By: Maya Patel

Harlem Renaissance

"There has never been a movement where the leader has not suffered for the cause and not received the ingratitude of the People I like

the rest am prepared for the consequences.”

By: Zora Neale Hurston

The Harlem Renaissance, like the Hip Hop movement, was not simply just about music, but reached also into other forms of art such as dance and visual arts. Both attempted to bring recognition to the African American community in a time without civil rights, in a time when the outside world chose to ignore the world of Harlem and the larger community of the Black race.

Artistic Elements

Harlem Renaissance art was considered activist during its time. Many of its artists showed the night life and everyday life of their Harlem contemporaries. It also attempted to separate itself from what White America had accepted as art up until this period. Many artists also tried to make statements about racism, the Great Migration, and slavery.

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The Harlem Renaissance is not marked by one particular style, but rather by the fact that it encompassed a great many styles. It embraced men and women, realist and surrealist, folk and classically trained; however, they were all African American and they were all trying to convey the African American experience and create an identity for their peers.

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The Harlem Renaissance was the first period in the history of the United States in which a group of black poets, authors, and essayists seized the opportunity to express themselves. There are two basic conditions which fostered this unique situation: the American Negro’s contact with other blacks from different parts of the world which gave him a renewed sense of self-respect, and mass migration of Negroes from the South to major northern industrial area one of them being Harlem.

Social Elements

Those writers who accepted the “American Dream” became image-builders. They used all the individual achievements of the Negro in the arts as evidence that the Negro was ready for integration into American society. These same writers were faced with two major problems. One was that they had to cope with the stereotype of the Negro as lazy. The black writer could not present too radical a portrayal of the Negro for fear of incurring white reprisal. Some whites wanted only to be assured that the Negro was loyal and docile. Second, the image-builders had to deal with the stereotyped Negro created by the theater. 

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The Renaissance came to an end in 1929 with the start of the Great Depression, which brought poverty and violence to Harlem. It was this violence which chased away the affluent whites and white intellectuals to a safer environment on the island paradises of the Caribbean. Before departing, however, this group left its mark on Harlem. Without their financial and literary support, the renaissance would have been slower in developing.

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With racism still rampant and economic opportunities scarce, creative expression was one of the few avenues available to African Americans in the early twentieth century. Chiefly literary the birth of jazz is generally considered a separate movement—the Harlem Renaissance, according to Locke, transformed "social disillusionment to race pride."

Literary Movement

The Harlem Renaissance was the most visible consequence of the first mass movement of African-Americans out of the Deep South during and following World War I. To blacks who had grown up in the culture of Jim Crow segregation the liberating effect of northern society, although not without many aspects of segregation, was truly exhilarating, to the mind and soul as well as to the pocket book.

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Before the start of the Renaissance, the son of ex-slaves, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was the first African-American poet to rise to national prominence. His poetry took two paths: for one he used standard English; for the other, a variation on African-American dialect. His books include Oak and Ivy, Majors and Minors, and Lyrics of a Lowly Life.

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  In many cases, the climate of this era invited critique and revisions to existing spiritual and theological assumptions. As a result, neo-orthodox approaches to traditional Christianity became popular. This phenomenon included: mega-type churches; sect/cult approaches; religious nationalists; and highly emotional storefront churches.

Religious Elements

Charles A. Tinley, an African American cleric-musician becomes the first African American to compose and publish hymns. His style consisted of a genre of Gospel Blues that precipitated expanded forms of worship expression. Of course, Harlem churches were crucial in these expressions.

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Current progressive modes of thinking and experimentations of life-based philosophies promote the founding of mind science and Theo-nationalist groups that appear in Harlem. The Universal Temple of Tranquility was formed. In addition, Wali D. Fard combines a visionary ideal of religious nationalism that fosters the eventual Nation of Islam(aka Black Muslims). An historic temple was erected in Harlem.

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One of the main events that precipitated the Harlem Renaissance was the displacement and migration of Southern Blacks from the south to the industrialized north.  Many former slaves left the south looking for work and to escape the institutionalized racism that fueled the southern economy.  Since industrial jobs in the North were abundant and well-paying, many blacks relocated there.  As more people moved into cities, segregation led to the creation of predominantly Black neighborhoods with a culture and identity that was unhindered by the restraints of slavery. 

Political Elements

Many Blacks in Harlem were under the spell of the West Indian caste system, which has three groups, white, yellow and black.  In-group racism was common in Harlem and still persists to this day.  Marcus Garvey alludes to this system in many of his writings.  While Harlem was as close to heaven as possible as far as freedom from daily racism goes, the rest of the country and especially the South was oppressive and violent. The case of “The Scottsboro Boys” as it came to be called is especially instructive in viewing this reality.

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The abundance of jobs and amalgamation of people into neighborhoods catalyzed the development of areas like Harlem. The proximity of people to each other and the development of neighborhoods allowed many blacks to form their own networks, publications, and organizations. This development of organizational strength would allow for the continued development of cultural and political ideas in Harlem and across the country.

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