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The Harlem Renaissance was a movement bringing about the artistic talents of African Americans. Poets, writers, journalists, and novelists with big names like Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Alain Locke were finally getting the attention they deserved. The political and social movement for freedom was expressed through the black culture, and the Harlem Renaissance opened the doors for African Americans to show this expression through literature, song, dance, performance, and art. “Attempting to use literary and visual means of art production to historicize and articulate the black American experience. Harlem Renaissance artists sought to distinguish a unique African American artistic tradition rooted in an African past.”
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of these artists were extremely political in the sense of, yes, they were attempting to bring to light the African American culture and identity, however, it is much more difficult all while fighting off racism and challenging notions of white supremacy and inequality. While the African American cultural tradition was a significant focus during this time, so was the black cultural experience in America as a whole. “Even so, the insistence on a distinctively black cultural history that was central to an American identity informed and shaped the work of later black art movements and solidified the relationship between black art forms and political protest.” The idea of black art was always a political issue in America, simply because the acknowledgement of black contributors was frowned upon by most. Racism during the Harlem Renaissance was still a big issue in the world.
With slavery being abolished only about 70 years back, there were still race riots, lynchings, and racial violence in the communities. A second KKK was also on the rise and growing at a very fast pace. However, as the African American community was growing stronger as a unit, the organizations and hate groups that were against them began to slowly dwindle down. White Americans were beginning to finally see and appreciate what the African Americans had to offer; the art and talents, ideas and views. Harlem began to get visits from the caucasians, less segregation and more acceptance arose, and slowly but surely, whites bagan moving into …show more content…
Harlem. Economy during the Harlem Renaissance was impacted in a significant way. It was now a consumer economy and things were drastically changing in efforts to have a simpler life. During the 1920’s, attempts to make life a little easier for the middle and upper-class families were increasing. New household products were on the rise, leading to more downtime and less effort. The term and use of “credit” was becoming more of a modern day thing, giving trustworthy customers the ability to buy now and pay later. Techniques like “advertising” were used to gain more attention from consumers. These increasing conveniences were just a small part of the economic impact the Harlem Renaissance had on Americans. The Harlem Renaissance movement opened doors for a number of business organizations and commercial networks. Organizations like the National Association of Wage Earners, the National Negro Business League, the National Urban League, and the Universal Negro Improvement Association began to expand, all to benefit the African American community in some way or another. For instance, the main goal of the National Association of Wages Earned was to improve the living conditions for women, specifically migrant workers and help encourage the work ethic of African American workers at large. The Universal Negro Improvement Association, an organization founded by Marcus Garvey, supported racial separatism and assisted blacks with self-help and self-improvement services, it was also a source for small businesses that needed start-up assistance. Marcus Garvey created one of the biggest followed organizations in Harlem Renaissance history, the Universal Negro Improvement Association. With a following of over two million, Garvey was able to hold his first convention with the organization in New York in the year 1920. During the convention, in front of a crowd of thousands, Garvey proposed a plan to build an African nation-state. Garvey was supported by many people and his organization began to expand. In efforts to gain more support and attention, Garvey created his newspaper “Negro World” and began to tour the country proclaiming black nationalism to thousands. Eventually, his organization of the National Negros Improvement Association got the attention he was looking for and he was able to open up approximately 1,000 branches in 40 different countries around the world. Garvey was also responsible for the Back to Africa movement in America. He would encourage African Americans to return to Africa, their ancestral homeland. Garvey wanted blacks to be proud of their culture and where they came from. In an attempt to get as many African Americans back to their native land, Garvey founded the Black Star Line. The Black Star Line was an organization made to give the transportation needed to get to Africa.
