The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement in the 1920s centered in Harlem, New York that celebrated African American culture and identity. Key figures like Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, and W.E.B. Du Bois promoted the idea of the "New Negro" who took pride in their African heritage and demanded equal treatment. During this period, Harlem became a center of African American artistic, social, and intellectual life that produced many influential black writers, musicians, poets, and thinkers. The Harlem Renaissance helped establish modern African American literature and cultural traditions.

1. Errianna Washington
HARLEM RENAISSANCE

2. What is the Harlem Renaissance??
• Harlem Renaissance
• Served as a figurative investment of the intellectual
beginning, a vibrant of cultural cross-fertilization, and a
extremely admired nightlife objective. Harlem was a
moderately novel black neighborhood. The New Harlem,
engrossed a significant concentration of intelligence and
talent. The publishing resources and capital during this Ear,
placed Harlem in a strategic pose for the emergent of black
arts, musician, poets, writers, & entrepreneurs. Harlem
produced many talents through the

3. Early Harlem
• In the 20th century, Harlem was
the objective for migrants,
attracting people seeking work
after the War. The region was
initially developed in the 19th
century for the white middle and
upper classes. Its prosperous
early development led to houses,
majestic avenues, and world-class
facilities. During the vast amount
of European settlers in the late
19th century, the once elite
neighborhood was deserted by
the white middle class, who
moved further north.
•

4. HARLEM RENAISSANCE
• The Harlem Renaissance created traditions of African American
culture. Modernist primitivism was influenced by Freudian
psychology, but people enjoyed a more direct connection with the
world and to essential human requests. The idea of an artistic
revolution and authentic phrase, some intellectuals felt, would be
found in the cultures of “primitive races,” and preeminent among
these, in the stereotypical thinking of the day, were the cultures of
sub-Saharan Africans and their offspring. In the 20th century,
European artists had drawn stimulation from African masks because
they barred from realistic figurative styles towards generalization in
painting, as well as monuments. The reputation of such
experiments caused African American intellectuals to reflect on
their African heritage with the desire to reconnect with a legacy
misunderstood by both whites and blacks.

5. HARLEM RENAISSANCCE
• Harlem became an African-American neighborhood in
the early 1900sThe Harlem Renaissance also known as
the “New Negro Movement, was implemented in the
early 1920’s, as an a legendary, creative, and
intellectual movement for black cultural.
• Cultural, social, and artistic movement took place in
streets of Harlem at the end of World War I, following
into the middle of the 1930s. Throughout this era
Harlem was a intellectual center, producing black
writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and
scholars.

7. BLACK HERIATGE
• This significance of black heritage coincided with
efforts to classify an American culture divergent
from that of Europe. This heritage would
characterized racial pluralism and as an
independent culture. The concept of cultural
pluralism, stimulated notions of the United States
as a fresh nation with diverse cultures, developing
together in harmony rather than be “melted”
together or ranked on a scale of evolving
“civilization.” W.E.B Dubious had advocated
something like this position in his The Souls of Black
Folk (1903), a defining text of the New Negro
movement because of its profound effect on an
entire generation that formed the core of the
Harlem Renaissance. As various forms of cultural-
pluralist thought took hold, a fertile environment
for the blossoming of African American arts
developed. Moreover, the effort on the part of
some American intellectuals to distinguish
American and culture from European cultural forms
dovetailed with African American intellectuals’
beliefs about their relationship to American
national identity.

8. THE NEW NEGRO
The New Negro was pioneered by a man name Alain
Locke, also known as the father of the Harlem
Renaissance. In 1926 Alain Locke declared that through
art, “Negro life is seizing its first chances for group
expression and self determination.” Harlem became
the center of a “spiritual coming of age” in which
Locke’s “New Negro” transformed social
disenchantment into racial pride. Locke created the first
National book of African Americans. The New Negro, a
anthology of writings by African Americans,
landmarked black literature. Locke's beliefs of the New
Negro was grounded with the notion of race-building.
The most important component is awareness of the
prospective black equality. Locke emphasized that the
new negro, would no longer comply with irrational or
unethical white demands. This idea was based on self-
assurance and political understanding. Locke's
theoretical proposal of The New Negro permitted fair
treatment. Locke’s proposal was simply an idea, not a
law, so its power was upheld within the people. If they
wanted this idea to thrive, the people of Harlem would
need to enforce this their demands through their
actions.
Father of the Harlem Renaissance

