of a well-known African American cultural center: Harlem. Despite negative connotations associated with it, Harlem stands as a community that strives to flourish and maintain its strong cultural status. George Canada, the founder of the

The Harlem Renaissance, which is also known as the “New Negro Movement”, was a movement that was considered to have spanned throughout history from 1918and lasted until the mid-1930s. The main reason for the migration from the north to the south resulted from the Jim Crow Laws. Most Negroes felt they would be better off in the north than in the south. However the Ku Klux Klan was renounced by the republican whites but Democratic whites maintained power in the South by denying blacks the right to exercise their civil and political rights with lynch mobs and other forms of corporal punishment.

Between the years of 1910 and 1930, the United States underwent what is now known as the Great African American Migration. Hundreds of thousands of blacks were fleeing their oppressed lives in post-Civil War South, where Jim Crow laws had ruled their lives for nearly fifty years. Meanwhile, black orators and scholars such as W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey were working to diminish black suppression through persuasive intellectual writing and speeches. Their work inspired the black people of America, which heavily contributed to their migration North, and more specifically, to the cities. In Harlem, the most northern Manhattan sector in New York City, the population was mainly of color, making it a destination point for

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

In history there is a part that everyone wants to change and make it better. That is slavery and treatment that was given to the people. But it is history and can’t be changed, the positive is that African-Americans made great contributions to history, which many of them took place in the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem between the end of World War 1 and the middle of the 1930’s. When many of the men went to world war 1, a few African Americans from the south moved to New York. A specific white community called Harlem.

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 was a period of explosive cultural and intellectual growth for the African Americans because it was a literary, artistic, and intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity. The Harlem Renaissance took place in Harlem, New York City during the 1920-1930’s. Many of the things that came about during the Harlem Renaissance were things such as jazz, poetry, dance, music theaters, and black writers. This time was also known as the New Negro Movement, was considered a phenomenon and made Harlem the center for art and literature. The Harlem Renaissance was the most influential period for cultural black history, in many different aspects.

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 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.

Growing up in Harlem isn’t easy in the 1980’s. In this era, you were either selling crack or doing it. So far, I was the only boy on my block that was actually going to school. My mama always watched me out the window and yelled “Boy you better hurry up and get your behind to school”. She was on top of me because she didn’t want me to end up like my older brothers. My older brothers, Javon and Tyler, were good people until they hung around the wrong crowd. They took the easier way to get money but then they had a pretty rough downfall. Javon is doing 10 years in jail for murder and Tyler is doing 4 years for getting caught selling drugs. Mama wanted me to be the opposite of those fools and actually go to college and get a good job. My dad

The Harlem Renaissance is better known as, “The New Negro Movement” began in the 1920’s. It was a product of centuries of African American suffering and oppression especially in southern states and their subsequent migration to northern states. As White supremacy began increasing in the south, Jim Crow laws involving segregation of African Americans did as well. Thousands of African Americans began migrating from the south to the urban northern states, specifically New York. This movement is known as the Great Migration. African Americans believed that they would receive better treatment in the north because they did not have laws of segregation. However, the whites in the north were also prejudiced and did not accept African Americans with

The author discusses that within narratology there is two approaches to understanding the structure of narratives. They induces them as structuralism and hermeneutics and discuss how these can be ways to view a text. They describe structuralism as an approach with the traditional sense of a narrative. It deals with the plot, characters, as theming parts of the whole that are meant to characterize its structure. On the other side of the coin, hermeneutics is a dissection of the text to find the meaning of the narrative. The author purposes

Case (2010) introduces this narrative organization, which divides the narrative piece into three dimensions. The first dimension focuses on locating the story or main idea that the teller is getting across in his or her narrative. The second investigates the use of language within the narrative is analyzed and focuses on what is being said. The third dimension concentrates on the culture and situation that produces the context of the narrative and the fourth focuses on turning point moments where the teller describes a significant occurrence. This method will not only reveal reoccurring motifs of belonging but will also investigate how the use of language changes and the context in which they are used differs from student to