The Harlem Renaissance:

1
The Harlem Renaissancemasterful improvisation

• Brown Bag Discussion

2
The Set-Up

• 1904 Economic prosperity of Harlem, New York
  ceases due to excessive construction and high
  rents
• Phillip A. Payton, Jr. founds Afro-American
  Reality Company and opens up Harlem to black
  Americans (building of churches, cabarets)

3

• European immigration is interrupted by World
  War I -- Blacks migrate from the south to escape
  racism and look for wartime work this changes
  Harlems makeup

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• A black middle class develops

5

• 1919 Black soldiers returning from the war
  are greeted with racism and denied the racial
  equality promised in return for military service
• riots ensue in what come to be known as the Red
  Summer
• the tone is set for economic, social, and
  political change

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• Three Phases
• 1917 to 1923 writings in confluence with white
  bohemians and revolutionaries fascinated with
  black culture
• 1924-1926 collaboration between whites and
  blacks by the NAACP and The Urban League
• 1926-1935 African American dominance (rebellion
  against the Civil Rights establishment)

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• The Renaissance was encouraged by Negrotarians
  for various reasons
• Political
• Entertainment
• Romantic or Revolutionary (Lost Generation
  cynical of the Victorian notions and gender
  ideals)
• Commercial
• Philanthropic
• Jewish sympathy (similar oppression and
  intolerance)

8

• Harlem houses the Headquarters of the NAACP and
  National Urban League (NUL)
• Home to two major black newspapers (New York Age,
  The Amsterdam News)

9

• Harlem is the Headquarters for UNIA (United
  Negro Improvement Association, Marcus Garveys
  Pan-African organization to promote racial
  freedom, pride and black business autonomy)

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• Common themes
• Roots of 20th century African American Experience
• Racial pride
• Social and economic equality
• Diversity of expression
• Harlem Renaissance reflects the New Negro of
  self respect and self-dependence

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• Major Formative Events
• National Urban League Dinner to recognize and
  introduce new literary talent to white literary
  community in NY (1924)
• Special issue of Survey Graphic (the monthly
  illustrated number of Survey magazine, the
  premier journal of social work in America in the
  1920s) devoted to the African American
  "Renaissance" in progress in Harlem

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• Publishing of the books The New Negro (1925) and
  Nigger Heaven (1926) created negro vogue
• Publishing of literary magazine Fire!! (1926)
  to showcase new black writers and artists

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• Renaissance is national in scope, but Harlem is
  the capital
• So-named from an article in the New York Herald
  Tribune that the Country was on the edge of
  what might not improperly be called a negro
  renaissance
• Harlem becomes the center for music, popular
  dance and theater

14

• The 1920s Heyday Harlem experiences an upsurge
  in African American literature, art, music and
  theater

15

• Harlems Apollo Theater accommodates mixed
  audiences

16

• Literature
• Alain Locke (The New Negro anthology)
• Countee Cullen (Colors)
• Nella Larsen (Quicksand)

17

• Langston Hughes (The Weary Blues)
• Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God)
• Jean Toomer (Cane)
• Claude McKay (Harlem Shadows The Poems of Claude
  McKay)

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• James Weldon Johnston (The Autobiography of an
  Ex-Colored Man)
• Jessie Redmon Fauset (editor, The Crises)
• W.E.B. Du Bois (The Gift of Black Folk The
  Negroes in the Making of America)

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• Popular music forms were included in the
  movement
• Music central to black life
• Musical entertainment was an important diversion
  from manual labor
• Stereotyping of Black music (Condescension to
  jazz and blues)

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• Bessie Smith (jazz with ragtime)
• Jelly Roll Morton (ragtime)
• Louis Armstrong
• Duke Ellington

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• Aaron Douglas (painter and graphic artist)
• Jacob Lawrence (painting)
• Romare Bearden (collage)

Fine Arts
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• Augusta Savage (sculpture)
• Lois Mailon Jones (painting)
• James Van Der Zee (Photography)

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• Theatre and Dance
• Josephine Baker
• Paul Robeson
• Florence Mills (Vaudeville)

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• Decline
• Great Depression of the 1930s
• NAACP and Urban League concentrated on economic /
  social issues
• Influential people left NY
• Momentum replaced by the WPA
• Harlem Riot of 1935 (started by a rumor that a
  black man had been beaten and killed by police
  fueled by general charges of police brutality and
  merchant employment discrimination)

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• Major Accomplishments
• College education proposed over vocational
  training prescribed by Tuskegee and Hampton
  institutes
• Opened doors to mainstream publications
• Influence on civil rights, nationalist movements
• Works appealed to mixed audiences (W.E.B. Du Bois
  critical)
• Established Harlem as a cultural capital for many
  decades

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The creativity of a distinct cultural peoplewas
established

• 35 luminaries
• 26 novels
• 10 volumes of poetry
• 5 Broadway plays
• 3 performed ballets / concertos
• Numerous short stories, essays and artworks

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• Analysis
• The Renaissance not all inclusive of the African
  American experience
• Luminaries were mostly literary or visual arts
  figures
• Seen by some as an elitist response to economic
  and social conditions

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• Black evangelism and manifestations (e.g. Black
  Zionism) were viewed as cultural regression by
  many black intellectuals
• Garveys UNIA parallel but different (racial
  segregation and autonomy)

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• Lasting Effects
• Interracialism
• Publishers and the public more open to African
  American art and literature
• Inspiration for others to follow careers in art
  and literature (e.g. Ralph Ellison and Richard
  Wright)
• Influence spread to Europe and the French
  Caribbean (Negritude Movement)
• Influence on the civil rights movement

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• References
• Africana the encyclopedia of the African and
  African American experience
• CARLSON Reference DT14 .A37435 2005 v. 1-5
• Biography resource center (Online)
• electronic resource through the University
  of Toledo Libraries research databases
• Encyclopedia of African-American culture and
  history the Black experience in the Americas
• CARLSON Reference E185 .E54 2006 v. 1-6
• Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance /
• CARLSON Reference PS153.N5 A24 2003

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• The Harlem Renaissance an annotated reference
  guide for student research / Online Resource -
  NetLibrary book in the Carlson Library UTMOST
  catalog
• Accompanying music from The History of Jazz the
  early days, Prism Leisure, PLATCD 712, c2001
• Search Harlem Renaissance as a keyword on the
  Carlson Library webpage to find more
  information
• For more information visit the Library of
  Congress at
• http//www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/harlem/harlem.ht
  ml