The Harlem Renaissance

When black identity was reborn in Harlem, N.Y., and found expression in music, literature, art, theater and politics between 1900s-1930s.

The Birth of “The New Negro”

Between 1910 and 1920, there was a huge migration of blacks from the south to some of the great cities in the north, including Washington D.C., New York city and Chicago.

New York’s Harlem was known as the place to be!

Jazz music found a home; black music that resonated in the hearts of whites as well. Clubs sprang up - the famous Cotton

Club and the Lenox Lounge, among others.

Harlem: A New Mecca

Harlem became the capital of black America. It came to be known as the new “Mecca” for African-Americans. The seeds of a new Black Identity were sown with the growth of music, art, theater and literature in Harlem.

Harlem: The magnet that attracted creative minds.

• Harlem became the magnet for writers, musicians, artists, political activists, and ordinary people who just wanted to have a good time.
• Music: “Take The ‘A’ Train -Duke Ellington

• Two important Civil Rights groups started in Harlem: the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and the National Urban League, founded in 1911 to help new arrivals from the rural south

Leaders of that era: Marcus Garvey

• Marcus Garvey was born in Jamaica.
• He founded the newspaper The Negro World.
• In 1917, he founded UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) in Harlem.
• Garvey’s famous cry was "Africa for the Africans.”

Leaders of that Era�(continued):�W.E.B. Dubois

• William Edward Burghardt DuBois, was one of the founders of the NAACP in 1909. He was also the editor of its magazine “Crisis.” -improve images of African Americans in society
• A writer and civil rights activist, Dubois was the intellectual soul of the Harlem Renaissance. He has been termed the “Renaissance Man of African-Americans”

Langston Hughes:The Poet Laureate of the Harlem Renaissance

• Langston Hughes, was born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902, but he made his home in Harlem, N.Y.
• Langston Hughes wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, his experiences with racism shaped his poetry
• Attempted to expose racism rather than just provide positive examples

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The Negro Speaks of Rivers ~Langston Hughes

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Other famous writers of the Harlem Renaissance:

• Wrote “Their Eyes Were Watching God”
• Helped in the creation of a magazine called “Fire!!” , publishing work without censors

Zora Neale Hurston – one of Harlem’s most flamboyant and brilliant writers. Alice Walker called her “A genius of the South.”

When color ruled: The art of the Harlem Renaissance

• “Lois Mailou Jones–

in 1925 and in 1989-fought

segregration in art galleries

Other Artists of the Harlem Renaissance

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Aaron Douglas

(1898-1979)�Window Cleaning

-His first major commission was to

illustrate Alain LeRoy Locke’s book

“The New Negro”

-Hardships of life, stark silhouettes

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Other famous artists of that time: Jacob Lawrence . . .

• Painting on Left:

Pool Parlor, 1942�Jacob Lawrence (American, 1917–2000)�

• Most of his work was done during the Great Depression, but arose out of the Harlem Renaissance

Music of the Harlem Renaissance: Jazz, Blues, Swing

Eleanora Fagan Holiday – “Billie” - was one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time. “Strange Fruit,” an eerie and evocative song about the lynching of a black man is one of her most famous songs.

Influenced by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong

“Before anybody could compare me with other singers, they were comparing other singers to me.” – Billie Holiday

Edward Kennedy Ellington (“Duke Ellington”)

• Duke Ellington was the foremost among the great big band composers and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance period and beyond.
• He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• He also received honorary doctorates from Howard and Yale Universities.

“My favorite tune?

The next one.

The one I’m writing tonight

or tomorrow,

The new baby is always the favorite.” Duke Ellington

Other musicians from that time period:

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Count Basie

Fletcher Henderson

Coleman Hawkins

Other musicians from that time period:

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Bessie Smith, originally a

street musician in

Chattanooga, Tennessee,

recorded and performed with

the Fletcher Henderson

Orchestra.

Louis Armstrong, originally from New Orleans, played in NYC with Fletcher Henderson for thirteen months and shot into national fame in the 1920s.

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Bessie Smith

Louis Armstrong

Lost Your Head Blues

Sung by Bessie Smith,

“Empress of the Blues.”

Theater during the Harlem Renaissance:

Between 1912 and 1927, black theatres began featuring several different kinds of acts: Vaudeville, minstrel shows, singers, dancers, jugglers, clowns, comedians, dancers

Ex. Josephine Baker

Movements sometimes arise organically …

• … and the Harlem Renaissance was one such movement.
• It was a happy coincidence, a convulution of circumstances, that brought together writers, musicians, artists, theater people and political activists.
• There’s a lot more, folks, but that’s for you to discover!

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