Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of African-American social thought and culture based in the African-American community forming in Harlem in New York City (USA). This period, extending from roughly 1920 to 1940, was expressed through every cultural medium—visual art, dance, music, theatre, literature, poetry, history and politics. Instead of using direct political means, African-American artists, writers, and musicians employed culture to work for goals of civil rights and equality. Its lasting legacy is that for the first time (and across racial lines), African-American paintings, writings, and jazz became absorbed into mainstream culture. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after an anthology of notable African-American works entitled The New Negro and published by philosopher Alain Locke in 1925.

History of Cultural Revolution

Historical Roots of Harlem

In 1658, Dutch settlers formally incorporated a village on the northern tip of Manhattan Island, and christened it Nieuw Haarlem (New Haarlem) after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. From its origins until the latter half of the 19th Century, the area remained a rural farming community, many of the farms being owned by upper-class New Yorkers who resided only a few miles south in the lower sections of Manhattan. In 1880, elevated railroad lines were extended to Harlem, and their introduction gave birth to a rapid explosion in urban development. Early New York entrepreneurs created grand plans for Harlem, constructing fine townhouses, the original Polo Grounds (where polo was played before becoming home to the New York Giants baseball franchise), and in 1889 an opera house opened by theatre impresario Oscar Hammerstein I.

Related Topics:
1658 - Dutch - Manhattan Island - Haarlem - 19th Century - 1880 - Elevated railroad - Polo Grounds - Polo - New York Giants - Baseball - Franchise - 1889 - Opera house - Theatre - Impresario - Oscar Hammerstein I

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By the turn of the century, Harlem became an attractive location for immigrants, and by early 1900s the population was chiefly German, Eastern European, or Jewish in the west, and Italian in the east (where Spanish Harlem is now).

Related Topics:
Immigrants - 1900s - German - Eastern European - Jewish - Italian - Spanish Harlem

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Development of Harlem as an African-American Community

Before relocating to Harlem, most of New York City's African-American population lived in neighborhoods like Tenderloin, San Juan Hill (Upper West Side), and Hell's Kitchen (now called Clinton). These neighborhoods were known as "Black Bohemia." Starting in 1904, several middle-class African American families abandoned Black Bohemia in favour of Harlem. This initiated a move north of educated African Americans and a foothold into Harlem. In 1910, a large block along 135th Street and Fifth Avenue was bought by various African-American realtors and a church group.

Related Topics:
Tenderloin - San Juan Hill - Upper West Side - Hell's Kitchen - Clinton - Black Bohemia - 1904 - 1910 - 135th Street - Fifth Avenue

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As World War I approached, unskilled European labor decreased so drastically that a shortage of labor ensued. To fill this void, large numbers of African-Americans from the Old South—attracted not only by the prospect of paid labor but an escape from the inherent inequities and institutional racism of the South.—relocated to New York City.

Related Topics:
World War I - European - Labor - Old South - Institutional racism - New York City

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Emerging Black Identity

During the 1910s, a new political agenda advocating racial equality arose in the African-American community, particularly in its growing middle class. Championing the agenda were black historian and sociologist W.E.B. DuBois and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which was founded in 1909 to advance the rights of blacks. This agenda was also reflected in the efforts of Jamaican-born black nationalist Marcus Garvey, whose Back to Africa movement inspired racial pride among working-class blacks in the United States in the 1920s.

Related Topics:
1910s - African-American - Middle class - Sociologist - W.E.B. DuBois - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - 1909 - Jamaican-born - Black nationalist - Marcus Garvey - Back to Africa - United States - 1920s

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With the close of World War I, African-American soldiers (fighting in segregated regiments like the Harlem Hellfighters) returned home from the European front with a new sense of pride and purpose, and drove efforts to improving their communities and delving deep into expanding their social order through cultural endeavours in the new peace.

Related Topics:
World War I - Harlem Hellfighters - European front

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An Explosion of Culture in Harlem

African American literature and arts had begun a steady development just before the turn of the century. In the performing arts, black musical theatre featured such accomplished artists as songwriter Bob Cole and composer J. Rosamond Johnson (brother of writer James Weldon Johnson). Jazz and blues music moved with black populations from the South and Midwest into the bars and cabarets of Harlem. In literature, the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar and the fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt in the late 1890s were among the earliest works of African-Americans to receive national recognition. By the end of World War I the fiction of James Weldon Johnson and the poetry of Claude McKay anticipated the literature that would follow in the 1920s by describing the reality of black life in America and the struggle for racial identity.

