Background Of The Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance

Background on Harlem Renaissance, Great migration

One of the most significant intellectual and artistic trends of twentieth century American history, the Harlem Renaissance impacted art, literature, and music in a manner that forever altered the American cultural landscape. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement in the 1920s through which African-American writers, artists, musicians, and thinkers sought to embrace black freed but still living in poverty as sharecroppers and facing discrimination and prejudice heritage and culture in American life.

The Great Migration, or the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from 1916 even into post WW2, had a huge impact on urban life in the United States. Driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws and lingering Southern racism, many blacks headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that first arose during the First World War.

When Southern Blacks were introduced to the cities they found that northern blacks had excelled as professionals. Beginning back in the late 1880’s blacks began to establish themselves as professionals in many different areas such as scientific research and the arts. By the 1900’s many became scholars, scientists, artists and poets and musicians. Some of the more prosperous and renowned of these scholars lived or migrated to Harlem New York. Harlem was the central hub of black talents and culture, there was a desire in its residents to preserve, defend and promote the talents and worth of African American culture.

Being introduced into this environment gave Southern Blacks aspirations ...

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... was a sense of nationalism and pride which followed the philosophy of the NAACP and ideas from WEB DuBois, Langston Hughes, and Alain Locke.

Out of the Great Migration came the Harlem Renaissance and the coming of the “New Negro,” a term representative of the renewed intellectual curiosity and pride of the culture and history of African Americans.

The birth of the Black Musician

Rise of the Black Musician, gaining popularity, prestige for white crowds, still second class citizens

The genre of music that they played, how it influenced the other existing genres. Talk about the other genres and what they were like, include details about musicians

Talk about the white musicians borrowing from black musicians to gain popularity, how this created rock and roll (check Wikipedia) be-bop, playing with back to audience, white music was seen by a larger audience.