Download The Harlem Renaissance: The Birth of a New Black Identity

The Harlem
Renaissance
When black identity was reborn in
Harlem, N.Y., and found expression in
music, literature, art, theater and politics
between 1900s-1930s.
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.
New York’s 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.
Harlem: A New Mecca
Harlem became the capital
of black America. It came
to be known as the new
“Mecca” for AfricanAmericans. The seeds of a
new Black Identity were
sown with the growth of
music, art, theater and
literature in Harlem.
Harlem: The magnet that
attracted creative minds.
 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
 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.
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.
 Garvey’s famous cry was
"Africa for the Africans.”
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.”
Langston Hughes:The 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.
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.
Other famous writers of the
Harlem Renaissance:
 Claude McKay
 Countee Cullen
 Gwendolyn Brooks
 Gwendolyn Bennett
 James Weldon Johnson
 James Baldwin
Zora Neale Hurston – one of
Harlem’s most flamboyant and
brilliant writers. Alice Walker
called her “A genius of the
South.”
 Zora Neale Hurston
When color ruled: The art of
the Harlem Renaissance
 “Lois Mailou Jones–
in 1925 and in 1989
Other Artists of the Harlem
Renaissance
Aaron Douglas
(1898-1979)
Window Cleaning
1935, oil on canvas
30 by 24 in.
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery
and Sculpture
Garden, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
Nebraska Art Association Collection
1936.N-40
Other famous artists of that time:
Jacob Lawrence . . .
 Painting on Left:
Pool Parlor, 1942
Jacob Lawrence (American,
1917–2000)
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.
Music of the Harlem Renaissance:
Jazz, Blues, Swing
“Before anybody could
compare me with other singers,
they were comparing other
singers to me.” – Billie Holiday
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.
Edward Kennedy Ellington
(“Duke Ellington”)
 Duke Ellington was the
“My favorite tune?
The next one.
The one I’m writing tonight
or tomorrow,
The new baby is always the
favorite.” Duke Ellington
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.
Other musicians from that time
period:
Count Basie
Fletcher
Henderson
Coleman
Hawkins
Count Basie, big band composer, arranger and bandleader.
Fletcher Henderson, big band composer, arranger and
bandleader.
Coleman Hawkins, who played tenor saxophone in
Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra.
Other musicians from
that time period:
Bessie Smith
Lost Your Head
Blues
Sung by Bessie Smith,
“Empress of the
Blues.”
Bessie Smith, originally a
street musician in
Chattanooga, Tennessee,
Louis
recorded and performed with
Armstrong
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.
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.
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.
 There’s a lot more, folks, but that’s for you
to discover!
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. Sorrow’s Kitchen:The 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.
The Harlem Renaissance
of the 1920’s was a period
when African Americans
1. left the United States in large
numbers to settle in Nigeria
2. created noteworthy works of art and
literature
3. migrated to the West in search of
land and jobs
4. used civil disobedience to fight
segregation in the Armed Forces