Intro to US 2 27 March 2012 The Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was a time in American history when African American culture could finally intermingle with the culture already established in America. Starting after World War 1, the HR was “about creating art that could be shared with others—both whites and blacks” (Rau 5). The influx of African Americans moving to Harlem was caused by the increasing hostility towards African Americans in the South. Around the start of the Great Migration, which was the movement of six million African Americans from the South to the North, there was a surge in Klu Klux Klan activity. Even thought there was not much more opportunity in the North, at least there was racial tolerance, something the African Americans of the South were craving.
Locke edited the March 1925 issue of the periodical Survey Graphic, a special on Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance, which helped educate white readers about the flourishing culture there. Later that year, he expanded the issue into The New Negro, a collection of writings by African Americans, which would become one of his best known works. (http://en.wikipedia.org). He also authored other books like The Negro In Anerica (1933), Negro Art: Past and Present (1936), and Negro in Art
Before Jazz, music was enjoyed in fancy balls and theaters by the rich. Due to the great migration and freedom of slavery, a new form of music spreads through the US. In the roaring Twenties Jazz affected society by increasing the African American Culture, allowing women to rebel social standards, helping form a new genera of literature, and formed a new Dance. Jazz was a largely African American music, an early American made music, and was born during the Harlem Renaissance. One of the first American made music was Jazz it generated from Ragtime and Blues.
Rachael Darrabie Professor Doku Freshman Composition 26 October 2011 “The South” “The South”, a poem written by Langston Hughes, represents the mindset that many migrants held during this time; an attitude that was the sole inspiration and motivation for the powerful racial pride that initiated the Harlem Renaissance. It was a demeanor developed from the social constructions in the South fused with the hopes and dreams of life in the North. The years between World War I and the Great Depression were good economic times for the United States, and jobs were plentiful in cities, especially in the North. Many southern blacks took advantage of this economic period which led to the start of the Great Migration; this gave Harlem its geographical importance. The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement, was direct product of the Great Migration through location, racial pride, and social construction.
The Harlem Renaissance was a time period where culture became a big issue in the African American community. More writers, poets, play wrights and other artistic figures came into place. Through this time (early 20th century) the term New Negro became more developed. The term originated from the 19th century as a sort of nick name for newly arrived slaves. The New Negro term included “violent resistance to oppression and the conservative anti-protest orientation of Booker T. Washington.” (Ferguson, 3) Writers had a big influence on the community throughout newspapers, magazines, etc; and most writers believe d that the New Negro should exemplify creativity, independence, strength, power, equality, and improvement.
The ethnic rainbow of people who went to the bars and whorehouses were a big part of the development of jazz. The city had been under Spanish and French rule because of the Louisiana Purchase. By 1900 it was a blend of Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, Slavic and many blacks originally brought in as slaves. Jazz musicians began moving north to take up residence several dozen of them landing in the great migratory target of Chicago alone (Shipton 132). From Chicago jazz quickly migrated to New York City that is where jazz became popular on the radio (Shipton 137) The first jazz bands contained a rhythm section consisting of a string bass, drums, and a guitar or banjo, and a melodic section with one or two cornets, a trombone, a clarinet, and sometimes even a violin.
W.E.B. Du Bois played a very important part in the creation of the NAACP. Mr. Du Bois was the association’s director of research and editor of its magazine, The Crisis. As the editor of the magazine and the director of research he was able to influence the middle-class blacks and whites as the person who publicized the black protest from 1910 until 1934. When you look at the work of W.E.B.
Bontemps moved to New York City shortly after his first poem “Hope” was published in THE CRISIS: A RECORD OF THE DARKER RACES (August 1924). Bontemps was an influential and significant member of the Harlem Renaissance. Many of the themes of his work had an integrative approach to African American writings; his attitude toward folk material and Africa, and his racial protest, reflect the primary concerns of Harlem Renaissance literature.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE African-American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley and Lucy Terry, reaching early high points with slave narratives of the nineteenth century. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a time of flowering of literature and the arts. Writers of African-American literature have been recognized by the highest awards, including the Nobel Prize to Toni Morrison. Among the themes and issues explored in this literature are the role of African Americans within the larger American society, African-American culture, racism, slavery, and equality.
In the decades immediately following World War I, huge numbers of African Americans migrated to the industrial North from the economically depressed and agrarian South. In cities such as Chicago, Washington, DC, and New York City, the recently migrated sought and found (to some degree) new opportunities, both economic and artistic. African Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to become "The New Negro," a term coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke in his influential book of the same name. Countee Cullen thought long and hard in his poems about his own and collective African-American identity. Some of his strongest poems question the benevolence of a Creator who has bestowed a race with such mixed blessings.