Aim: What were the contributions of the Harlem Renaissance?

SOUTHERN BLACKS AND THE LURE OF THE NORTH BEFORE AND AFTER 1914 Most African Americans remained in the South nearly fifty years after the Civil War. There were plenty of reasons for blacks to leave the south, but little economic advantage to moving northward. With outbreak of World War I, this dynamic changes because: 1) war generates new opportunities for industry 2) much of existing labor supply leaves work force 3) immigrant labor pool evaporates. End result: The Great Migration which congregated black populations in northern cities like Chicago and New York in unprecedented numbers. The concentration, in New York city, occurred on the upper west side, in Harlem. 

The Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance is the name given to the period from the end of World War I and through the middle of the 1930’s Depression, during which a group of talented African-American writers, thinkers and artists produced a sizable contribution to American culture. The Harlem Renaissance

Harlem is vicious Modernism. Bang Clash Harlem is vicious Modernism. Bang Clash. Vicious the way it's made, Can you stand such beauty. So violent and transforming. - Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)

Harlem, New York

Some of the musicians during the Harlem Renaissance Bessie Smith _ Ma Rainey – Jazz singers Duke Ellington - pianist Louis “ Satchmo” Armstrong -trumpeter Cab Calloway – Jazz singer

The Young Black Intellectuals The group, photographed at a party held for Langston Hughes, includes (from left to right): Poet Langston Hughes, sociologist Charles Spurgeon Johnson, historian E. Franklin Frazier, doctor and author Rudolph Fisher, and legislator Hubert Delaney. This photo is from the collection of Regina Andrews. The Young Black Intellectuals

The Harlem Renaissance gave birth the many important publications, such as The Crisis magazine, edited by W. E. B. DuBois, giving black writers a forum where their voices could be heard.

Palmer Hayden “The Janitor Who Paints”

Jeunesse* by Palmer Hayden *Jeunesse – gilded youth or young people of wealth and fashion

Palmer Hayden

Hale Woodruff, 1934

Hale Woodruff

Edward Burra, 1934

Gamin* Augusta Savage 1930 *gamin-n. a neglected boy left to run about The streets; street urchin Augusta Savage 1930

Writers of the Harlem Renaissance Sterling Brown Claude McKay Langston Hughes Zora Neal Hurston James Weldon Johnson Countee Cullen Nella Larson Richard Wright Writers of the Harlem Renaissance

Claude McKay America Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth! Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate. Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer. Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

Langston Hughes Cross My old man’s a white old man And my old mother’s black. If ever I cursed my white old man I take my curses back. If ever I cursed my black old mother And wished she were in hell, I’m sorry for that evil wish And now I wish her well My old man died in a fine big house. My ma died in a shack. I wonder where I’m going to die, Being neither white nor black?