Transcript Document

I Ain’t Misbehavin’ Lyrics
No one to talk with,
All by myself,
No one to walk with,
But I'm happy on the shelf
Ain't misbehavin',
I'm savin' my love for you
I know for certain,
The one I love,
I through with flirtin',
It's just you I'm thinkin' of.
Ain't misbehavin',
I'm savin' my love for you
Like Jack Horner in the
corner
Don't go no where,
What do I care,
Your kisses are worth
waitin' for
Be-lieve me
I don't stay out late,
Don't care to go,
I'm home about eight,
Just me and my radio
Ain't misbehavin',
I'm savin' my love for
The Harlem Renaissance
“Harlem is indeed the
great Mecca for the
sight-seer; the
pleasure seeker, the
curious, the
adventurous, the
enterprising, the
ambitious and the
talented of the whole
Negro world.”
Duke Ellington
“Sweet Jazz O’ Mine”
-Alain Locke
What Was It?
• Time period: After WWI to mid-1930s.
• “It was the period when the Negro was in
vogue.” –Langston Hughes
• “It’s spiritual center…was not a place on the
map but a place in the consciousness of a
people whose gifts had long been ignored,
patronized as ‘quaint,’ or otherwise relegated
to the margins of American culture.”
• African heritage and roots were embraced by
the movement’s young writers, artists and
musicians.
• The movement altered not only African
American culture, but American culture as a
whole.
Migration
•
Thousand of blacks
migrated to the North
from the South, the
Midwest, and even
the West Indies in
order to:
1.
2.
3.
Flee poverty and look
for better employment
opportunities
Find more economic
and personal freedom
Escape growing racial
violence, particularly in
the South
Harlem
• In the early 1920s, African American artists,
writers, musicians, and performers were part of a
great cultural movement known as the Harlem
Renaissance.
• Harlem – the place to finally establish themselves
in wider, American society.
• The huge migration to the North after World War
I brought African Americans of all ages and walks
of life to the thriving New York City neighborhood
called Harlem.
1920
1911
1930
The “New Negro” (Alain Locke)
• “‘New Negroes’ rejected beastlike or
sentimental stereotypes, claiming the right to
define themselves and defend themselves
against attack. ‘New Negroes’ felt a collective
identity…at the same time, they possessed
an international consciousness, recognizing
kinship among blacks in the United States,
West Indies, and Africa.”
• From The Language of Literature
Themes of HR
• Key themes:
• alienation,
• marginality,
• the use of folk material,
• the use of the blues tradition,
• the problems of writing for an elite audience.
• They also confronted the issue of “two-ness” (coined by W.E.B.
Du Bois in 1903), which confronts the conflicting identities felt by
African Americans at the time - to be both “an American, a
Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled stirrings: two
warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone
keeps it from being torn asunder."
The Writers
“I had an overwhelming desire to
see Harlem. More than Paris, or
the Shakespeare country, or
Berlin, or the Alps, I wanted to see
Harlem, the greatest Negro city in
the world.”
- Langston Hughes
Zora Neale
Hurston
1891-1960
•
•
•
•
•
•
Moved to Harlem in 1925
Graduated from Columbia
University in 1928
Most famous book, Their Eyes
Were Watching God was
published in 1937.
Traveled through South,
collecting folk tales from African
American oral traditions.
Never addressed white racism
in her writing.
Focused on belief that blacks
could be free from American
racism.
“Mama exhorted her children at every
opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might
not land on the sun, but at least we would
get off the ground.” (Dust Tracks on a
Road, 1942)
Langston Hughes
1902-1967
• Discovered at twenty-three.
• “If anything is important, it is
my poetry, not me.”
• One of the first African
Americans to support himself
solely as a writer.
• Blended the sounds of jazz
into his poetry.
• Emphasized lower-class Black
life.
• Wrote in free verse but also
used conventional forms.
The
Musicians
(When asked what jazz is)
“Man, if you gotta ask you’ll never
know.”
Louis Armstrong
Duke Ellington
•
One of the most famous
names in Jazz.
•
Created big band: orchestra of
jazz musicians.
•
Changed sound of jazz by
incorporating African elements.
•
During the Harlem
Renaissance, he and his band
played at the hip Cotton Club,
which only allowed white
patrons.
•
During the late 1920s, he was
everywhere: touring, on
Broadway, and in the movies.
Louis Armstrong
• Born in New Orleans in
1901.
• Inventive trumpet player.
• Helped to transform jazz
from an ensemble
entertainment to a solo art.
• Used scat singing.
• Highly visible musician,
respected by both the black
and the white community.
Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington
“Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”
The Art
Jeunesse by Palmer Hayden
Palmer Hayden, The Janitor Who Paints
William H. Johnson, Chain Gang
Why did the Harlem
Renaissance end?
Before
• Natural end; it had
run its course
• The economic
problems of the
Great Depression
• In the end, HR
helped Harlem
transform from a
deteriorating area
into a thriving
middle class
community
After
Poetry
Activity
Read your assigned poem:
1. “Tableau” page 745
2. “Incident” page 747
3. “Harlem” page 754
4. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” page 758
5. “The Weary Blues” page 751
6. “the mississippi river empties into the gulf” page 761
On a sheet of paper, complete the following:
1. Identify and explain the theme: What is the main message
of this poem?
2. What characteristics in the poem reflect that of the Harlem
Renaissance?
3. Create a 12 line found poem, capturing the theme of the
original.