1. The Harlem Renaissance
Harlem is vicious
Modernism. BangClash.
Vicious the way it’s made,
Can you stand such beauty.
So violent and transforming.
-Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)
A cultural movement in Art, Literature, Music, and Lifestyle

2. Jim Crow Laws in the South
WWI and the need for factory workers in the cities
Northern Migration
Chicago, Detroit, and New York
But Harlem was the settling point for a significant amount of talent and so it becomes THE place to be and be seen.
“Ascent of Ethiopia” (1932) Lois Mailou Jones

3. Harlem ... Harlem Black, black Harlem Souls of Black Folk Ask Du Bois Little grey restless feet Ask Claude McKay City of Refuge Ask Rudolph Fisher Don't damn your body's itch Ask Countee Cullen Does the jazz band sob? Ask Langston Hughes Nigger Heaven Ask Carl Van Vechten Hey! ... Hey! " ... Say it brother Say it ...“ -Frank Horne, “Harlem”
Street Life, Harlem ( ) William H. Johnson

4. The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
Ancient, dusky rivers.
Aaron Douglas “Into Bondage” (1936)

5. I, too “The Jazz Singers” Archibald J. Motley Jr (1934)
Langston Hughes
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.
“The Jazz Singers” Archibald J. Motley Jr (1934)

6. Refugee in America Langston Hughes There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heart-strings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I knew You would know why.

7. The Black Finger Angelina Weld Grimke
I have just seen a beautiful thing
Slim and still,
Against a gold, gold sky,
A straight cypress,
Sensitive
Exquisite,
A black finger
Pointing upwards.
Why, beautiful, still finger are you black?
And why are you pointing upwards?

8. From The Dark Tower
Countee Cullen
We shall not always plant while others reap The golden increment of bursting fruit, Not always countenance, abject and mute, That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; Not everlastingly while others sleep Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute, Not always bend to some more subtle brute; We were not made to eternally weep.  The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, White stars is no less lovely being dark, And there are buds that cannot bloom at all In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall; So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

9. A Black Man Talks of Reaping Arna Bontemps I have sown beside all waters in my day. I planted deep, within my heart the fear that wind or fowl would take the grain away. I planted safe against this stark, lean year. I scattered seed enough to plant the land in rows from Canada to Mexico but for my reaping only what the hand can hold at once is all that I can show. Yet what I sowed and what the orchard yields my brother's sons are gathering stalk and root; small wonder then my children glean in fields they have not sown, and feed on bitter fruit.
Hoeing, 1943, Robert Gwathmey

10. Sonnet To A Negro In Harlem Helene Johnson You are disdainful and magnificent-- Your perfect body and your pompous gait, Your dark eyes flashing solemnly with hate; Small wonder that you are incompetent To imitate those whom you so dispise-- Your shoulders towering high above the throng, Your head thrown back in rich, barbaric song, Palm trees and manoes stretched before your eyes. Let others toil and sweat for labor's sake And wring from grasping hands their meed of gold. Why urge ahead your supercilious feet? Scorn will efface each footprint that you make. I love your laughter, arrogant and bold. You are too splendid for this city street!

11. America Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
Claude McKay
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.
Archibald Motley “Bronzeville at Night” (1949)