The Harlem Renaissance

1. The Harlem Renaissance (The New Negro Movement)

2. Beginnings • The Harlem Renaissance began in Harlem, New York after WWI • Created to raise significant issues affecting African Americans through: • Literature • Art • Music • Drama • Painting • Sculpture • Movies • Protests

3. Beginnings • Focused in Harlem; however, it spread throughout the nation and beyond • Many fled to Harlem for educations, because during this time New York passed a law prohibiting segregated schools • This migration helped to begin the Renaissance

4. Music • Harlem was the center of a musical evolution • This created a unique sound that has yet to be duplicated • There was a musical progression that included: • Marches (1890) • Music Hall (1900) • Ragtime (1910) • Blues Gospel (1920) • Stride Piano (1925) • Hot Jazz (1930) • Pre-Swing (1940) • Swing (1950)

5. Literature • A mass movement of aspiring writers into New York • This is what allowed the Harlem Renaissance to become a significant movement • Some of the writers included: W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston • The literature helped to transform African Americans from the psychology of the “Old Negro” (implied inferiority) to the “New Negro” (self-assertive, racially conscious, article, and in charge of their own publications)

6. Ideas and Attitudes • Runs parallel to modernism • Like “two-ness” – a divided awareness of one’s identity as an American and Negro • Rise of a larger Black middle class • Campaign for Civil Rights • New styles, or methods, of expression • Like Jazz, or the development of distinct Black literature and journalistic outlets

7. Major Themes/Styles • Alienation • Marginality • Pride • Rage • Opposition to poverty, oppression, and fate • “Two-ness” • Superficial stereotypes revealed to be complex characters

8. Major Players • Marcus Garvey • Langston Hughes • Ida B. Wells • Countee Cullen • Arna Bontemps • Jean Toomer