The Harlem Renaissance
In 1925, Howard University Professor Alain
Locke published The New Negro, a book
that captured the spirit and that great culture awakening among the African
American people that came to be known as the Harlem Renaissance. Teeming with racial pride, this collection of
poetry, essays, short stories, and art conveyed the genius of an African
America determined not just to survive but to inspirt people of all races with
an astounding surge of cultural creativity.
Locke’s book appeared in the midst of a especially significant time for
the creative arts in African America, a period during which black musicians,
poets, and visual artists of New York City’s Harlem area gave to the United
States a rich outpouring of creative expression that would forever influence
both the African American and the general cultural life of the United States.
During the 1920s, artists of African descent
poured into Harlem, the community of Manhattan in New York City that had become
a major destination not only for southern and northern migrants within the
United States but also for immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. As the 1920s opened, World War I had just
come to a conclusion; significant
portions of the population of the United States were tired of war, weary of old
patterns and attitudes perceived as stultifying, and ready to invest their
energies in activities that diverged from accepted norms. This was the Jazz Age, the Roaring Twenties,
and the Harlem Renaissance imbibed and contributed to the spirit of the
times. The Great Northern Migration had
begun. In the inner cities of the North,
African American enterprises, journals, newspapers, and associations flourished. A sense of self-awareness pervaded the black
communities of America, sending many African Americans on a quest for deeper
knowledge of their history, cultural origins, and ethnic identity. There was an effort on the one hand to master
skills needed to access the mainstream institutions of the United States , and
on the other to assert and develop what was uniquely African American in the
history of the country that black labor and talent had done so much to build.
There was a declining interest among black
people in the United States in copying the ways of the white world, and a
growing fascination in the mores of the “Negro”; conversely, a white America that often seemed
exclusively interested in controlling, dominating, and dictating the terms of
cultural interaction in the United States demonstrated a lively interest in the
exciting works created and showcased in Harlem.
Among whites, there was a keen interest in blues, jazz, folk tales,
vernacular, and fashion evident in African America. Among blacks, there was a surging pride in
the accomplishments of their people against seemingly insurmountable odds. New Audiences and new contributors magnified
the interest in African American culture and encouraged its development in
exciting new directions.
Works of major Harlem Renaissance figures
gained publication in the publications of the National Urban League (Opportunity ) and the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Crisis ). But major
mainstream publishing houses also sent forth works of African American authors
to the book stores of the United States, tapping an interest among the general
public in these innovations upon various literary forms. In the course of time multiple venues gave
literary life to bevy of African American poets: Georgia Johnson Douglass, Jean Toomer, Jessie
Faucet, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and many others. Novels and works of other works of prose
poured forth from the teeming brains of artists such as Rudolf Fischer, Wallace
Thurman, and Zora Neal Thurston.
Composers, musicians, and dancers such as Noble Sussie, Eubie Blake,
Florence Mills, Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Roland Hayes, Bill (“Bojangles”)
Robinson, Helmsley Winfield, Katherine Dunham , Harry T. Burleigh, and James
Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson pioneered with their presentation of
musical gifts to the American public.
The composition of the Johnson brothers, “Life Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” in
time became the “African American National Anthem.”
Blues artists exploded with great force onto
the American scene during the period encompassing the Harlem Renaissance; among the most seminal were Ma Rainey, Bessie
Smith, and Clara Smith. Jazz greats such
as Ferdinand (“Jelly Roll”) Morton, Joseph (“King”) Oliver, Louis (“Satchmo”)
Armstrong, Edward (“Duke”) Ellington, and Billie Holiday integrated African
American work songs and blues into this vibrant new form that sent an already
great gift from African America to people throughout the United States soaring
to new heights. Visual artists such as
Henry Ossawa Tanner, Louis Mallou Jones, Meta Vaux Warrick, William Henry
Johnson, Augusta Savage also gave creative force to art in the United States
during the early to middle decades of the 20th century.
The Great Depression of the 1930s was not
conducive to the torrid pace at which works of the Harlem Renaissance emanated
during the 1920s. But specifically
African American literature, music, dance, and the visual arts would never be
the same again. And the creativity of
those who rose to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance opened a pathway
through which other African Americans traveled with their won creations, and
inspirited all of those of any race who worked in the artistic realms where
African Americans took center stage.
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