Related Topics:
African American literature - Arts - Musical theatre - Bob Cole - J. Rosamond Johnson - James Weldon Johnson - Jazz - Blues - Music - Literature - Poetry - Paul Laurence Dunbar - Fiction - Charles W. Chesnutt - 1890s - World War I - Claude McKay - 1920s - America

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In the early 1920s three works signaled the new creative energy in African-American literature. Claude McKay's volume of poetry, Harlem Shadows (1922), became one of the first works by a black writer to be published by a mainstream, national publisher . Cane (1923), by Jean Toomer, was an experimental novel that combined poetry and prose in documenting the life of American blacks in the rural South and urban North. Finally, There Is Confusion (1924), the first novel by writer and editor Jessie Fauset, depicted middle class life among black Americans from a woman's perspective.

Related Topics:
1920s - African-American - Literature - Claude McKay's - 1922 - Jean Toomer - Novel - Poetry - Prose - 1924 - Jessie Fauset - Middle class

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With these early works as the foundation, three events between 1924 and 1926 launched the Harlem Renaissance. First, on 21 March 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 Locke. Later that year Locke expanded the special issue into an anthology, The New Negro. 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 sides 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. Finally, in the Autumn of 1926 a group of young black writers produced their own literary magazine, Fire!! With Fire!!, a new generation of young writers and artists, including Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, and Zora Neale Hurston, emerged as an alternative group within the Renaissance.

Related Topics:
1924 - 1926 - 21 March - Charles S. Johnson - National Urban League - New York's - Survey Graphic - Magazine - Social analysis - Criticism - Pluralism - March - 1925 - Aesthetic - Literature - Art - Philosopher - Alain Locke - Nigger Heaven - Carl Van Vechten - Music - Langston Hughes - Wallace Thurman - Zora Neale Hurston

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Jazz in the Big Apple

(coming soon)

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A Lasting Legacy: The Apollo Theater

While the Savoy Ballroom, on Lenox Avenue, was a renowned venue for swing dancing, and jazz and was immortalized in a popular song of the era, Stompin' At The Savoy, the Apollo Theater has been the most lasting legacy of the Harlem Renaissance. Opened on 125th Street on 26 January 1934, in a former burlesque house, it has remained a symbol of African-American culture. As one of the most famous clubs for popular music in the United States, many figures from the Harlem Renaissance found a venue for their talents and a start to their careers.

Related Topics:
Savoy Ballroom - Lenox Avenue - Swing dancing - Jazz - Apollo Theater - 125th Street - 26 January - 1934 - Burlesque

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The careers of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and James Brown, and later Michael Jackson and Lauryn Hill, were launched at the Apollo.

Related Topics:
Billie Holiday - Ella Fitzgerald - James Brown - Michael Jackson - Lauryn Hill

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The club fell into a decline in the 1960s but was revived in 1983 through city, state, and federal grant money. It is now operated by a non-profit organization, the Apollo Theater Foundation Inc., and reportedly draws 1.3 million visitors annually. It is the home of Showtime at the Apollo, a nationally syndicated variety show showcasing new talent.

Related Topics:
1960s - 1983 - Showtime at the Apollo - Variety show

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End of an Era

A number of factors contributed to the decline of the Harlem Renaissance by the mid-1930s. The Great Depression of the 1930s increased the economic pressure on all sectors of life. Organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Urban League, which had actively promoted the Renaissance in the 1920s, shifted their interests to economic and social issues in the 1930s. Many influential black writers and literary promoters, including Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Charles S. Johnson, and W.E.B. DuBois, left New York City in the early 1930s, most relocating to France. Finally, the Harlem Riot of 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. Among the new young artists who appeared in the 1930s and 1940s, social realism replaced modernism and primitivism as the dominant mode of literary and artistic expression.

Related Topics:
1930s - Great Depression - Economic - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - Urban League - 1920s - Langston Hughes - James Weldon Johnson - Charles S. Johnson - W.E.B. DuBois - New York City - France - Harlem Riot - 1935 - 1929 - 1940s - Social realism - Modernism - Primitivism

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