Gwendolyn Bennett

Gwendolyn Bennett was born on July 8, 1902 in Giddings, Texas, but spent her early childhood on the Paiute Indian Reservation in Wadsworth, Nevada. When she was four, she moved to Washington, DC where her parents were divorced. Her mother gained custody, but Bennett was kidnapped by her father and stepmother, who kept her in hiding as the traveled up to Brooklyn, where she went to high school. She was very artistically active during her time in high school. Bennett was the first African American to join the literary and drama societies, wrote and performed in her schools play, wrote the class graduation speech and song before attending art classes at Columbia University and the Pratt Institute and graduating in 1924. Bennett is a prominent Harlem Renaissance poet, writing about her heritage, racial pride, rediscovery of Africa and recognition of African music and dance. She currently uses her column in Opportunity to connect with other Renaissance artists and publish her own work.

Grace Weissman Blue Group 11/13/13

Left to right: Langston Hughes, Charles S. Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier, Rudolph Fisher and Hubert T. Delaney, on a Harlem rooftop, 1924. Langston Hughes [far left] with [left to right:] Charles S. Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier, Rudolph Fisher and Hubert T. Delaney, on a Harlem rooftop on the occasion of a party in Hughes' honor, 1924.

The Harlem Renaissance: A Visitors Guide

The Harlem Renaissance: A Visitors Guide

[Brooklyn, NY]

Characteristics of Art, Music and Writing

Art
Artists, such as Aaron Douglas and Augusta Savage and are producing work shaped by the Harlem Renaissance. Using elements such as repetitive geometric shapes, exaggerated features and hard edges these artists are capturing the essence of the time in their reproductions of daily life, prominent figures and interpretation of motifs and culture.

A Harlem Community

Harlem is vicious Modernism - Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)

Political Activist, Marcus Garvey

A Brief History
The Harlem Renaissance is an African American literary, social, intellectual and artistic movement beginning after World War I, during the early twentieth century. Artistic and intellectual African Americans flock to join those in Harlem, New York to join the movement and express the issues that are affecting their everyday lives in an explosion of literature, art and music being produced. Their struggles and protests are inspiring people all across the country to consider the treatment African Americans and how they can contribute their own thoughts and feelings creatively. After all, everyone wants to participate in showing their racial pride, and you can too! Come visit a Harlem Renaissance tour to discover the importance of recognizing ones heritage and discussing the racial issues prevalent in society.

Political Impact Music

One Harlem musician, Cab Calloway, really embodies the new, popular swinging jive. By creating a combination of lyrics about gritty Harlem life and making up nonsense lyrics on the spot, Calloway is jiving his way into New York nightlife. We are currently witnessing history in the making as an important aspect of the Harlem Renaissance. For the first time in history, white elites are collaborating with black intellectuals, social activists, educators and artists to create change in their segregated and racist communities that is spreading throughout the country. Political activist, Marcus Garvey, from Jamaica came to the United States in 1917. He began the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914 and established a branch in Harlem, which has quickly gained the membership of several hundred thousand. Garvey has instilled an idea of racial pride through his black nationalist ideas and continues to assist those attempting to rediscover their African American heritage.

Writing
For the most part Harlem writers are finding their voices through the lyrical qualities o9f poetry. By exploring race and social justice and including the dialects customs and folklore of the rural South, writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston are capturing the political, social and artistic climates of the time.