The Harlem Renaissance

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The Harlem Renaissance

• American Studies
• Mr. Olsen

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what weve seen in these last weeks is that
were also up against forces that are not the
fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits
that prevent us from being who we want to be as a
nation. Its the politics that tells us that we
have to think, act, and even vote within the
confines of the categories that supposedly define
us... The assumption that African-Americans cant
support the white candidate whites cant support
the African-American candidate blacks and
Latinos cant come together. .. Dont tell me
we cant change. Yes we can change. Yes we can
heal this nation. Yes we can seize our
future. Yes we can!
From South Carolina speech, 1-26-08
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Background

• 1863- Emancipation Proclamation
• 1865- Civil War ends
• 1865-1877- Reconstruction
• 1877- Compromise of 1877
• Hays (rep) president, in exchange for end of
  reconstruction
• 1890s- The nadir- 2000 lynchings
• 1896- Plessey v. Ferguson- Separate but Equal
• 1910s-1950 The Great Migration
• 1918- American involvement in WW I

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So what to do?

• Imagine yourself as a young, educated African
  American in the early 20th century. What would
  you do to change whats going on around you? What
  would you encourage your community to do?

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Booker T. Washington-Cast Down Your Bucket
Where You Are

• 1856-1915 (Born a slave in VA)
• 1888- At 25, became president of Tuskegee
  Institute
• Philosophy was to teach young blacks a practical
  trade (plumbing, masonry, carpentry, etc)
• 1895- Gives famous Atlanta Compromise speech to
  Atlanta Exposition
• 1901- Publishes Up From Slavery-
• Immediate hit- becomes first A-A guest to White
  House
• Urged A-As to work patiently within existing
  framework and equality would come.

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W.E.B DuBoisChange Now

• 1868-1963 (Lived 95 yrs!)
• Raised in middle-class Mass.- not aware of racism
  until later childhood
• EXTREMELY intelligent- Ph. D. Harvard, studied in
  Berlin for several years
• Wrote many books, including Souls of Black Folk
  in 1903
• Co-founder of NAACP in 1909- Editor in chief of
  their journal The Crisis
• Theory of Double Consciousness that blacks
  simultaneously view themselves through their own
  eyes AND ALSO through the lens of racist white
  America.
• Strongly (and publicly) disagreed with
  Washington- believed that SYSTEM had to be
  changed in order for blacks to finally gain
  equality- and erase this double consciousness.

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Marcus Garvey- Back to Africa

• 1887-1940
• Born in Jamaica- still national hero there
• Founded Universal Negro Improvement Association
  (UNIA) and African Communities League (ACL).
• Inspired by B.T. Washington, but was a
  segregationist believed that blacks should create
  entirely separate (and black-operated) system
• Founded Black Star Line and Negro Factories
  Corporation
• Also started Liberia Project and Back to
  Africa movement- encouraged A-As to move to
  Liberia to form own country where blacks would
  have equal rights
• Believer in Racial Purity- that races shouldnt
  mix
• Had a vicious (and mutual) dislike of Dubois

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Again, what would you do?

• Reflect for a moment and consider-
• Whose theory makes the most sense to you in the
  persona of the young 1920s African American?
• Whose theory makes sense to you as yourself?
• Who do think Barack Obama would side with?

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The New Negro

• middle-class orientation
• demanded their legal rights as citizens
• intrinsic standard of Beauty and aesthetics does
  not rest in the white race
• African Americans were poised to assert their own
  agency in culture and politics instead of just
  remaining a "problem" or "formula" for others to
  debate about

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The Harlem Renaissance

• 1919- 1930 (ish)
• flowering of African American art, literature,
  music and culture based in Harlem, New York City,
  after World War I
• Literature Poetry of Langston Hughes and prose
  of Zora Neale Hurston
• Music Jazz- not called Jazz Age for nothing!
• Art Painters, playwrights, etc.

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World War I

• "the war to make the world safe for democracy"
• Yet blacks were in segregated units, often given
  most dangerous/ worst duties
• Exposure to far more tolerant European culture,
  e.g. France
• Return to Jim Crow South especially intolerable

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The Great Migration 1910s-1950

• Movement of millions of blacks from the rural
  South to urban North
• Blacks fleeing repression in Jim Crow South
• Also greater job opportunity in north in
  factories- esp. during wartime
• Less competition from immigrating Europeans in
  wartime