1. The Harlem Renaissance

2. Urbanization and the Ghetto
Northern migrations
Harlem
Diversity in Afro-American culture
Rent quality
Disease and poverty
Homicide - quadruple
Pneumonia, TB, infant mortality - double

3. Red Summer

5. Black Nationalism Marcus Garvey Response to Red Summer
“The first dying that is to be done by the black man in the future will be done to make himself free. And then when we are finished, if we have any charity to bestow, we may die for the white man. But as for me, I think I have stopped dying for him.”
Economic and cultural independence and separatism
Universal Negro Improvement Association
Negro World
“Back to Africa”

6. The Harlem Renaissance
Independence through talent and determination
Harlem Renaissance
Reflects black culture
“we younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too.” – Langston Hughes
Jazz
Blues and ragtime move North with migrations
Blues + classical = Jazz

7. The Cotton Club

8. Harlem Poetry Langston Hughes Claude McKay
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.
If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

9. Langston Hughes Louis Armstrong
America! Land created in common, Dream nourished in common, Keep your hand on the plow! Hold on! If the house is not yet finished, Don’t be discouraged, builder! If the fight is not yet won, Don’t be weary, soldier! The plan and the pattern is here, Woven from the beginning Into the warp and woof of America: ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN WITHOUT HIS CONSENT. BETTER DIE FREE, THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.
DEMOCRACY! To all the enemies of these great words: We say, NO!…
Freedom’s Plow, 1943
Langston Hughes
Louis Armstrong