1. The Harlem Renaissance

2. What was the Harlem Renaissance?
A Black literary and artistic movement
The first in African American history
A cultural, social, and artistic explosion
It took place in Harlem -- (New York City}
The end of WW I and the middle of the 1930s

3. Harlem Blacks were drawn to Harlem during the Great Migration
“The capital of Black America.”
Black intellectuals and artists came from across the country
Writers, artists, musicians,
photographers, poets, scholars
Fleeing the Jim Crow South
Harlem was the center of black cultural life

4. The New Negro Movement
The New Negro was militant and proud of his race The New Negro wanted to keep his group identity The New Negro demanded full rights of citizenship Harlem Renaissance called “The New Negro Movement” A shift from Booker T. Washington to DuBois Black leadership moved from Tuskegee to New York Rejecting Washington’s message of accommodation

5. Patrons of the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance made possible by white people
Whites “patrons” sponsored Black artists
White readers bought books by black writers
Black writers and artists mixed with whites
Best-integrated group among American blacks.
mixed freely with white literati
Mixed freely with the Greenwich Village crowd
Interracial couples danced at the Cotton Club

6. Origins of the Harlem Renaissance
For over thirty, Black intellectuals had been studying . . .
black history and folk culture
African roots of Black culture
Negro spirituals were introduced to the general public
The American Negro Academy promoted the black arts
literature, arts, music, and history
Black writers explored life in black communities
The first Negro dolls appeared

7. A growing Black press Between 1910 and 1920
50 black newspapers and magazines were established
Bringing the total to 500.
The Associated Negro Press founded in 1919
The first national black press agency
Founded by Claude Barnett

8. A growing interest in Black history
The first college courses in Black history
Taught in Black Colleges
1910s
The first permanent Negro historical association
est. 1915
Studied both the African & American past
Founded by Carter G. Woodson
The Journal of Negro History

9. The Harlem Renaissance included art from every medium
Literature Poetry Painting Music Theater Photography

10. Jazz and the Blues
The Renaissance also incorporated jazz and the blues,
This music drew whites audiences to Harlem speakeasies
Whites were attracted to the alleged exotic way of life
The famous Cotton Club entertained white audiences
Black and white musicians
A chorus line of light-skinned Blacks.
Blacks could enter only as performers and employees
not as paying guests

11. Key figures of the Harlem Renaissance
Countee Cullen
Arna Bontemps

12. Key figures of the Harlem Renaissance
Claude McKay
Alain LeRoy Locke

13. Key figures of the Harlem Renaissance
Aaron Douglas
Zora Neale Hurston

14. Key figures of the Harlem Renaissance
Duke Ellington
Josephine Baker

15. Key figures of the Harlem Renaissance
Louis Armstrong
Langston Hughes

16. Writers in the 1920s explored a variety of themes
An interest in the race's past
Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.”
Arna Bontemps, Black Thunder
An exploration of traditions in the black subculture
Southern Black religious life
The Black family
The gentility and respectability of Black middle class life
Plots often revolved around “passing” and the color line

17. Writers in the 1930s explored different themes
Protest replaced folk culture
Walter White, Fire in the Flint
The ironic poems of Countee Cullen (“Yet Do I Marvel,”)
The poem The Lynching by Claude McKay
Langston Hughes wrote “Let America Be America Again.”