Download Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City, was the

The Harlem Renaissance
How does the
artist use
symbolism to
describe the
Renaissance?
Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City, was the
center of the African American political, cultural,
and artistic movement in the 1920s and early 1930s.
1920
1911
1930
Causes
What events and movements do you think may have helped lead
to the Renaissance?
•The Great
Migration
What push factors led to the migration? What pull factors led to the migration?
Causes
Growing African American Middle Class: due to
improved educational and employment opportunities
for African Americans.
The Harlem section of New York became the center of this
new African American class.
Modernism & the Harlem Renaissance
• Blacks view surge in art, music and literature as the
creation of a new cultural identity.
• Whites see it as another new, exotic, and trendy form
of entertainment.
As Modern Artists look to “make it
new” they turn to the “New Negro”
arts movement.
How does the modernist trend towards
“primitivism” impact this?
Jazz Shapes American Culture
How did the following artists impact American
popular music?
Bessie Smith
Duke Ellington
Louis Armstong
(left side) Imagine you were just
at a jazz club listening to both of
those songs being performed.
Describe the music and what
the atmosphere of the jazz club
would be like.
Impact
The Harlem section of New York City was transformed from a
deteriorating area into a thriving middle class community.
Before
After
Causes
Political Agenda For Civil Rights by African Americans:
leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and the
NAACP helped to inspire racial pride in the middle and
working class.
Du Bois, author of The Souls of
Black Folks, was instrumental in
the foundation of the NAACP.
Marcus Garvey
pushed for the Back
to Africa movement
The NAACP
published The
Crisis, a journal
used to share the
literary works of
African
Americans.
Du Bois believed that artistic and literary
work could be used as a form of
propaganda to help combat racial
stereotypes and gain new respect for
the race.
What
message does
this song,
written by an
African
American,
send to the
general
public?
How do images like this hinder the efforts
of African Americans like Du Bois?
Du Bois also believed in the “talented tenth.” This was the
idea that a small percentage of the African American
population who were exceptionally skilled should be
designated and educated as artistic and cultural leaders. He
proposed absolute equality for the "talented tenth" and
technical training for the black masses.
“Back to Africa” Movement
The HR was more than just a literary
movement: it included racial
consciousness, "the back to Africa"
movement led by Marcus Garvey,
racial integration, the explosion of
music particularly jazz, spirituals and
blues, painting, dramatic revues, and
others.
Marcus Garvey
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1887-1940
Poor Jamaican
Excellent orator, attended London University
1914- in the U.S.
1917- organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association to
organize blacks around the world and found a strong Negro nation
1919- Marcus Garvey and UNIA had launched the Black Star Line- a
shipping company that would establish trade and commerce
between Africans in America, the Caribbean, South and Central
America, Canada, and Africa
W.E.B. Du Bois called Garvey, "the most dangerous enemy of the
Negro race in America”
1922- Marcus Garvey and three other UNIA officials were charged
with mail fraud involving the Black Star Line. 1923, Garvey was
convicted and sentenced to prison for five years
1927- released from prison and deported to Jamaica.
J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI
watched Garvey…
Primary Sources: FBI Memo
J. Edgar Hoover to Special Agent Ridgely
Washington, D.C., October 11, 1919
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. RIDGELY.
The following is a brief statement of Marcus Gravey and his activities:
Subject a native of the West Indies and one of the most prominent negro agitators in New
York;
He is a founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African
Communities League;
He is the promulgator of the Black Star Line and is the managing editor of the Negro
World;
He is an exceptionally fine orator, creating much excitement among the negroes through
his steamship proposition;
In his paper the "Negro World" the Soviet Russian Rule is upheld and there is open
advocation of Bolshevism.
Respectfully,
J. E. Hoover
African American Poet, Claude McKay
memorialized the bloody summer of 1919 with
the poem, “If We Must Die,” which was
published in the magazine Liberator.
If We Must Die
If we must die--let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die--oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
What is the imagery
used in the poem?
What message is
the author sending
to African
Americans?
Do you agree or
disagree with the
author? Why?
Differences in Artistic Vision
Dubois & Locke
Hughes & Hurston
• “Thus all art is propaganda
•“We younger Negro artists
and ever must be despite the who create now intend to
wailing of the purists.”
express our individual darkskinned selves without fear or
• “The great social gain in this is
shame. If white people are
the releasing of our talented
pleased we are glad. If they
group from the arid fields of
are not, it doesn’t matter. We
controversy and debate to the
know we are beautiful. And
productive fields of creative
ugly too.”
expression.”
What do you believe was more important: fighting
racial prejudice and stereotyping, or true personal
expression? (Read: p. 458-459 and answer #1
comparing in your notebook)
Dubois’ Influence on Literature
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 it.
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.
Incident
Countee Cullen
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me,
"Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened
there
That's all that I remember.
How can these poems (and others we will
examine) be seen as propaganda?