9. THE NEW NEGRO
• In 1925 Howard University Professor of Philosophy Alain Locke published an essay entitled “The
New Negro,” arguing that African Americans should reject their historical image as former slaves.
Locke’s writing encompassed many of Marcus Garvey’s ideas about black pride as African
Americans who migrated from the Jim Crow South began expressing their disdain openly for their
secondary status in American society. Locke became known as the “Father of the Harlem
Renaissance,” a movement that represented an outpouring of African American culture and
entrepreneurship.
• Harlem became a Mecca for African Americans seeking to embrace their own cultural
heritage. Expressions of African American culture encompassed literature, performance, and
visual arts. It also produced new works in the areas of sociology, history and philosophy as an
educated African American middle class emerged.
• The most notable figure from the Harlem Renaissance remains writer Langston Hughes. Hughes
wrote novels, short stories, and plays, but is most remembered for his poetry. His personal views
evolved over time from antagonism to frustration regarding the plight of African
Americans. Hughes’ work is noted for its search for acceptance of African Americans within the
large framework of American society, which was most evident in his famous short poem
“Motto.” The poem’s last verse reads “My motto, As I live and learn is: Dig and be dug, in return.”
•

10. THE NEW NEGRO
HARLEM RENAISSANCE
• Langston Hughes was first
recognized as an important
literary figure during the 1920s, a
period known as the "Harlem
Renaissance" because of the
number of emerging black
writers. Du Bose Heyward wrote
in the New York Herald Tribune in
1926: "Langston Hughes,
although only twenty-four years
old, is already conspicuous in the
group of Negro intellectuals who
are dignifying Harlem with a
genuine art life.
LANSTON HUGHES

11. NEW NEGRO MOVEMENT

12. NEW NEGRO MOVEMENT
• 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

13. NEW NEGRO MOVEMENT

14. THE NEW NEGRO MOVEMENT
• With racism still 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."
•

15. Harlem Foundation
The Harmon Foundation, established
by endowments in 1922, provided
playgrounds throughout the country,
tuition payments and vocational
guidance for students, educational
programs for nurses, and awards for
"constructive achievements among
Negroes." The areas of competition for
monetary awards to African Americans
included business, education, farming,
fine arts, literature, music, race
relations, religious service, and
science. The nomination files for these
awards provide a rich source of
information about African Americans
during the Harlem Renaissance period.

16. POETRY & HARLEM
• The urban setting of rapidly developing Harlem
provided a venue for African Americans of all
backgrounds to appreciate the variety of Black life
and culture. Through this expression, the Harlem
Renaissance encouraged the new appreciation of
folk roots and culture. For instance, folk materials
and spirituals provided a rich source for the artistic
and intellectual imagination, which freed Blacks
from the establishment of past condition. Through
sharing in these cultural experiences, a
consciousness sprung forth in the form of a united
racial identity.
• African American poetry is the body of literacy
produced in the United States by writers of African
descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-
century writers, before the high point of slave
narratives, African-American literature was
dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives.
African-American literature reached early high
points with slave narratives of the 19th century. The
Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a time of
flowering of literature and the arts. Among the
themes and issues explored in this literature are the
role of African Americans within the larger
American society, African-American culture, racism,
slavery , & social impartiality.
• As African Americans' place in American society has
changed over the centuries, so has the focus of
African-American literature. Before the Civil war ,
the literature primarily consisted of memoirs by
people who had escaped from slavery; the genre of
slave narratives included accounts of life under
slavery and the path of justice and redemption to
freedom. There was an early distinction between
the literature of freed slaves and the literature of
free blacks who had been born in the North. Free
blacks had to express their oppression in a different
narrative form. Free blacks in the North often spoke
out against slavery and racial injustices using the
spiritual narrative. The spiritual addressed many of
the same themes of slave narratives, but has been
largely ignored in current scholarly conversation.

17. Zora Neale Hurston
• Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891.
Hurston was always interested in writing, and during
the Harlem Renaissance, she befriended some very
famous writers, such as Langston Hughes. By 1935, she
had published a handful of short stories, articles, as
well as a novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine. Some of her most
famous works were The Eyes Were Watching God, and
Tell My Horse, which studied Caribbean Voodoo.
Hurston wrote many pieces, using very distinct dialect
to show African American culture (see quote
below). One of her stories, “Spunk” was selected to be
a part of The New Negro, which focused African and
African American art and literature. Her main goal was
merely to celebrate African American culture. She
wrote to W.E.B Du Bois, who she gave the title “The
Dean of American Negro Artists” to, and suggested to
make a cemetery for the “illustrious Negro Dead”, on
roughly 100 acres of land, in Florida, claiming that her
people must be honored.

