Transcript Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance
“Harlem was not so much a place
as a state of mind, the cultural
metaphor for black America itself.”
What It Was
• Harlem Renaissance
– A flowering of African
American art,
literature, music and
culture in the United
States led primarily by
the African American
community based in
Harlem, New York
City.
When It Occurred
• Beginning:
– 1924 Opportunity
magazine hosted a
party for black writers
with many white
publishers attending
• Ending:
– 1929, the year of the
stock market crash
and the resulting
economic Great
Depression.
Who?
• Descendants from a
generation whose
parents or
grandparents had
witnessed slavery and
Reconstruction
• Lived in a country
governed by Jim
Crow laws.
Who?
• Many of these people
were part of the Great
Migration out of the
South and other
racially stratified
communities ;
Between 1910 and 1930, the African American
population in the North rose by about 20 percent
overall. Cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, and
Cleveland had some of the biggest increases.
Factors behind the Great Migration
• Avoid the racial segregation of Jim Crow laws in the
South
• Boll weevil infestation in Southern cotton in the late
1910s forced people to search for other work
• Blacks could take the service jobs that new white factory
workers had vacated;
• The Immigration Act of 1924 stopped European
immigrants, causing a shortage of factory workers;
• The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 displaced
thousands of African-American farm workers.
Effects of the Harlem Renaissance
• Music
• Literature
• Art
Music
• Jazz
– Brass and woodwind
instruments with
trumpets, trombones
and saxophones
playing lead parts
– Characterized by
intricate leads and
accidentals
– Complex chords,
syncopated rhythms
– Improvised solos
Music
• Big Band or Swing
– No microphones
meant that musicians
increased band size to
increase sound
– Used composers and
arrangers
– Little room for
improvisation
Notable Musicians
Notable Writers
Langston
Hughes
Countee
Cullen
Zora Neale Hurston
Notable Artists
Self Portrait with Bandana, William
Johnson
Portrait Bust of Paul Robeson
Sir Jacob Epstein
Midonz, Ronald Moody
Les Fetiches, Lois Mailou Jones
Dust to Dust, Jacob Lawrence
Blues, Archibald Motley, Jr.
Café, William H. Johnson
Where is Harlem?
The island of Manhattan
Harlem is on Manhattan island
Neighborhoods
Where was the Harlem
Renaissance centered?
• Centered in the
Harlem district of
New York City,
the New Negro
Movement (as it
was called at the
time) had a major
influence across
the Unites States
and even the
world.
The White Influence on the
Harlem Renaissance:
• The Harlem Renaissance appealed to a mixed
audience—the African American middle class
and white consumers of the arts.
• Urbane whites suddenly took up New York’s
African-American community, bestowing their
patronage on young artists, opening up
publishing opportunities, and pumping cash into
Harlem’s “exotic” nightlife in a complex
relationship that scholars continue to probe.
• The famous Cotton Club
carried this trend to the bizarre
extreme by providing black
entertainment for exclusively
white audiences.
• The relationship of the Harlem
Renaissance to white venues
and white audiences created
controversy.
• While many African-American
critics strongly supported the
movement, others, like
Benjamin Brawley and even
W.E.B. DuBois were sharply
critical and accused
Renaissance writers and
artists of reinforcing negative
African-American stereotypes.
Other Important Places
Within Harlem & Nightlife:
• In addition to the Cotton
Club, at Lennox and 140th
Street the Savoy
Ballroom hosted most of
Harlem’s major social
events and parties, where
blacks and whites
mingles on the dance
floor and where the Lindy
Hop was invented.
The Apollo Theater
• In the 1930s the opening of the
Apollo Theater on 125th Street
signaled the expansion of
Harlem’s entertainment district.
• The Apollo featured the finest
acts and became the most
prestigious African American
performing stage in the
country.
• The response of the Apollo’s
knowledgeable audience could
make or break a performer’s
career.
Influential Figures & Events
in the Renaissance:
• Writers & Poets:
- Countee Cullen
- Langston Hughes
- Jean Toomer
- James Weldon Johnson
- Zora Neale Hurston
- Arna Bontemps
- Wallace Thurman
- Nella Larsen
- Claude McKay
- Gwendolyn Brooks
- Jessie Redmon Fauset
• Musicians, Singers,
Entertainers:
- Louis Armstrong
- Bessie Smith
- Dizzie Gillespie
- Josephine Baker
- Eubie Blake
- Duke Ellington
- Ma Rainey
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Billie Holiday
- Ethel Waters
- Fats Waller
• Artists:
- Aaron Douglass
- Jacob Lawrence
- William H. Johnson
- Archibald Motley, Jr.
- Ronald C. Moody
- Palmer Hayden
- Lois Mailou Jones
• Political Activists:
- W.E.B. DuBois
- Marcus Garvey
- Alain Leroy Locke
- Charles R. Drew
- Regina Anderson
- Arturo Alfonso
Schomburg
• Athletes/Athletic
Teams:
- Satchel Paige
- The Harlem
Globetrotters
- Negro National
League
• Journals/Magazines:
- The Crisis
- The Survey Graphic
- Opportunity: A
Journal of Negro Life
- FIRE!!
How did it impact history?
• The Harlem Renaissance helped to redefine how
Americans and the world understood African
American culture. It integrated black and white
cultures, and marked the beginning of a black
urban society.
• The Harlem Renaissance set the stage for the
Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.