The Harlem Renaissance

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The Harlem Renaissance
PowerPoint Presentation by V. Sundaram, Jan. 2003

• When black identity was reborn in Harlem, N.Y.,
  and found expression in music, literature, art,
  theater and politics between 1900s-1930s.

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The Birth of The New Negro

• Between 1910 and 1920, there was a huge
  migration of blacks from the south to some of the
  great cities in the north, including Washington
  D.C., New York city and Chicago.
• Music Duke Ellingtons Take the A Train.

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New Yorks Harlem was known as the place to be!

• Jazz music found a home black music that
  resonated in the hearts of whites as well. Clubs
  sprang up - the famous Cotton
  
• Club and the Lenox Lounge, among others.
• Music Every Tub
• By Count Basie and his Orchestra.

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Harlem A New Mecca

• Harlem became the capital of black America.
  It came to be known as the new Mecca for
  African-Americans. The seeds of a new Black
  Identity were sown with the growth of music, art,
  theater and literature in Harlem.
• Music Shout and Feel It by Count Basie
  and his Orchestra.

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Harlem The magnet that attracted creative minds.

• Two important Civil Rights groups started in
  Harlem the NAACP (National Association for the
  Advancement of Colored People) and the National
  Urban League, founded in 1911 to help new
  arrivals from the rural south.

• Harlem became the magnet for writers, musicians,
  artists, political activists, and ordinary people
  who just wanted to have a good time.
  
• Music Take The A Train -Duke Ellington

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Leaders of that era Marcus Garvey

• Marcus Garvey was born in Jamaica.
• He founded the newspaper The Negro World.
• In 1917, he founded UNIA (Universal Negro
  Improvement Association) in Harlem.
  
• Garveys famous cry was "Africa for the Africans.

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Leaders of that Era(continued)W.E.B. Dubois

• William Edward Burghardt Dubois, born in
  Massachusetts, was one of the founders of the
  NAACP in 1909. He was also the editor of its
  magazine Crisis.
• A writer and civil rights activist, Dubois was
  the intellectual soul of the Harlem Renaissance.
  He has been termed the Renaissance man of
  African-American letters.

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Langston HughesThe Poet Laureate of the Harlem
Renaissance

• Langston Hughes, was born in Joplin, Missouri in
  1902, but he made his home in Harlem, N.Y.
  
• Langston Hughes wrote novels, short stories and
  plays, as well as poetry, and worked with jazz
  artists in shaping his own poetry.
  
• Music
• Fletcher Hendersons Tidal Wave.

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The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes

• I've known rivers
• I've known rivers ancient as the world and older
  than the flow of human blood in human veins.
  
• My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
• 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.
  
• I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe
  Lincoln went down to new Orleans, and I've seen
  its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
  
• I've known rivers
• Ancient, dusky rivers.
• My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
• Song Introduction to Strange Fruit Billie
  Holiday

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Other famous writers of the Harlem Renaissance

• Claude McKay
• Countee Cullen
• Gwendolyn Brooks
• Gwendolyn Bennett
• James Weldon Johnson
• James Baldwin
• Zora Neale Hurston
• Music Harlem Madness by Fletcher Hendersons Big
  Band
  
• Song Lost Your Head Blues Bessie Smith

Zora Neale Hurston one of Harlems most
flamboyant and brilliant writers. Alice Walker
called her A genius of the South.
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When color ruled The art of the Harlem
Renaissance

• Lois Mailou Jones
• in 1925 and in 1989

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Other Artists of the Harlem Renaissance

• Aaron Douglas
• (1898-1979)Window Cleaning1935, oil on
  canvas30 by 24 in.Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery
  
  
• and Sculpture
• Garden, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,Nebraska
  Art Association Collection1936.N-40

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Other famous artists of that time Jacob Lawrence
. . .

• Painting on Left
• Pool Parlor, 1942Jacob Lawrence (American,
  19172000)Watercolor and gouache on paper H. 31
  1/8, W. 22 7/8 in. (79.1 x 58.1 cm)Arthur
  Hoppock Hearn Fund, 1942 (42.167)
• Other famous painters were William Henry Johnson
  and Hayden Palmer.

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Music of the Harlem Renaissance Jazz, Blues,
Swing

• Eleanora Fagan Holiday Billie - was one
  of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time.
  Strange Fruit, an eerie and evocative song
  about the lynching of a black man is one of her
  most famous songs.

Before anybody could compare me with other
singers, they were comparing other singers to
me. Billie Holiday
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I Cover The Waterfrontsung by Billie Holiday

• I cover the waterfront
• Im watching the sea
• Will the one I love
• Be coming back to me?

• I cover the waterfront
• In search of my love
• And Im covered by a starless sky above

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Edward Kennedy Ellington (Duke Ellington)

• Duke Ellington was the foremost among the great
  big band composers and musicians of the Harlem
  Renaissance period and beyond.
  
• He was awarded the Presidential Medal of
  Freedom.
  
• He also received honorary doctorates from Howard
  and Yale Universities.

My favorite tune? The next one. The one Im wr
iting tonight or tomorrow, The new baby is alwa
ys the favorite. Duke Ellington
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Other musicians from that time period
Fletcher Henderson
Coleman Hawkins
Count Basie
Count Basie, big band composer, arranger and
bandleader. Fletcher Henderson, big band compose
r, arranger and bandleader. Coleman Hawkins, who
played tenor saxophone in Fletcher Hendersons
Orchestra. Music Count Basie Shout and Feel It
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Other musicians from that time period

• Bessie Smith, originally a
• street musician in
• Chattanooga, Tennessee,
• recorded and performed with
• the Fletcher Henderson
• Orchestra.
• Louis Armstrong, originally from New Orleans,
  played in NYC with Fletcher Henderson for
  thirteen months and shot into national fame in
  the 1920s.
• Song Lost Your Head Blues Bessie Smith

Louis Armstrong
Bessie Smith
Lost Your Head Blues Sung by Bessie Smith, Empr
ess of the Blues.
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Theater during the Harlem Renaissance

• Between 1912 and 1927, black theatres began
  featuring several different kinds of acts
  Vaudeville, minstrel shows, singers, dancers,
  jugglers, clowns, comedians, dancers, etc. Some
  of the more renowned performers were S. H.
  Dudley, Andrew Tribble, Jeannie Pearl, Laurence
  Chenault, and Ethel Waters.

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Movements sometimes arise organically

• and the Harlem Renaissance was one such
  movement.
  
• It was a happy coincidence, a concatenation of
  circumstances, that brought together writers,
  musicians, artists, theater people and political
  activists.
• Theres a lot more, folks, but thats for you to
  discover!
  
• Music Tidal Wave Fletcher Henderson

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Ante-penultimate page!

• Thanks for your attention, and hope you
  enjoyed the presentation and learned something
  about the Harlem Renaissance!
  
• Dont go away theres a bibliography
  credits page!

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Bibliography

• Pleasants, Henry. The Great American Popular
  Singers. London Gollancz, 1974.
  
• Ellington, Edward Kennedy. Music is My Mistress.
  New York Doubleday, 1973.
  
• Lyons, Mary E. Sorrows KitchenThe Life and
  Folklore of Zora Neale Hurston. New York Simon
  Schuster, 1990.
  
• The Norton Anthology of African American
  Literature. Ed. Henry L. Gates, Jr., and Nellie
  Y. McKay. New York Norton, 1997.
  
• Please Note For website information, please
  visit my hotlist of sites.
  

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Thanks to

• The McCall Middle School Technology Integration
  Workshop.
  
• Mrs. Bonnie Nolan.
• Mr. French.
• The Winchester Public School System.