18. Wallace Thurman
• Within 10 years of arriving in Harlem he had
many employments such as ghost writer, a
publisher, an editor and a writer of novels,
plays and articles. He became editor of The
Messenger, a socialist journal aimed at
blacks. He became the first to publish the
adult-themed stories of Langston Hughes.
Thurman left The Messenger to become
editor of a white-owned magazine World
tomorrow. He collaborated in publishing
literary magazine Fire” a devotion to the
younger negro artists.” It was a collaboration
with Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston,
Richard Bruce Nugent, Aaron Douglas and
Gwendolyn B. Bennett. With only one issue
ever published , Fire challenged the ideas of
W.E.B Du Bois and many African American
bourgeoisie who believed that black art
should serve as propaganda for social
equality and racial integration.

20. HOW DID JAZZ INFLUENCE
HARLEM
Jazz grew out of the era’s ragtime music, and its influence was not restricted to the musical
arena. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald labeled the period from the end of the Great War to the Great
Depression as the “Jazz Age” as much for the cultural change it brought about as the music that
defined it. While much of the country found solace in the policies associated with Prohibition,
Fitzgerald chronicled the hedonism found in the Jazz Age in many of his works, including The
Beautiful and the Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tales from the Jazz Age. Speakeasies and night
clubs abounded in urban areas as Prohibition was routinely circumvented or ignored outright.
Bigotry in American society remained a formidable obstacle, but jazz music and the culture it
produced offered Americans an unprecedented opportunity to interact with one another regardless
of race. White patrons routinely frequented jazz clubs to listen to African American performers
like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.

21. COTTON CLUB

22. COTTON CLUB & HARLEM
• The Cotton Club was one of the most famous
nightclubs in Harlem. It was in operation
during Prohibition as well as during the Jazz
Age. Many black entertainers including Fats
Waller, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Duke
Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday,
amongst others, performed there, for the
generally white audience. It was considered a
swanky place to be on Sundays for "Celebrity
Night" in which such white luminaries as
George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Mae West and
Jimmy Durante, made appearances. The club at
this location was originally opened in 1920
with the name Club De Luxe; it was renamed
The Cotton Club in 1923. The club briefly closed
in 1925 for selling alcohol, but re-opened soon
after. The Cotton Club officially closed its doors
in 1940.

23. THE COTTON CLUB

24. DUKE ELLINGTON
• Duke Ellington established
commercial radio as a medium for
music. Thousands of Americans
tuned in weekly for Ellington’s
performances from the famous
Cotton Club. Located in Harlem, a
Manhattan neighborhood famous as
a refuge for African Americans, the
Cotton Club nevertheless often
denied admission to black patrons
even as African American jazz
performers headlined the
establishment. Many famous
Americans visited the music venue,
including the mayor of New
York. The Cotton Club’s policies
regarding race highlighted the
frustration of many African
Americans at the time.

25. DUKE ELLINGTON

26. JAZZ IN HARLEM

27. LOUIS ARMSTROMG
• Louis Armstrong was a trumpeter, bandleader, singer, soloist, film star
and comedian. Considered one of the most influential artists in jazz
history, he is known for songs like "Star Dust," "La Via En Rose" and
"What a Wonderful World." During this period, Armstrong set a number
of African-American "firsts." In 1936, he became the first African-
American jazz musician to write an autobiography: Swing That Music.
That same year, he became the first African-American to get featured
billing in a major Hollywood movie with his turn in Pennies from
Heaven, starring Bing Crosby. Additionally, he became the first African-
American entertainer to host a nationally sponsored radio show in 1937.

28. LOUIS ARMSTRONG

29. BILLIE HOLIDAY “LADY DAY”
• 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. She made big
hits including “What a Little Moonlight can
do” and “Miss Brown to You.” Holiday began
working with Lester Young in 1936, who
gave her the nick name “Lady Day”. She was
one of the first black women to work with a
white orchestra. A musical legend Billie
Holiday died at the age of 44. She pioneered
a new way of manipulating phrasing and
tempo. She co wrote a few songs that
became jazz standards. "God Bless the
Child," "Don't Explain," "Fine and Mellow,"
and "lady Sings the Blues."

