Harlem Renaissance

1. Harlem Renaissance was an African American cultural movement in the 1920s and early 1930s that was centered in the Harlem, New York City.
2. Also known as the New Negro movement, the New Negro Renaissance, and the Negro Renaissance, the movement emerged toward the end of World War I in 1918, blossomed in the mid- to late 1920s, and then faded in the mid-1930s. 
3. Although it was primarily a literary movement, it was closely related to developments in African American music, theater, art, and politics.
4. From the mid-1920s through the mid-1930s, some 16 black writers published more than 50 volumes of poetry and fiction, while dozens of other African American artists made their mark in painting, music, and theater.
5. three events between 1924 and 1926 launched the Harlem Renaissance. First, on March 21, 1924, Charles S. Johnson of the National Urban League hosted a dinner to recognize the new literary talent in the black community and to introduce the young writers to New York’s white literary establishment.As a result of this dinner, The Survey Graphic, a magazine of social analysis and criticism that was interested in cultural pluralism, produced a Harlem issue in March 1925. Devoted to defining the aesthetic of black literature and art, the Harlem issue featured work by black writers and was edited by black philosopher and literary scholar Alain Leroy Locke.
6. The second event was the publication of Nigger Heaven (1926) by white novelist Carl Van Vechten. The book was a spectacularly popular exposé of Harlem life. Although the book offended some members of the black community, its coverage of both the elite and the baser side of Harlem helped create a “Negro vogue” that drew thousands of sophisticated New Yorkers, black and white, to Harlem’s exotic and exciting nightlife and stimulated a national market for African American literature and music.
   7. Finally, in the autumn of 1926 a group of young black writers produced Fire!!, their own literary magazine. With Fire!! a new generation of young writers and artists, including Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, and Zora Neale Hurston, took ownership of the literary Renaissance.
   8. A number of factors contributed to the decline of the Harlem Renaissance in the mid-1930s. The Great Depression of the 1930s increased the economic pressure on all sectors of life.
   9. Organizations such as the NAACP and Urban League, which had promoted the Renaissance in the 1920s, changed their interests to economic and social issues in the 1930s. Many influential black writers and literary promoters, including Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Charles S. Johnson, and Du Bois, left New York City in the early 1930s.
   10. Finally, a riot in Harlem in 1935—set off in part by the growing economic hardship of the Depression and mounting tension between the black community and the white shop-owners in Harlem who profited from that community—shattered the notion of Harlem as the “Mecca” of the New Negro. In spite of these problems the Renaissance did not disappear overnight. Almost one-third of the books published during the Renaissance appeared after 1929. In the last analysis, the Harlem Renaissance ended when most of those associated with it left Harlem or stopped writing, while new young artists who appeared in the 1930s and 1940s never associated with the movement.
   11.

   The Harlem Renaissance changed forever the dynamics of African American arts and literature in the United States. The writers that followed in the 1930s and 1940s found that publishers and the public were more open to African American literature than they had been at the beginning of the century. Furthermore, the existence of the body of African American literature from the Renaissance inspired writers such as Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright to pursue literary careers in the late 1930s and the 1940s. The outpouring of African American literature of the 1980s and 1990s by such writers as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison also had its roots in the writing of the Harlem Renaissance. The influence of the Harlem Renaissance was not confined to the United States. Writers McKay, Hughes, and Cullen, actor and musician Paul Robeson, dancer Josephine Baker, and others traveled to Europe and attained a popularity abroad that rivaled or surpassed what they achieved in the United States. South African writer Peter Abrahams cited his youthful discovery of the Harlem Renaissance anthology, The New Negro (1925), as the event that turned him toward a career as a writer. For thousands of blacks around the world, the Harlem Renaissance was proof that the white race did not hold a monopoly on literature and culture.

   
   

   See also African American History; African Americans; African American Music; African American Dance; Jazz; and Blues.

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
    Langston Hughs (1902-1967), American writer, known for using the rhythms of jazz and of everyday black speech in his poetry. Hughes was one of the first writers to portray the urban black experience realistically. His poems typically express the tribulations and sometimes the joys of ghetto life in plain, spirited language resembling the colloquial speech of American blacks. Hughes wrote more than 50 books. His works include the poetry volumes The Dream Keeper (1932), Shakespeare in Harlem (1942), and Fields of Wonder (1947) and many more. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes was published in 1994.Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Jelly Roll Morton, professional name of Ferdinand Joseph Lamothe (1890?-1941), American pianist, and a seminal jazz figure. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, he moved around the country for many years, performing his unique blend of blues, ragtime, Creole, and Spanish music. In 1923 he began making records and from 1926 to 1930 he toured with his own group, the Red Hot Peppers. His career declined in the 1930s. Morton’s important contributions to jazz have often been overshadowed by his exaggerated statements and colorful lifestyle. A pioneer in organizing players into a loose orchestra, he produced a number of popular classics, such as “King Porter Stomp” (1923), “Jelly Roll Blues” (1924), and “Black Bottom Stomp” (1926).
   Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
   
   
   
   
   

   

   Paul Laurence Dunbar
    The son of former slaves, Paul Laurence Dunbar was one of the first black American writers to receive national recognition. In 1896 he published Lyrics of a Lowly Life, a collection of poems written in the black dialect.
   Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.