Transcript The New Negro Movement

The New Negro Movement
• Evolution of black
American thought 18951925
• New Negroes were
African Americans who
often demanded their
legal rights as citizens but
almost always wanted to
create new images that
would challenge old
stereotypes.
• The New Negro stressed
– cultural awareness
– self-confidence
– assertiveness
– self defense.
James Weldon Johnson
Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing (1901)
*View segment from America:
Claude McKay (1919)
“If We Must Die”
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 accursed 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 deathblow!
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!
“The Future as I See It,”
Marcus Garvey, 1923
“Black men, you were once great; you shall be
great again. Lose not courage, lose not faith, go
forward. The thing to do is to get organized; keep
separated and you will be exploited, you will be
robbed, you will be killed. Get organized, and you
will compel the world to respect you. If the world
fails to give you consideration, because you are
black men, because you are Negroes, four
hundred millions of you shall, through
organization, shake the pillars of the universe and
bring down creation, even as Samson brought
down the temple upon his head and upon the
heads of the Philistines.”
Aaron
Douglas
“Study of
God’s
Trombones”
(1926)
“Awakening of Ethiopia”
Lois Mailou Jones
1932
Journal Entry:
What does the following quote mean? Does it fit with
the concepts put forth by the New Negro Movement?
• “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest
fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not
our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who
am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who
are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small
does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about
shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to
make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in
some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others.”
– Marianne Williamson (1994)