Harlem Renaissance Shyanna Fanning Humanities 112 Professor Pistone November 23, 2014 During the 1920’s, many African Americans migrated from the economically depressed South to the Industrial North to start a new life. With the large amount of migration occurring, African Americans now had the freedom to express their culture through art, music, poetry and literature. This movement is now known as the Harlem Renaissance. Two influential poets during the Harlem Renaissance were Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. These two African American poets helped inspire other African America individuals to express their culture during the Harlem Renaissance.
Arna Bontemps was an inspirational poet in Harlem who expressed his ideas through poetry. He helped African Americans earn equality through “A Black Man Talks of Reaping” to a great extent. The literary voice during the Great Migration influenced the explosion of life and culture in Harlem. The Great Migration is the relocation of six million African Americans from the south cities across the Northeast, Midwest and West. The Southern economy was one of the causes of the migration.
It rested on a support system of black patrons, black-owned businesses and publications. It was successful in establishing black identity as an integral part of American history. It influenced future generations of black writers, but it was largely ignored by the literary establishment after it waned in the 1930s. With the advent of the civil rights movement, it again acquired wider recognition. The symbolism and actual effects of the event served as a big inspiration for blacks in future struggles for their rights, like the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s (Hutchinson, George.
When I first read the poems, I noticed how both speakers identified the tremendous challenges all African Americans were confronted with. The speaker of “From the Darker Tower” identifies as someone who endures this struggle as well because he states, “we
Select one of the poems and explain why the poet is effective in presenting his message. Consider such elements: rhythm, rhyme, diction, imagery, and purpose. In this Petrarchan sonnet, Dunbar makes clear his message and expression of the pain of racial injustices after the Civil War. Douglass, as depicted as a great leader, is called upon for comfort through this problem that America faces. The purpose of this poem I feel is to represent the struggles the African Americans had to endure during their time being slaves while offering hope for the black community, letting the reader knows that one day someone will lead them out of this struggle and into their promise land.
The author explores the value of the artistic potential found in the black people and the manner that it has been absorbed into the American culture. The position of the black race has always faced series of criticisms and often been considered feeble.3 The author suggests that the only remedy to the matter is to behave as if there is no color difference between human races. After many years of holding back the true Negro
After minimal schooling, he traveled around Latin America and eventually ended up in England. He embraced the ideas of the Pan African Movement. These ideas were the groundwork for the organization he founded, the UNIA. He attracted working class blacks, who formed a devoted following of the man and his ideas. Both of these leaders, of course, were interested in the betterment of their race, but their different visions in achieving their goals led to a division that became both philosophical and intensely personal.
Writers, poets, painters, and musicians joined together to protest in there own way against the quality of life for black folks in the United States. Out of this grew what has been called the “Harlem Renaissance” or the “The Black Renaissance” or “The Black Renaissance” or “The Negro Movement”. But James Johnson informally inaugurated the movement with his publication of Fifty Years and Other Poems. His title poem referred to the fifty years that elapsed since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation which was suppose to bring first class citizenship to Negroes (Johnson 1968). Other books soon followed with collections of poems, novels written by Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, James Johnson, and
Of the many African American authors during this significant time period was Claude McKay. According to “The Harlem Renaissance” by Richard Worth, McKay’s poems express the many angles of the black experience (39). Of his many poems, one of the most influential was his poem “Harlem Shadows.” In “Harlem Shadows,” McKay refers to society ignoring the fact that young African American girls are forced into prostitution: “Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way of poverty, dishonor and disgrace, has pushed the timid little feet of clay, the sacred brown feet of my fallen race!”(McKay) Another literary piece written by McKay was his novel Home to Harlem. In this novel he described the everyday lives of Harlem residents and emphasized its music, lifestyles, etc. (Worth, 41).
graduate, as well as the first black member of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People. His thoughts and speeches clearly indicated that he felt that there would always be a division of people according to their race. In The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois indicates that the slaves sang songs that had messages of hope within them. Once of the most powerful was “that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins” (DuBois, 2006. p. 146). Conclusion DuBois thought that the color-line would be a problem in America for a long time, and he was right.