“Harlem Renaissance”

                                                The “Savoy Ballroom”

                                          On Lenox Avenue in Harlem

What is ….?

Originally called the New Negro Movement, the “Harlem Renaissance” was a literary and intellectual flowering that fostered a new black cultural identity in the 1920s and 1930s. Critic and teacher, Alain Locke, described it as a "spiritual coming of age" in which the black community was able to seize upon its "first chances for group expression and self determination."  With racism still an issue of rampant and economic opportunities scarce, creative expression was one of the few avenues available to African Americans in the early twentieth century. Chiefly literary—the birth of jazz is generally considered a separate movement—the Harlem Renaissance, according to Locke, transformed "social disillusionment to race pride."

Significance…?

            The “Harlem Renaissance” changed forever the dynamics of African American arts and literature in the United States.   With extensive research, it was found that in the 1930’s and 40’s that publishers as well as the public were more open to African American literature than in they in they were in the beginning of the century.  Writers such as Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright were inspired by the literature from the Renaissance period to pursue their careers in literature even though they were against the ideologies and literary practices of the Renaissance.  The influence of the “Harlem Renaissance was not confined to the United States.  Many writers (some listed below) traveled to Europe and attained a popularity abroad that rivaled what they achieved in the United States.  Around the world, a large quantity of African Americans, signify that the “Harlem Renaissance” was proof that whites did not hold a monopoly on literature and culture.

Gwendolyn Bennett              Countee Cullen                      Zora Neale Hurston

Arna Bontemps                      W.E.B. Dubois                      Alaine L. Locke

Marita Bonner                      Marcus Garvey                      James W. Johnson

Sterling A. Brown                 Langston Hughes                  Jean Toomer