Efforts to obtain land for American settlers in Africa were unsuccessful after Garvey’s attempt to persuade the Liberian government. However, the Black Star Line did provide transportation, on several occasions, to Central America and the Caribbean. Issues with the economy slowly began to rise. “As the line faced bankruptcy resulting from shady dealings by some Universal Negro Improvement Association officials, the federal government launched a relentless investigation on the man millions referred to as the ‘Black
Messiah’” Garvey was ultimately convicted in 1925 for defrauding investors. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison but eventually was deported back to Jamaica. Although, many middle and upper-class African Americans turned their backs on Garvey, his UNIA organization was still the largest movement in African American history, attracting followers from all over the world. In the end, Garvey’s ideas didn’t all follow through, but he was still looked upon as a hero and big influencer for many African Americans. African American culture was highly influenced by the Harlem Renaissance. “Harlem, along with the blacks, was pregnant with expression, creativity, intellectual gift and thus, gave birth to poets of literary repute, groovy musicians, radical political leaders, enticing artists, and expressive dramatists and visceral visionary novelists.” Literature, music, and the arts were all different ways black people could express their feelings, thoughts, and identities. The literary aspect of the Harlem Renaissance was a significant factor during this time. Social expression of brilliant ideas was a normal read in the works of literature written through the years. World renowned poets, like Countee Cullen and James Weldon Johnson herald the future for African American writers, novelists, and poets. These poems were usually relatable between the blacks. Recurring themes in everyday life were written about and read by those who could relate to the oppression expressed by all blacks in this lifetime and long before. A life changing achievement for the African American writers occured in the year 1925, when a magazine called, Survey Graphic, published the literary works of many authors, like Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, and Jesse Redmon Fauset. This was a turning point in African American history and a long awaited achievement appreciated by all. Around the period of World War 1, people would try to use anything to take their minds off of the the tragedies and disasters of the war. In doing so, people turned to music to calm the nerves and soothe the soul. If you weren’t singing or humming a song yourself, you were at the local nightclubs listening to anyone that could a hold a tune. The nightclubs were famous for musical performances, get-togethers, and most importantly, liquor. Although liquor laws were at an all time high as a result of the Prohibition, nightclubs could still gain access to liquor. “Thc Cotton Club, a famous nightclub known by many, had some of the famous musicians of the Harlem Renaissance, like Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and much more.” The music played was jazzy, upbeat and groovy, people began referring to this period in musical history as the Jazz Age. nightclubs and the entertainment they brought became a sensation for blacks and whites, alike, during the Harlem Renaissance. Expression of feelings, thoughts, and ideas were also portrayed in works of art. Art was said to be at its prime time during the Harlem Renaissance era. “A theme that most Black artists treated, was the ascendance of status of the African Americans. There was pride, cultural sophistication and dignity that reflected through their paintings with themes and motifs, visually vivid, yet diced with complex inticasies.” Themes like slavery, freedom, black identity, and the experiences of modern black life in the urban areas of the north, were expressed in the art forms of paintings, sculptures, song, dance, and even photographs. The idea of ‘black’ being ‘beautiful’ was one of the famous sculptor, Richmond Barthe, an expressive artist who valued the graceful qualities of blacks and would use that in his works of art. Experience of modern blak life was captured through photography as the years went on. Photographers, like James L. Allen and James Van Der Zee expressed their art by making everyday life as an African American, stilled works of art that were permanently on film. Unfortunately, the idea of the Harlem Renaissance eventually collapsed. With racism being a factor not eliminated from the equation, and opposition of many still at an all time high, the Renaissance dwindled into a time in the past. The Harlem Renaissance was looked upon as African Americans trying to erase the memories and past of oppression, slavery, and other impactful tragedies of black life, by emphasizing the findings of new identity in African American society. The effects of the Harlem Renaissance politically, socially, economically and culturally were all positive progressions towards a better life for blacks. Although the movement of African American culture and recognition didn’t last long during this time in history, the Harlem Renaissance was an influential and highly remembered era, known as the Golden Age in America and in the lives of African Americans as a whole. “Indeed American culture was reborn in the Harlem Renaissance.”
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement of blacks that helped changed their identity. Creative expression flourished because it was the only chance blacks had to express themselves in any way and be taken seriously. World War I and the need for workers up North were a few pull factors for the migration and eventually the Renaissance. A push was the growing discrimination and danger blacks were being faced with in the southern cities. When blacks migrated they saw the opportunity to express themselves in ways they hadn’t been able to do down south. While the Harlem Renaissance taught blacks about their heritage and whites the heritage of others, there were also negative effects. The blacks up North were having the time of their lives, being mostly free from discrimination and racism but down South the KKK was at its peak and blacks that didn’t have the opportunities to migrate experienced fatal hatred and discrimination.
The Harlem Renaissance is the name given to a period at the end of World War I through the mid-30s, in which a group of talented African-Americans managed to produce outstanding work through a cultural, social, and artistic explosion. Also known as the New Negro Movement. It is one of the greatest periods of cultural and intellectual development of a population historically repressed. The Harlem Renaissance was the rebirth of art in the African-American community mostly centering in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. Jazz, literature, and painting emphasized significantly between the artistic creations of the main components of this impressive movement. It was in this time of great
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and literary period of growth promoting a new African American cultural identity in the United States. The decade between 1920 and 1930 was an extremely influential span of time for the Black culture. During these years Blacks were able to come together and form a united group that expressed a desire for enlightenment. This renaissance allowed Blacks to have a uniform voice in a society based upon intellectual growth. The front-runners of this revival were extremely focused on cultural growth through means of intellect, literature, art and music. By using these means of growth, they hoped to destroy the pervading racism and stereotypes suffocating the African American society and yearned for racial and social integration. Many Black writers spoke out during this span of time with books proving their natural humanity and desire for equality.
“Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives” This was said by Aberjhani in the book Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotation from a Life Made Out of Poetry. Poetry during the Harlem Renaissance was the way that African Americans made sense out of everything, good or bad, that “contextualized” their lives. The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the Black Renaissance or New Negro Movement, was a cultural movement among African Americans. It began roughly after the end of World War 1 in 1918. Blacks were considered second class citizens and were treated as such. Frustrated, African Americans moved North to escape Jim Crow laws and for more opportunities. This was known as the Great Migration. They migrated to East St. Louis, Illinois, Chicago 's south side, and Washington, D.C., but another place they migrated to and the main place they focused on in the renaissance is Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance created two goals. “The first was that black authors tried to point out the injustices of racism in American life. The second was to promote a more unified and positive culture among African Americans"(Charles Scribner 's Sons). The Harlem Renaissance is a period
2. The African American culture blossomed during the Harlem Renaissance, particularly in creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American literary history. Embracing literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts, participants sought to reconceptualize “the Negro” apart from the white stereotypes that had influenced black peoples’ relationship to their heritage and to each other. They also sought to break free of Victorian moral values and bourgeois shame about aspects of their lives that might, as seen by whites, reinforce racist beliefs. Never dominated by a particular school of thought but rather characterized by intense debate, the movement laid the groundwork for all later African American literature and had an enormous
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.
The New Negro Movement, widely known as The Harlem Renaissance, rolled into Harlem, New York – and touched the whole of America – like a gale-force wind. As every part of America reveled in the prosperity and gaiety of the decade, African Americans used the decade as a stepping stone for future generations. With the New Negro Movement came an abundance of black artistic, cultural, and intellectual stimulation. Literary achievers like Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston, Claude McKay, and Countee Cullen rocked the world with their immense talent and strove to show that African Americans should be respected. Musicians, dancers, and singers like Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Josephine Baker and Bessie Smith preformed for whites and blacks alike in famed speakeasies like The Cotton Club. Intellectuals like Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, and Alain Locke stood to empower and unify colored people of all ages. The Harlem Renaissance was not just a moment in time; it was a movement of empowerment for African Americans across the nation, and remains as such today.
The Harlem Renaissance, originally known as “the New Negro Movement”, was a cultural, social, and artistic movement during the 1920’s that took place in Harlem. This movement occurred after the World War I and drew in many African Americans who wanted to escape from the South to the North where they could freely express their artistic abilities. This movement was known as The Great Migration. During the 1920’s, many black writers, singers, musicians, artists, and poets gained success including Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Du Bois. These creative black artists made an influence to society in the 1920’s and an impact on the Harlem Renaissance.
During the Great Migration, an influx of African Americans fled to Northern cities from the South wishing to flee oppression and the harshness of life as sharecroppers. They brought about a new, black social and cultural identity- a period that later became known as the Harlem Renaissance. Originally the Harlem Renaissance was referred to as the “New Negro Movement” (Reader’s Companion.) It made a huge impact on urban life. The Harlem Renaissance played a major role in African American art, music, poetic writing styles, culture and society.
The months and even the years prior to the Harlem Renaissance were very bleak and the future of life in America for African-Americans didn’t seem to bode very well. Well, progression towards and reaching the era known as the Harlem Renaissance changed the whole perception of the future of the African-American people as well as life for the group as we know it today. It can be best described by George Hutchinson as ”a blossoming (c. 1918–37) of African American culture, particularly in the creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American literary history [that took place specifically in Harlem]. Embracing literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts.”. With an increase in the focus of “Black culture”, America seems to be changing its norms with the introduction of this new movement or rather this new “era”.
Occurring in the 1920’s and into the 1930’s, the Harlem Renaissance was an important movement for African-Americans all across America. This movement allowed the black culture to be heard and accepted by white citizens. The movement was expressed through art, music, and literature. These things were also the most known, and remembered things of the renaissance. Also this movement, because of some very strong, moving and inspiring people changed political views for African-Americans. Compared to before, The Harlem Renaissance had major effects on America during and after its time.
The Harlem Renaissance was a period of great rebirth for African American people and according to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the “Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s.” Wikipedia also indicates that it was also known as the “Negro Movement, named after the 1925 Anthology by Alan Locke.” Blacks from all over America and the Caribbean and flocked to Harlem, New York. Harlem became a sort of “melting pot” for Black America. Writers, artists, poets, musicians and dancers converged there spanning a renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was also one of the most important chapters in the era of African American literature. This literary period gave way to a new type of writing style. This style is known as “creative literature.” Creative literature enabled writers to express their thoughts and feelings about various issues that were of importance to African Americans. These issues include racism, gender and identity, and others that we...
The Harlem Renaissance was an African-American cultural movement that took place in the 1920’s and the 1930’s, in Harlem NYC, where black traditions, black voice, and the black ways of life were celebrated. Alain LeRoy Locke, also known as the “Father of the Harlem Renaissance”, was a philosopher best known for his writing and support of the movement. Alain LeRoy Locke impacted the Harlem Renaissance by helping the spread of black culture and being declared the father of the movement; the movement has also influenced African-American art and culture into the modern era since the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance can be seen in the work of Jo-Vaughn Virginie Scott and in movement groups such as Black Lives Matter.
... The Harlem Renaissance was a time of growth and development for African-Americans. They wrote novels, performed in clubs, and created the genre of Jazz. However, the Renaissance was imprisoned by its flaws. Rather than celebrating the unique culture of African-American’s, it oftentimes caters to what the White Americans would want to see and hear.
During the 20th century a unique awakening of mind and spirit, of race consciousness, and