T HE H ARLEM R ENAISSANCE 20.5

O BJECTIVES Analyze the racial and economic philosophies of Marcus Garvey. Trace the development and impact of jazz. Discuss the themes explored by writers of the Harlem Renaissance.

K EY P ARTS A New “Black Consciousness” The Jazz Age The Harlem Renaissance

I NTRODUCTION Read Section 20.4 Answer Critical Thinking Questions 4&5.

A N EW “B LACK C ONSCIOUSNESS ” After WWI thousands of African Americans relocated from the rural South to the Urban North. This began the Harlem Renaissance and the flowering of music and literature. The African Americans leaving the south hoped for a better future. They had heard stories of economic opportunity, social advancement, and greater political rights.

C ONT. The Industrial jobs paid more in the north than the sharecropping did in the south. African Americans began to take on jobs such as ministers, physicians, lawyers, teachers, and journalists. This all sounded good, however; in the north the blacks still had to live in the worst housing and get paid the least for the jobs they did.

C ONT.. In the summer of 1919 there were race riots in the north showing African Americans that the North and south of the Mason Dixon line were a threat still for African Americans. During this time roughly 200,000 blacks settled in Harlem. They mixed in with the Jamaicans that had began arriving from the Caribbean islands.

C ONT … The most prominent new African American leader to emerge in the 1920s was Marcus Garvey. Garvey was different from Booker T. Washington and WEB Du Bois. His platform was “back to Africa” meaning that he wanted to keep a separation of the races. He was the head of the Universal Negro Movement and was doing very well until he committed mail fraud and was deported back to Jamaica.

T HE J AZZ A GE Jazz is a musical form based on improvisation, Jazz musicians creatively recombine different forms of music. Jazz emerged in the South and Midwest, particularly New Orleans. The Jazz spread with the African Americans up north. Lois Armstrong became the unofficial ambassador of jazz he was a famous trumpet player.

C ONT. After Armstrong all jazz bands featured soloists and many began featuring vocal soloists. Bessie Smith was a a famous one and was named the “Empress of the Blues” Jazz was often played in the speakeasies and became the symbol of the twenties and also the prohibition era.

C ONT.. Jazz took off in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. By the end of the twenties Jazz had even spread into Europe. Gerald Early, a modern scholar even said that three major things would be remembered about US History; the Constitution, baseball, and jazz.

T HE H ARLEM R ENAISSANCE Jazz and blues were expressions of the African American experience. The blues would talk about the hard times of the African Americans and Jazz would speak or hit the soaring notes of the accomplishments of African Americans. In the 1920s a new term emerged; “New Negro” the word was intended to break away from the past, and the old ways of exploitation and discrimination of blacks.

C ONT. African American literature also began taking off during this Harlem Renaissance. African American novelists, essayists, poets, and journalists all flocked to Harlem where this reformation was happening. They did this so they could account all the occurrences and progress that was happening. Basically writing Black history.

C ONT.. Jean Toomer’s Cane in 1923 set the tone for the Harlem Renaissance for writers. Following him was Claude McKay, he represented the political and ideological left wing of the Harlem Renaissance. More in the center was Langston Hughes, probably the most powerful African American Literary voice of his time. The Harlem Renaissance gave a voice to African American culture during the 1920s.