The literature during the time of the Harlem Renaissance was made to uplift African American’s and improve the awareness of the black race not being treated the same as white people. With many famous authors writing about the struggles African American people faced throughout America made people notice what was actually happening to these people. All people are the same and nobody should ever be treated differently because the color of their skin, but sadly this was not enforced until later on after many black people were treated horribly. Harlem Renaissance authors made heroic exploits in racism in the United States, making a change in not only African American lives but a change in the country for the better. I agree that African American …show more content…
people were treated unfairly for a very long time. Claude McKay does a great job in the poem, “The Lynching” by using a black man being lynched to highlight the racism and terrible acts of violence against blacks in America. The poems first four lines McKay writes, His Spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven. His father, by the cruelest way of pain, Had bidden him to his bosom once again; The awful sin remained still unforgiven. (1-4) This shows the relationship between God and the African American man saying the white mans sins will not be forgotten in line four by calling their crime an “awful sin” that “remained still unforgiven”.
With so much violence going on down on earth or hell as it would seem through the black mans eyes it seems as if it was finally a peaceful time for these black people after being killed, finally being able to escape from all the torture going on. Then McKay goes on to describe how the community viewed the lynching. He gives a chilling image of children dancing around the lynched man. He writes, “And little lads, lynchers that were to be/ Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.” (13-14) Thinking about this makes you just realize how sick and cruel people were towards someone just because the color of their skin. Claude McKay shows us racism in very graphic and powerful imagery to make the message clear how unfair these people were being treated throughout many works of his literature. Langston Hughes was a writer who wanted to capture the oral and imaginative traditions of black culture in written form. In Hughes poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” he says, I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln… …show more content…
(4-7) What Langston Hughes is trying to explain is this poem is the importance of roots in the African American community knowing where they have come from to where you are now and the progress being made.
This shows exactly what Hughes is wanting us as readers to pick up on in his writing which is the pride and traditions of the black culture. There is so much power in all of Hughes poems trying to show us the readers the unfairness a black person faced and using examples really brings us in perspective. In “I, Too” he says “I am the darker brother./ They send me to eat in the kitchen/ When company comes,” (2-4). Reading this would make a lot of people an emotional wreck but that’s what makes this piece of literature so amazing at how it brings the reader in and how it makes the reader feel when seeing the hardship these black people had to face day in and day
out. The questions are never ending when talking about racism and African American history. Countee Cullins poem “Heritage” poses questions about the significance of the African continent with hypothetical answers. Cullen writes, “What is Africa to me:/ Copper sun or scarlet sea,/ Jungle star or jungle track,” (1-3). He goes on further than that asking questions about what he thinks Africa is to him. This is showing that many people have different views of Africa that no one person has the same view. Lastly Cullen wrote a poem with a harsh word to describe a black person but I believe what this word does is bring the readers into the situation where we are standing beside this black person while the little kid sticks their tongue out and calls him a N word. In Cullens poem “Incident” he says, “And so I smiled, but he poked out/ His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”” (7-8) To live as an African American back then where even the kids hated black people without knowing anything but what the parents taught them with no logically reasoning behind it to begin with. The authors that wrote in the Harlem Renaissance had a greater purpose than just becoming wealthy and famous. These authors had a moving purpose behind their poems and literature to uplift the African American population who were mistreated for a very long time. Not only to uplift but to strive to make these changes happen and bring awareness to the horrific impediments African Americans faced. I would have to say all the lives lost through horrible criminal acts did not go without making a difference. Both authors and fallen men, women, and children would be happy to see how far we have come from such horrible terrible times.
The Negro Speaks of Rivers and Mother to Son, explained the importance of the woman, light and darkness and strength in the African-American community. Hughes made a very clear and concise statement in focusing on women and the power they hold, light and darkness, and strength. Did his poems properly display the feelings of African-American’s in that time period? It is apparent that Hughes felt a sense of pride in his culture and what they had to endure. After all “Life ain’t been no crystal stair!”(Norton, Line 2, 2028)
The "New Negro," the Black writers in 1920/30, tried to get out of the dominant white assimilation and practice their own tradition and identity in autonomous and active attitude. In virtue of their activities, the Harlem Renaissance became the time of sprouting the blackness. It offered the life of the black as the criterion to judge how well the democracy practices in America and to weigh the measure of the dream of America. Their vitality and artistic spirit, and dreams were so impressive that the Harlem of the 1920s has never been eluded out from the memory of American (Helbling 2).
In fact, it is clear to the reader that Huggins makes a concerted effort to bring light to both ethnicities’ perspectives. Huggins even argues that their culture is one and the same, “such a seamless web that it is impossible to calibrate the Negro within it or to ravel him from it” (Huggins, 309). Huggins argument is really brought to life through his use of historical evidence found in influential poetry from the time period. When analyzing why African Americans were having an identity crisis he looked to a common place that African American looked to. Africa was a common identifier among the black community for obvious reasons and was where Authors and Artists looked for inspiration. African American artists adopted the simple black silhouette and angular art found in original African pieces. Authors looked to Africa in their poetry. In The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes, the names of rivers in Africa such as the Euphrates, the Congo and the Nile were all used and then the scene switches to the Mississippi river found in America showing that blacks have “seen”, or experienced both. Huggins looks deeply into Countee Cullen’s Heritage discussing “what is Africa to me?” a common identifier that united black artistry in the Harlem Renaissance, “Africa? A book one thumbs listlessly, till slumber comes” (Countee). The black community craved to be a separate society from white Americans so they were forced to go back to the past to find their heritage, before America and white oppression. Huggins finds an amazing variety of evidence within literature of this time period, exposing the raw feelings and emotion behind this intellectual movement. The connections he makes within these pieces of poetry are accurate and strong, supporting his initial thesis
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.
In the introduction to The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, David Levering Lewis states the Harlem Renaissance was not a cohesive movement, but a constructed and forced phenomenon that was “institutionally encouraged and directed by leaders of the national civil rights establishment for the paramount purpose of improving race relations.” (Lewis, xiii) However, after researching many influential artists, politicians, and orators of the time, I must disagree. While, yes, the movement of an entire cultural and racial awakening can only be seen as a phenomenon and the movement itself was by no means cohesive, these powerful men and women needed no institutionalized encouragement. Each of their works were their own with diverse ideas and methods, yet somehow, came together to form an interconnected goal within the movement.
That’s when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artist, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers”(Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). African Americans writers during this time was capturing the beauty of black lives. Blacks were discovering many reasons to have pride in their race. Racial pride was helping them achieve equality in society. People were starting to write the way they wanted, instead of the ways whites wanted. Creating their
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.
The Harlem Renaissance gave African American women new opportunities in literature. “The Harlem Renaissance was the 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 1930s.” (Wormser) It was a challenge for women poets during the Harlem Renaissance because they were both black and women. (Walton) Jessie Fauset, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Regina Anderson, and Nella Larson all played important roles in the Harlem Renaissance. (Lewis) These women inspired many generations of women to come. (Walton)
The Roaring Twenties a period when a dramatic social and political change happened. Researching about Harlem was learning about how the people contributed more the music to America’s New Urban Culture. The Harlem Renaissance was a significant movement during the 1920s were African American artists were brought together, explored what it means to be an artist, what it is to create art and literature, as well as what it means to be a proud African American in a community, that influence each to stand-up together in a white-dominant culture, furthermore Harlem was a hotbed of political, cultural and social activity. While researching about the 1920’s, I found out so
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 Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes is a compelling poem in which Hughes explores not only his own past, but the past of the black race. As the rivers deepen over time, the Negro's soul does too; their waters eternally flow, as the black soul suffers.