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The Harlem Renaissance 1918 - mid 1930s

Background

The Basics

● Cultural, social & artistic movement, centered in Harlem, NY

● Gave birth to seminal works of lit by Af-Am authors

● Racial & cultural pride ○ Showcase culture &

history ○ Dispel common

stereotypes ○ Combat reinforced racist

beliefs

General Info Continued:

● Known as “New Negro Movement” during the time ● W.E.B. Du Bois (essayist, protest leader, historian)

encouraged talented artists to leave the South ○ Encouraged others to leave Caribbean ○ “Great Migration”

● HUGE impact on subsequent lit and art

“Great Migration”: ● End of Civil War led to Reconstruction Era

○ Emancipated began to strive for civic participation, political equality and economic and cultural self-determination

● By late 1870s, Democratic whites regained power in South ○ From 1890-1908 - legislation that disenfranchised AA and

poor whites, trapping them without representation ○ Established: white supremacist regimes, Jim Crow

segregation, laws that forced many AAs back into (often unpaid) labor in mines, on plantations, and on public works projects, work as sharecroppers

“Great Migration” cont…:

● Dissatisfaction led people to move north ● Most of the AA literary movement arose from a

generation that had memories of the grains and losses of Reconstruction after the Civil War ○ Many people’s grandparents had been enslaved

Harlem: Epicenter of this “cultural awakening”

● District had originally been developed in the 19th century as an exclusive suburb for the white middle and upper middle classes ○ Stately houses, grand avenues, and world-class

amenities (Harlem Opera House) ○ Abandoned by white upper class bc of influx of

European immigrants in late 19th c. (bc racist & classist)

Harlem: Epicenter of this “cultural awakening”

● Early 20th c. - Harlem = destination for migrants around the country ○ People sought work from the South and and

educated class who made the area a center of culture, as well as a growing Af-Am middle class

● Becomes “the center of a spiritual coming of age” (Alain Locke - 1920s sociologist)

Despite increasing popularity

/acceptance of African American

culture, racism persisted

(obviously):

● After the end of WWI, many Af-Am soldiers came home to a nation whose citizens often did not respect their accomplishments

● Race riots and other civil uprisings occurred throughout the US during the “Red Summer of 1919”

Characteristics & Themes:

● No single unifying theme, but… ● Common Goals:

○ Through intellect and production of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and stereotypes to promote progressive or socialist politics, and racial and social integration

○ Prove humanity and demand equality

Characteristics & Themes:

● Individual self-expression ○ Not “imitating” anymore, according to Hughes ○ Hughes - realistic poems of downtrodden &

determined ○ Cullen - elegant sonnets

● Realism

Lasting Impact:

● Laid foundation for post WWII protest movement of the Civil Rights Movement

● Many black artists who rose to creative maturity afterward were inspired by this literary movement ○ Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Richard Wright…

● New racial consciousness through ethnic pride

Art

Saturday Night - Archibald Motley (1935)

Take a minute - what do you see 1st?

Next?

Saturday Night - Archibald Motley (1935)

Focus in: Color Movement Character Emotion Faces Light Shapes Atmosphere

Poets

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

● Precursor to HR / Influential to many HR poets

● Born to formerly enslaved parents

● Knew Frederick Douglass ● Focus: Daily plantation life &

social issues ● 1st Af-Am to:

○ support self entirely by writing

○ Earn national recognition & acceptance

“We Wear the Mask” (1896)

● What does it mean to “wear a mask”? ○ How would one do

that? ○ Why would one do

that?

James Weldon Johnson (1927) Godʼs Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse

“We Wear the Mask” (1896)

● Analyze for word choice / emotion / contrasts / shifts / progression

● Who is this poem for? ● What does the mask

represent / allow / provide?

Final Thoughts:

● How does the speakerʼs emotional state progress? ● How does the purpose of wearing the mask develop over

the course of the poem? ● What is the most significant line? Why? ● How is his situation different from the common idea of

“wearing a mask”?

Countee Cullen (1903-1946) ● Poet, writer, clergyman,

president of the Harlem chapter of the NAACP

● Work illustrates dichotomy of his experiences/education ○ “While his informal

education was shaped by his exposure to black ideas and yearnings, his formal education derived from almost totally white influences.” (Poetry Foundation)

“Any Human to Another” (1935)

● What is the message of the poem?

● How does he get that point across?

● Consider: ○ Word choice / tone /

symbolism / specific lines / etc

Palmer Hayden (1930) Untitled (Dreamer)

“For a Poet” (1925)

Aaron Douglas (1927) Birds in Flight

Langston Hughes (1901-1967) ● poet, social activist, and writer /

focused on portraying the experiences of Black life in America

● “refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America” (PF)

● “During the twenties when most American poets were turning inward,... Hughes turn[ed] outward, using language and themes, attitudes and ideas familiar to anyone who had the ability simply to read.” (PF)

3 Poems by Langston Hughes

“Tired” (1930)

“I Dream a World” (1941)

“Still Here” (1957)

Hale Woodruff (1926) Twilight

“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1921)

● “Negro” - term of self-identification during the time period / not used/appropriate today

● How does he portray the black community through this poem?

● How do the various elements of the poem contribute to that portrayal?

Schoolʼs Out - Allan Rohan Crite (1936)

“I, too” (1932)

● Published 10 years before the CR movement

● Tone of the poem? ● How do his choices, his

phrases, shifts, etc, contribute to his overall message?

Harlem Beauty - Werner Drewes (1930)

Claude McKay (1990-1948) ● Jamaican born ● Complimented as a “good black

poet” ○ Why does this matter?

● Poetry was censored bc it was “inflammatory” & “seditious”

● “His philosophically ambitious fiction, …addresses instinctual/intellectual duality, …central to the Black individualʼs efforts to cope in a racist society.” (Poetry Foundation)

“Harlem Dancer” (1917)

● Sonnet: final 2 lines tie up or add meaning

● Focus on: ○ *Contrasting images

/ tone / WC / view of dancer / speaker / last 2 lines

James Lesesne Wells (1928) Looking Upward

“If we must die” (1919)

● Sonnet: final 2 lines tie up or add meaning

● Focus on: ○ Word choice / tone /

contrasts / animal imagery / shifts

● All works to develop what idea? Lois Malilou Jones (1938) Les

Fetiches