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Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York.
Lasting roughly from the 1910s through the mid-1930s, the period is considered a golden age in African American
culture, manifesting in literature, music, stage performance and art.
The theme that can be seen through this movement is alienation, marginality, the tradition of blues and the
problem of expressing oneself in the middle of a majority with more rights, as at that time the whites were. The
Harlem Renaissance was more than a cultural movement because it also included the creation of an African-
American consciousness as a human being. It also meant giving a different look to Africa. They were years in
which there was the explosion of jazz, gospel and blues, of painting, and of the presentations of reality through
the dramatic revues, or events in which songs, dances, jokes and dramatized shorts were included for parody
recent events.
Authors such as Zora Neale Hurston and Nella Larsen and poets such as Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and
Countee Cullen wrote works to describe the experience of being 'black'. In these years jazz, swing and blues
began to be part of American popular music.

It was also a time of continuous political movement of the African-American population. It was like an awakening
of physical and mental slavery to start a real struggle for rights. Proof of this are the groups that became notable
such as the United Negro Improvement Association and the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People.

WHY HARLEM?
By 1908, the Jim Crow Law ruled as a mechanism for whites to continue to control the Afro population. In this
way they tried to avoid an African-American emancipation for social equality that included participation in political
decisions. A new reality brought those years with the division of places for whites and blacks, apparently on an
equal footing. However, whites had more opportunities and access to better quality as was visible in schools,
while African-American children studied in deplorable conditions.
All these especially strong conditions in the American South prompted many of them to venture into the search
for new opportunities in the north. By 1920, some 300,000 African Americans from the South had moved north,
and Harlem was one of the most popular destinations for these families.
THE PROTAGONISTS OF HARLEM.
This was a time when African-Americans can feel proud of everything they achieved through art. They went from
being a completely oppressed culture to a culture with more desire to live and eager to express themselves.
Literature
Zora Neale Hurston
This woman is one of the most prominent in the prose of the Harlem Renaissance. He managed to publish four
novels, more than fifty stories, theatrical scripts and essays. In 1937 his work Their Eyes Were Wathing God is
one of the best known.
Claude McKay
Despite being born in Jamaica, this writer and poet achieved to be one of the protagonists of the Renaissance
with three novels he wrote as Home to Harlem in 1928, Banjo in 1929 and Bananas Botton in 1923.
Also McKay wrote in his work about his Jamaican culture, Love and Exile as Tropic in New York and Harlem
Dancer, which denotes his revolutionary style and interest in create awareness about his race.
Visual artists
Aaron Douglas
The work of this artist is considered the one that best exemplifies the philosophy
of the 'New Negro'. Douglas painted murals in public buildings and produced
illustrations and covers of many publications of African-American writers such as
The Crisis and the Opportunity. In 1940, this man moved to Nashville, Tennessee,
to founded the Art Department of Fisk University, where he taught for 29 years.
Jacob Lawrence
Lawrence was one of the most acclaimed artists for over fifty years. His work was
especially distinguished for having created numerous series of paintings always
reflecting the life of the African-American community. From a young age he was
known for reading about African-American history, knowledge
that was reflected in his visual narratives. The Migration Series
is one of his best known works.
MUSIC
The music that percolated in and then boomed out of Harlem in
the 1920s was jazz, often played at speakeasies offering illegal
liquor. Jazz became a great draw for not only Harlem residents,
but outside white audiences also.
Some of the most celebrated names in American music
regularly performed in Harlem—Louis Armstrong, Duke
Ellington, Bessie Smith, Fats Waller and Cab Calloway, often accompanied by elaborate floor shows. Tap
dancers like John Bubbles and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson were also popular.

I, too, sing America.

“I am the darker brother.


They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.” By Langston Hughes

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