Think about the word Harlem.

What associations do you have with this word? What images, ideas, thoughts

come to you?

The Harlem Renaissance

1917-1937 or so

Movement within Modernist Literature

Harlem Renaissance Overview

The Movement

“A literary, artistic, and intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity”

Critic and teacher Alan Locke declared that through art, “Negro life is seizing its first chances for group expression and self determination”

Locke’s “New Negro” transformed “social disillusionment to race pride”

Background

As the American Civil War came to an end, African-Americans experienced a growth in educational and employment opportunities

Black middle class was created

1896 – Plessy v. Ferguson (court case that deemed segregation acceptable)

Boll weevils ruin cotton crops in the South, causing economic depression (less labor opportunities)

African-Americans began to move North by the millions to find work and to escape racial prejudice

Known as “The Great Migration”

Why Harlem?

Neighborhoods in Harlem were first built to house white workers commuting to the city

Housing developments grew faster than the transportation that would bring residents

White-middle class abandons Harlem; gentrification of Mid-town forced many blacks to leave the area

As a result, between 1900-1920, the population of African-Americans in NYC doubled

Many of the country’s best black artists, entrepreneurs and intellectuals settled in Harlem

Became known as “The Black Mecca”

Notable landmarks of

Harlem

Apollo Theatre

The Cotton Club

Striver’s Row

Notable LandmarksStriver’s Row The Cotton Club

Art of the Period

Jacob Lawrence –

“Street Life”

Archibald Motley“Nightlife”

Archibald Motley “The Jazz Singers”

Literature of the Movement

Whites fascinated by the world of Harlem

Publishing industry sought out black writers

Much of the literature focused on realistic portrayal of black life

Movement’s intent was not political, but aesthetic Any attempt to defy racial prejudice through writing

was “secondary to the expression of our dark-skinned selves” – Langston Hughes

A New Perspective Emerges Through Art

The Old Negro

Characterized by “implied inferiority”

Black artists/writers did not control means of production

Did not control editorial changes, etc.

The “New Negro”

Racially conscious

Self-assertive

Articulate/Intellectual

In charge of what they produced

Writers of the Period

Black urban migration, combined with the willingness of Americans to experiment during the 1920s and the rise of black intellectuals like Alan Locke and W.E.B. DuBois contributed to the writing styles of this era

Notable writers and poets of the period: Langston Hughes Countee Cullen Zora Neal Hurston Nella Larson Jean Toomer

Literary Characteristics

Creation of art and literature should serve to “uplift” the race

Some writers explored themes such as alienation and marginality

Some writers relied on the rich African-American tradition of folklore, black dialect, oral culture, jazz and blues music to create different forms of writing

Some writers wrote about the growth of the African-American into a more urban and sophisticated person

“Reflects the multiple ways the black experience was perceived and expressed”

Focus Poet – Langston Hughes (1902-

1967) Some of Hughes’

most famous poems: Harlem (A Dream D

eferred) I, Too Negro Speaks of Ri

vers Theme for English

B

Cultural and Political Impact

Politics:

NAACP founded in 1909 – (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) paved way for other political groups of the same nature

Negro Improvement Association founded by Marcus Garvey

Culture:

The introduction and transformation of the world of Jazz

Musicians such as Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday

Duke Ellington statue

End of the Renaissance

End of the 1920s brought the end of white infatuation with Harlem

The Great Depression hit black Americans especially hard

Leaders who came to rise in Harlem shifted focus from art and intellect to financial and social issues

Tensions mounted between blacks community and white shop-owners in Harlem and culminated in the Harlem Riots of 1935 – first modern race riot –

Violence shattered image of Harlem as a “mecca”

Paved the way for future African-American writers like Gwendolyn Brooks