The Harlem Renaissance

Harlem, NY – 1920’sAn upsurge in African

Americancultural expression

Renaissance – a rebirth or revival

• Usually refers to European Renaissance of 1300-1600

• An era of curiosity and innovation in science, architecture & fine arts

• A rebirth of the Golden Age of ancient Greece and Rome

Harlem Renaissance

• After WWI – a huge African American migration to the North

• Harlem (in NYC) welcomed writers, artists, musicians, performers, doctors, students and shopkeepers

Literature – the “Talented Tenth”

• Highly educated writers promoted the African American identity in poetry, short stories and drama.

• Harlem newspapers Crisis and Opportunity published new works.

Harlem Literary Magazines

• Writings celebrated rhythms of blues and jazz

• Captured street-wise wit of “real” African-American people

• Expressed frustration of a “dream deferred””

Langston Hughes – one of America’s most celebrated writers of poetry and fiction

Harlem Renaissance Authors

Row 1: (left to right) Countee Cullen and Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Row 2: Angelina Weld Grimké and Langston Hughes

Row 3: Alain Locke and Claude McKay

Row 4: Wallace Thurman and Carl Van Vechten

Jacob Lawrence – Tombstones and Builders

Parade – Jacob Lawrence

Harlem at Night Winold Reiss, 1924

Blues and Jazz

The BluesOrigin – New OrleansInfluences:• African American

folk music• Work songs (shouts

and hollers from slave fields)

• Gospel music

Jazz - An original American art form

Earliest Jazz styles:• Ragtime and

Dixieland in 1890’sNew Orleans

Has roots in:• African rhythms• European harmonies• American Gospel

sound• Work songs

After 1917, Jazz spread north and west to New York, Chicago, San Francisco and St. Louis and developed into an improvisational type of music.

Jazz crossed race and cultural boundaries and became an

American music style.