1. The Harlem Renaissance

2. Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City,
was the center of the African American
political, cultural, and artistic movement in
the 1920s and early 1930s.Can you see any evidence from this map that this is
an African American community?

3. 1930
1911
1920

4. 4
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.

5. 5
Who?
• Descendants from a
generation whose
parents or
grandparents had
witnessed slavery
and Reconstruction
• Lived in a country
governed by Jim
Crow laws.

6. Based on these pictures, describe what life
was like in Harlem in the early 1930s.

7. 7

8. 8
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.

9. Causes
What events and movements do you think may have helped lead to
the Renaissance?
Great Migration:
the movement of
hundreds of
thousands of
African Americans
from rural areas in
the South to urban
areas in both he
North and South.
What push factors led to the migration? What pull factors led to the migration?

10. Causes
Growing African American Middle Class: developed as a
result of improved educational and employment
opportunities for African Americans.
The Harlem section of New York became the center of this new
African American class.

11. Causes
Political Agenda For Civil Rights by African Americans: leaders
such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and the NAACP helped
inspire racial pride in the middle and working class.
Marcus Garvey pushed
for the Back to Africa
movement
Du Bois, author of The Souls of
Black Folks, was instrumental in the
foundation of the NAACP.

12. The NAACP
published The
Crisis, a journal
used to share the
literary works of
African Americans.
Du Bois believed that artistic and literary
work could be used as a form of propaganda
to help combat racial stereotypes and gain
new respect for the race.
What message
does this song,
written by an
African
American, send
to the general
public?
How do images like this hinder the efforts of
African Americans like Du Bois?

13. Du Bois also believed in the “talented tenth.” This was the idea
that a small percentage of the African American population who
were exceptionally skilled should be designated and educated as
artistic and cultural leaders. He proposed absolute equality for the
"talented tenth" and technical training for the black masses.

14. 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 it.
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.
Dubois’ Influence on Literature
Incident
Countee Cullen
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

15. African American Poet, Claude McKay memorialized
the bloody summer of 1919 with the poem, “If We
Must Die,” which was published in the magazine
Liberator.
If We Must Die
If we must die--let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die--oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
What is the imagery
used in the poem?
What message is the
author sending to
African Americans?
Do you agree or
disagree with the
author? Why?

16. Impact
The Harlem section of New York City was transformed from a
deteriorating area into a thriving middle class community.
Before
After

17. Modernism & the Harlem Renaissance
• Blacks view surge in art, music and literature as the
creation of a new cultural identity.
• Whites see it as another new, exotic, and trendy form
of entertainment.

18. As Modern Artists look to “make it
new” they turn to the “New Negro”
arts movement.

19. Jazz Shapes American Culture

20. 20
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

21. 21
Music
• Big Band or Swing
• No microphones
meant that
musicians
increased band
size to increase
sound
• Used composers
and arrangers
• Little room for

22. 22
Notable Musicians

23. 23
Notable Artists
Self Portrait with Bandana,
William Johnson

24. 24Les Fetiches, Lois Mailou Jones

25. 25
Notable Writers
Zora Neale
Hurston
Langston
Hughes
Countee
Cullen

26. Differences in Artistic Vision
What do you believe was more important:
fighting racial prejudice and stereotyping, or true
personal expression?
Dubois & Locke
• “Thus all art is propaganda
and ever must be despite
the wailing of the purists.”
• “The great social gain in
this is the releasing of our
talented group from the
arid fields of controversy
and debate to the
productive fields of creative
expression.”
Hughes & Hurston
•“We younger Negro
artists who create now
intend to express our
individual dark-skinned
selves without fear or
shame. If white people
are pleased we are glad.
If they are not, it doesn’t
matter. We know we are
beautiful. And ugly too.”