Download End of the Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance
(The 1920s)
The Cultural Movement
• After WWI, many African Americans moved to
urban centers like New York’s Harlem.
• Vibrant, inspired, diverse
• Voices of the African American experience:
– music (blues, jazz)
– poetry
– drama
– art
– journalism
African American Focus
• HR literature provided a view of black life in
Harlem, the south, Europe, the Caribbean,
even Russia
• Focused on issues of race, class, religion,
gender
• Affirmation of African American dialects in
literature
End of the Harlem Renaissance
• The Great Depression (1930s) depleted many
funds used to support African American
writers
• Nevertheless, African American culture—and
American literature as a whole—were
changed forever
Notable Voices of the Harlem Renaissance
• Poetry & Literature:
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–
–
–
Langston Hughes
Claude McKay
James Weldon Johnson
Zora Neale Hurston
• Art:
– Aaron Douglas
– Romare Bearden
Notable Voices of the Harlem Renaissance
• Music:
– Louis Armstrong
– Duke Ellington
– Bessie Smith
– Billie Holliday
• Social Activism:
– Marcus Garvey
– W. E. B. Du Bois
– Alain Locke