The American Novel . Literary Timeline . Movements . Harlem Renaissance. The first major movement of African-American literature, beginning around 1923 and flourishing until the depression, but providing a stimulus that lasted through the 1940s. The renaissance mainly involved a group of writers and intellectuals associated (often loosely) with Harlem, the district of Manhattan that, during the migration of African Americans from the rural South, became the major center for urbanized blacks. Harlem was described by Alain Locke (1886-1954) as "not merely the largest Negro community in the world, but the first concentration in history of so many diverse elements of Negro life. " The renaissance was associated with the New Negro Movement, so called because of the anthology THE NEW NEGRO (1925) edited by Locke, whose introductory essay "The New Negro" is the closest to a manifesto or statement of ideals that the Harlem Renaissance has. Elsewhere Locke urged writers to examine the meaning of an African past and to utilize this in their art.
Previous | Next. Musicians - The Harlem Renaissance. Musicians Billie Holiday(Lady Day) (1915-1959) During the 1950’s Billie Holiday rose as a social phenomenon. Born Eleanora Fagan grew up in Baltimore. As a teenager she began singing in jazz clubs. At the age of 18 Billie was spotted by John Hammond and received her first record as part of a studio group led by Benny Goodman. Chick Webb (1905-1939) Born William Henry Webb, know as Chick Webb was and American jazz ad swing music drummer. A Brief Guide to the Harlem Renaissance. In the decades immediately following World War I, huge numbers of African Americans migrated to the industrial North from the economically depressed and agrarian South. In cities such as Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and New York City, the recently migrated sought and found (to some degree) new opportunities, both economic and artistic.
African Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to become “The New Negro," a term coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke in his influential book of the same name. Countee Cullen thought long and hard in his poems about his own and the collective African-American identity. Some of his strongest poems question the benevolence of a creator who has bestowed a race with such mixed blessings. Sterling Brown, for many years a professor at Howard University, emerged in the thirties with sometimes playful, often pessimistic poems in standard English and black vernacular and in African American and European forms. Harlem Renaissance - Black History. The northern Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem was meant to be an upper-class white neighborhood in the 1880s, but rapid overdevelopment led to empty buildings and desperate landlords seeking to fill them.
In the early 1900s, a few middle-class black families from another neighborhood known as Black Bohemia moved to Harlem, and other black families followed. Some white residents initially fought to keep African Americans out of the area, but failing that many whites eventually fled. Outside factors led to a population boom: From 1910 to 1920, African American populations migrated in large numbers from the South to the North, with prominent figures like W.E.B. Du Bois leading what became known as the Great Migration. In 1915 and 1916, natural disasters in the south put black workers and sharecroppers out of work. By 1920, some 300,000 African Americans from the South had moved north, and Harlem was one of the most popular destinations for these families.
A Harlem Renaissance Retrospective: Connecting Art, Music, Dance, and Poetry. ReadWriteThink couldn't publish all of this great content without literacy experts to write and review for us. If you've got lessons plans, activities, or other ideas you'd like to contribute, we'd love to hear from you. More Find the latest in professional publications, learn new techniques and strategies, and find out how you can connect with other literacy professionals. More Teacher Resources by Grade Your students can save their work with Student Interactives.
More Home › Classroom Resources › Lesson Plans Lesson Plan Overview Featured Resources From Theory to Practice The Harlem Renaissance was a vibrant time that was characterized by innovations in art, literature, music, poetry, and dance. Back to top Heller, M.F. (1997). Harlem Renaissance Resources (Virtual Programs & Services, Library of Congress)
Compiled by Angela McMillian, Digital Reference Specialist African-American expressions of writing, music, and art during the 1920s and 1930s are well represented in the vast collections of the Library of Congress. This guide presents the Library's resources as well as links to external Web sites on the Harlem Renaissance and a bibliography. Library of Congress Web Site | External Web Sites | Selected Bibliography African American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945 The black-and-white photographs of the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection are a landmark in the history of documentary photography. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writer's Project, 1936-1940 Creative Americans: Portraits by Carl Van Vechten, 1932-1964 The collection consists of 1,395 photographs taken by American photographer Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) between 1932 and 1964.
William P. African American. Harlem Renaissance. During the early 20th century, African-American poets, musicians, actors, artists and intellectuals moved to Harlem in New York City and brought new ideas that shifted the culture forever. During the early 20th century, African-American poets, musicians, actors, artists and intellectuals moved to Harlem in New York City and brought new ideas that shifted the culture forever. From approximately 1918 to the mid 1930s, talent began to overflow within this newfound culture of the black community in Harlem, as prominent figures—Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday, to name a few—pushed art to its limit as a form of expression and representation. These are some of the famous African Americans who shaped the influential movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. Library System - Howard University.
A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes Painting by Artist Winold Reiss, National Portrait Gallery ~Dream Deferred~ What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? LANGSTON HUGHES, was part of the Harlem Renaissance and was known during his lifetime as "the poet laureate of Harlem," He also worked as a journalist, dramatist, and children's author. James Langston Hughes was born on Feb. 1, 1902, in Joplin, Mo. He worked at various jobs, including that of a seaman, traveling to Africa and Europe. From then on Hughes earned his living as a writer, portraying black life in the United States with idiomatic realism.
Langston Hughes died of Lung Cancer, in New York City, in 1967. (F. Arnold Rampersad on Langston Hughes Born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, Langston Hughes grew up mainly in Lawrence, Kansas, but also lived in Illinois, Ohio, and Mexico. Hughes's career hardly suffered from this episode. J.