The Harlem Renaissance Essay

The 1920’s were a period or rapid growth and change in America. After World War I American’s were introduced to a lifestyle of lavishness they had never encountered before. It was a period of radical thought and ideas. It was in this time period that the idea of the Harlem Renaissance was born. The ideology behind the Harlem Renaissance was to create the image of the “New Negro”. The image of African-American’s changed from rural, uneducated “peasants” to urban, sophisticated, cosmopolites. Literature and poetry abounded. Jazz music and the clubs where it was performed at became social “hotspots”. Harlem was the epitome of the “New Negro”. However, things weren’t as sunny as they appeared. Many felt that the Harlem Renaissance itself

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

When thinking about the Harlem Renaissance, it is believed to be the golden period in the history to African Americans since it's manifested the music, literature, art and stage performance of the African American culture (Bloom, 2004). This period marked a notable moment due to White Americans acknowledging the enormous mental

The Harlem Renaissance was the period of time between the end of World War I and the middle 1930s depression. Also called the New Negro Renaissance, it was a period in history when talented African American writers produced volumes of literary works. Larry Neal described this movement in his aesthetic manifesto, “The Black Arts Movement,” : “The Black Arts Movement represents the flowering of a cultural nationalism that has been suppressed since the 1920s. I mean the “Harlem Renaissance” – which was essentially a failure. It did not address itself to the mythology and the lifestyle of the Black Community. It failed to take roots, to link itself concretely to the struggles of the community, to become its voice and spirit. Implicit in the Black Arts Movement is the idea that Black people, however dispersed, constitute a nation within the belly of White America.” (Yost)

The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement, was an important time period for African American culture in the United States. It was an innovating period where many unknown artists became prominent for their talent and ethnic heritage, and brought upon many new connections between races. As a cultural movement, the Harlem Renaissance brought changes to America that would have long term effects on how art is created, viewed, and accepted. “The Renaissance was more than a literary or artistic movement, it possessed a certain sociological development—particularly through a new racial consciousness—through racial integration” (The Harlem Renaissance- Boundless). The art created in that era has an everlasting effect on America of which still goes on today, inspiring many artists with the types of literature, artistic styles, theatre, and music from the time. Harlem was a powerful movement with emotional, creative, and meaningful art within its culture.

Harlem renaissance refers to a period of African-American art being reborn as an expressive art form starting after WW1 in 1918 and ending in the mid-1930s.

I learned many different things about The Harlem Renaissance, actually more than I was taught in school. I found out that the Harlem Renaissance was an African American cultural, social and artistic movement which started in the 1920s. I did not know that The Harlem Renaissance had moved as far as Paris. The Harlem Renaissance was caused due to the Great Migration, it declined and came to an end during the Great Depression. The Harlem Renaissance is most closely associated with Jazz and the rise of African American arts. The movement of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North was instrumental in initiating the Harlem Renaissance. It was interesting to me that the name came from the Harlem neighborhood, which is located in

The Harlem Renaissance was a revolutionary time for African Americans in the Twentieth Century. It lasted from around 1918 until 1937 and is described as “the nation’s first self-conscious black literary and artistic movement” (Tindall 804), but the ideas cultivated within those years are still relevant in today’s society. In New York the city of Harlem had a rapidly growing population of African Americans due to the Great Migration and it was also the destination for immigrants from other areas of the United States. Once people began hearing about the Harlem Renaissance even more writers, photographers, musicians, and scholars moved to the area. Due to the large population of African Americans here, a sense of common identity and cultural expression were apparent and this led to the embracing of their own culture separate from what white people had defined it as. A path was laid out for new African American literature and had a huge impact on all of the black literature to follow.

What is so amazing about writing and reading? Well, As Anais Nin once put it: “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” and I’m sure everyone has felt it, the magic in putting yourself into words. With my blog, I like to believe that I can share such “taste,” because it is not only a way for me to improve my writing skills, but also to express myself through the things that interest me.

From the discrimination and fear African Americans dealt with after their emancipation from slavery less than a century earlier derived art and culture so beautiful and unique, it would become one of the greatest movements in history. The Harlem Renaissance was a time when African Americans had the artistic freedom to express themselves, yet they were still being oppressed by white society. African American musicians, scholars and poets made social and political statements about the poor treatment of blacks and were finally able to express their emotions through art. Black America was voicing the anger and suffering of the previous era, and now others were listening. This movement combined with events such as WWI and II, the Great Depression

The Harlem Renaissance created a new racial identity for African-Americans living in the United States, after the First World War. This new racial identity caused the African-Americans to become a nation within the United States. A nation is defined as a group of people that share common language, ethnicity, history, and culture. A nation of people may or may not have sovereignty. Harlem, a neighbourhood in Manhattan, New York City, emerged as the “race capital”1 for African-Americans living in the Northern states. Many African-Americans migrated from the Southern states to the North because of an influx of available jobs after World War I. Influential writer James Weldon Johnson described Harlem as “being taken without violence.”2 The

The Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement that began in the 1920s, brought an excitement and a new found freedom and voice to African-Americans who had been silent and oppressed for a long time. The evolution of African-American culture, expressed through art, music and creative writings, and establishing roots in European-American society became known as the Harlem Renaissance. (“Harlem Renaissance”)

The Harlem Renaissance was a time in history when the African American culture had one of its most influential movements by using creativity and the arts (Hutchinson 1). This movement took place between 1918 and 1937 and was shaped by both African American men and women through writing, theatre, visual arts, and music. The purpose of this movement was to change the white stereotypes that were associated with African American people and their culture (Hutchinson 1). African Americans used the Harlem Renaissance to build relationships with each other and their heritage. Participants of the movement often had fierce debate and were not unified on how to

The Harlem Renaissance Poets consist of: James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean (Eugene) Toomer, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Robert Hayden, and Gwendolyn Brooks. These eight poets contributed to modern day poetry in three ways. One: they all wrote marvelous poems that inspired our poets of modern times. Two: they contributed to literature to let us know what went on in there times, and how much we now have changed. And last but not least they all have written poems that people can sit down and relate to and what people are writing about and take time out to let the people of their families know that they were living in those times. And these people should receive such recognition because of the effort, and the

The Harlem Renaissance was a melting pot of different ideas and views that led to the redefinition of a holistic “New Negro.” Because the concept explains that the Harlem Renaissance was a collective process, I could not only represent one theme, so I decided to display the four of the predominant motifs through in my work. Going left to right, I chose to display the themes of “Celebrating Color and Culture,” “The Breaking of Southern Myths and Start of Civil Rights,” “Identifying the New Negro,” and the idea of “New Beginnings in Big Cities.” In my opinion, each one of these themes formed or followed another to collectively create the period. In celebrating black culture, they began to break preconceptions and fight for equality. With the