1. PROSPERITY, DEPRESSION, & THE NEW DEAL
American History II - Unit 4

2. HARLEM RENAISSANCE
Unit Mr. Duncan

3. The Great Migration 1910-1930 - The Great Migration
hundreds of thousands of blacks left the rural South/west for urban northern cities in search of new jobs
end of 1920s - over 40% of African Americans lived in cities
“Some said goodbye cheerfully… others fearfully, with terrors of unknown dangers in their mouths… others in their eagerness for distance and said nothing. The daybreak found them gone. The wind said North.” - Zora Neale Hurston
However, northern cities were not very receptive to the massive increase black residents each year → increased race riots and racial violence

4. African American Goals
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
founded in 1909, WEB Du Bois
The Crisis - national magazine
1920s - push for civil rights gains through legislative means - James Weldon Johnson (poet, lawyer, NAACP executive secretary) pushed for anti-lynching laws, but Congress passed none
NAACP continued to organize against lynchings, and slowly, they decreased to an extent

5. Marcus Garvey
Encouraged followers to return to Africa, help native people there throw off white colonial oppressors, and build independent black nations
appealed to African Americans and blacks in the Caribbean and Africa
support declined in the mid-1920s when Garvey was convicted of mail fraud and jailed
Garvey left a legacy of newly awakened black pride, economic independence, and interest in African heritage

6. The Harlem Renaissance
a literary and artistic movement in the 1920s celebrating African-American culture
Many blacks migrated to Harlem (a neighboorhood in NYC)
residents from the South, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Haiti
“Black capital of America”
suffered from overcrowding, unemployment, and poverty → in part the inspiration for the Harlem Renaissance

7. The Harlem Renaissance
led by well-educated, middle-class, blacks
expressed a new pride in the African American experience
celebrated black heritage, emphasized the trials of being black in a white world

8. African American Writers
Background
Known for...
Claude McKay
novelist and poet, Jamaican immigrant, militant
Songs of Jamaica, “The Harlem Dancer”
expressed the pain of life in black ghettos and in a white-dominated society
encouraged blacks to resist prejudice/discrimination
Langston Hughes
poet, from Missouri
I, Too I, Too , Dream Deferred (Harlem), Various poems, short stories
described difficulties for working-class blacks
poetry read to the tempo of jazz and blues music
Zora Neale Hurston
novelist and poet, from Florida,
Their Eyes Were Watching God
potrayed the lives of unschooled, poor Southern blacks
celebrated the “common person’s art form” - ways blacks developed to survive slavery and the Jim Crow South

9. African American Performers
Background
Known for...
Paul Robeson
actor, son of a one-time slave
acclaimed performance in Shakespeare’s Othello in London and NYC
Louis Armstrong
trumpet player, lived in New Orleans and NYC
astounding sense of rhythm and ability to improvise
became the most important and influential musician in the history of jazz
helped popularize “scat”- improvised jazz singing using sounds instead of words
Edward “Duke” Ellington
jazz pianist and composer, played at NYC’s Cotton Club
played at the famous NYC Cotton Club
s - won fame as a top American composer
Bessie Smith
female blues singer
outstanding 1920s vocalist
highest paid black artist in the world