THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

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THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE
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The Harlem Renaissance

• name given to the period from the end of World
  War I to the middle of the 1930s Depression
• a group of talented African-American writers,
  thinkers and artists produced a sizable
  contribution to American culture

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Why Harlem, New York?
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Why Renaissance?

• The term Renaissance refers to a rebirth, a
  blossoming.
• Why is this period considered a rebirth for
  African Americans?

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• THE NORTH THE PROMISED LAND
• AND A LAND OF BROKEN PROMISES
• Northern city life proves both exhilarating and
  extremely troubling for African Americans.
• Relative to the South, the North provides greater
  educational, political, social opportunities, but
  rising northern racism leads to strict
  residential segregation that causes overcrowding,
  run-down conditions, artificially high rents.
• Economically, gains moving from the South are
  real, but frustrations over social limits grow
  over time.

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Important Features of the HR

• Harlem remained - for a time - a race capital.
• The name, more than the place, became synonymous
  with new vitality.
• The complexity of the urban life was important
  for Blacks to truly appreciate the variety of
  Black life.
• Encouraged a new appreciation of folk roots and
  culture.
• Celebrated the folk arts and the mythology of an
  exotic Africa

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Themes of the Harlem Renaissance

• were varied and often came into conflict with
  each other
• Examples
• High culture vs. low culture
• Traditional (folk art) vs. modern
• Slavery and institutionalized racism
• Racial pride The New Negro

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Music of the HR The Jazz Age

• Bessie Smith
• Duke Ellington
• Louis Armstrong
• Cab Calloway

Cab Calloway http//www.youtube.com/watch?vHoG6dE
Z0u2Ifeaturerelated
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Jazz Homework Questions

• How did it originate and spread?
• How did it bridge the gap between races?
• How did African Americans feel about the
  popularity of Jazz among whites?
• Why is Jazz important to American culture?

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Artists of the HR
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Palmer HaydenThe Janitor Who Paints
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Palmer Hayden, The Tunnel
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Palmer Hayden
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Hale Woodruff
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Edward Burra, 1934
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Edward Burra
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Jacob Lawrence
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Writers of the HR

• Sterling Brown
• Claude McKay
• Langston Hughes
• Zora Neal Hurston
• James Weldon Johnson
• Countee Cullen
• Nella Larson
• Richard Wright

African American writers used art to prove their
humanity and demand equality
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The Young Black Intellectuals
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The Harlem Renaissance gave birth the many
important publications, such as Crisis magazine,
edited by W. E. B. DuBois, giving black writers a
place where their voices could be heard.
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The Making of Harlem by James Weldon Johnson

• To my mind, Harlem is more than a Negro
  community it is a large scale laboratory
  experiment in the race problem. The statement has
  often been made that if Negroes were transported
  to the North in large numbers the race problem
  with all of its acuteness would be transferred
  with them. Well, 175,000 Negroes live closely
  together in Harlem, in the heart of New York,
  75,000 more than live in any Southern city, and
  do so without any race friction. Nor is there any
  unusual record of crime.

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Zora Neal Hurston

• it is urgent to realize that the minorities do
  think, and think about something other than the
  race problem.

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Langston Hughes

• Cross
• My old mans a white old man
• And my old mothers black.
• If ever I cursed my white old man
• I take my curses back.
• If ever I cursed my black old mother
• And wished she were in hell,
• Im sorry for that evil wish
• And now I wish her well
• My old man died in a fine big house.
• My ma died in a shack.
• I wonder where Im going to die,
• Being neither white nor black?

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Legacy of the Harlem Renaissance?