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The Harlem Renaissance Harlem, NY – 1920’s An upsurge in African American cultural expression Renaissance – a rebirth or revival • Usually refers to European Renaissance of 1300-1600 • An era of curiosity and innovation in science, architecture & fine arts • A rebirth of the Golden Age of ancient Greece and Rome So, what is the Harlem Renaissance? • Began in 1916 and continued through the 1920’s. • Also known as the Great Migration—millions of black farmers and sharecroppers moved to the urban North in search of opportunity and freedom. • Thousands of migrants settled in Harlem, a New York City neighborhood that quickly became the cultural center of African-American life. Harlem Renaissance • After WWI – a huge African American migration to the North • Harlem (in NYC) welcomed writers, artists, musicians, performers, doctors, students and shopkeepers A change in the air The very air of Harlem was charged with creativity as black men and women drew on their own cultural resources—their folk traditions as well as new urban awareness—to produce unique forms of expression. African-Americans who nurtured each other’s artistic, musical, and literary talents created an event known as the Harlem Renaissance. A Literary Movement Officially kicked off on March 21, 1924—at a dinner where some of the nation’s most celebrated writers and thinkers, black and white, gathered together. The sponsor of the dinner were W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, and Charles S. Johnson—they also had a hand in the creation of the NAACP and the National Urban League. These organizations published journals for the work of young writers to be published. Literature – the “Talented Tenth” • Highly educated writers promoted the African American identity in poetry, short stories and drama. • Harlem newspapers Crisis and Opportunity published new works. Harlem Literary Magazines • Writings celebrated rhythms of blues and jazz • Captured street-wise wit of “real” AfricanAmerican people • Expressed frustration of a “dream deferred”” Contributors Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston were among the young writers who received recognition and sometimes cash awards for their work in these journals. They considered themselves the founders of a new era of literature. They represented what came to be known as the “new Negro.” Harlem Renaissance Authors Row 1: (left to right) Countee Cullen and Alice Dunbar-Nelson Row 2: Angelina Weld Grimké and Langston Hughes Row 3: Alain Locke and Claude McKay Row 4: Wallace Thurman and Carl Van Vechten Jacob Lawrence – Tombstones and Builders Parade – Jacob Lawrence Harlem at Night Winold Reiss, 1924 Blues and Jazz The Blues Origin – New Orleans Influences: • African American folk music • Work songs (shouts and hollers from slave fields) • Gospel music Jazz - An original American art form Earliest Jazz styles: • Ragtime and Dixieland in 1890’sNew Orleans Has roots in: • African rhythms • European harmonies • American Gospel sound • Work songs After 1917, Jazz spread north and west to New York, Chicago, San Francisco and St. Louis and developed into an improvisational type of music. Jazz crossed race and cultural boundaries and became an American music style.