30. BILLIE HOLIDAY

31. THE NEW NEGRO

32. ART & LITERATURE IN HARLEM
Art was one of the areas in which the 1920s and 30s were distinct and the
spirit of the Harlem Renaissance is as much expressed in the visual arts as
it was in literature. The Harmon Foundation (an organization set up by
wealthy people to support culture) discovered and gave prizes to many
rising young Black artists who later became famous. Some went to Europe
and some stayed in America.
Black painters began to portray Blacks as sensitive, dignified individuals
rather than comic stereotypes. Pride in Africa and African origins arose
and became widespread in the 1920s and especially the 30s. Afro-
American artists began to use an African style and African visual devices
to suggest themes such as the African past and liberation for African
derived peoples in their work. The expression of African images and
motifs as well as modernist themes in Black American art is one of the
hallmarks of the Harlem Renaissance.
Many artists of various kinds contributed to the Harlem Renaissance but
some of them are most representative of its art message. In painting,
Aaron Douglas who used Black men and women (often in strong
silhouettes) as central symbolic figures, was often chosen to illustrate key
books (e.g. by James Weldon Johnson) and magazines (e.g. Opportunity)
of the era. Palmer Hayden and Archibald Motley depicted, among other
things, folklore, African American community-level social life and strongly
African features.
In sculpture, Richmond Barthe and Meta Warrick Fuller excelled with
themes related to Africa and the beauty of the common Black man. Their
art consciously sought to express the "Black is beautiful" concept long
before it arose as an identify principle and esthetic ideology many years
later in the 1960s.
In photography, then just starting to secure its place as a fine art medium,
photographers such as James Van Der Zee and others (e.g. James L. Allen
and the Morgan brothers) visually documented Harlem's community life
and prominent African American cultural and intellectual personalities.
Literature is one of the areas in which the Harlem Renaissance is
best known and had its widest impact on many people living
outside Harlem. The writers of the Harlem Renaissance produced
ideas and an identity that has left a lasting influence on both Black
and White America. There were many key writers of the Harlem
Renaissance. Some of the major names include: Countee Cullen the
poet
• Langston Hughes the novelist, poet, essayist and all around
cultural activist
• James Weldon Johnson, a poet, novelist and head of the NAACP
• Claude McKay a novelist and chronicler of Harlem
• W.E.B. DuBois, a political activist, publisher, novelist and
organizer
• There were many others (often novelists or poets) whose works
reflected the New Negro consciousness.
In addition to novels and books written by single authors, there
were also collaborative efforts. One very important one was the
short-lived magazine "Fire!!" which featured the work of several
writers and artists. Most of the copies were burned up in a real
warehouse fire and the few surviving copies are rare and
expensive treasures today

33. BUSINESS & ECONOMICS IN HARLEM
• Business people are a less discussed but key element in
the Harlem Renaissance. They started the real estate
boom early in the 20th century that produced the
concentration of Blacks in one neighborhood (i.e.
Harlem). They also put up much of the money for the
glamour shown in Harlem. Stores, banks, funeral homes,
photographers (such as James Van der Zee), theaters
and other commercial establishments (not to speak of
nightclubs) made Harlem an exciting and fun-filled place
to live, work and visit. Business and professional people
were active, entrepreneurs and family businesses
flourished. People were often poor but the kind of long
term hopeless "culture of poverty" that later became
identified with Harlem was not yet in evidence. Though
she died before the Harlem Renaissance really got going,
one very important business figure of the early 20th
century that deserves mention was Madame C.J. Walker.
Madam walker was a highly successful entrepreneur
who created a cosmetics and hair care empire drawing
revenue from both products and salons. She was the
first female African American millionaire. Her business
provided employment and upward mobility for Black
women for decades. Her daughter became one of the
leading hostesses and patrons of Harlem Renaissance
intellectuals.

34. THE END OF THE RENAISSANCE
• The Harlem
Renaissance is usually
thought to end when
the stock market
crashed in 1929, the
great depression of the
1930s hit America and
the prosperity of the
1920s ended for almost
everyone.

35. CONCLUSION
• The Harlem Renaissance celebrated, respected and explored the origins of African Americans in the south and in Africa. Ratherthan
looking to Europe and colonial America as the source of ideas, beauty and insight, many of its novels and other creative works were
based on themes and issues in Africa and southern life. Previously, Africa and the south were seen as embarrassingly backward,
primitive places that progressive Blacks tried not to be identified with but the Harlem Renaissance changed this feeling.
An interest in and identification with Africa had started earlier in the century (e.g. in the form of the Pan-African Congresses
organized by DuBois) and was reflected widely in literature, dance, music and the visual arts. Even in businesses the interest in Africa
was reflected (for example in the names of companies and in advertising). Ethiopia was considered a symbol of all of Africa and
members of the African race were often euphemistically called Ethiopian or Nubian. For example, one services business was named
"The Ethiopian Life Insurance Company". European artists also were heavily influenced by the values and appearance of Africanart.
Major sculptures with African themes started to appear in non-African settings. Artists such as Aaron Douglas began to use themes
such as African Masks and the desire to relate to an African homeland in magazine illustrations, murals and paintings. It should be
noted that not only was Africa seen and respected as the homeland of African Americans but the image of Africa began to be
upgraded and redefined. Instead of seeing Africa as primitive, pagan and embarrassingly backward, Harlem Renaissance creative
types redefined Africa as a worthwhile, beautiful homeland that had given much, had much to teach and should be celebrated with a
sense of pride of origins.
Racial identity and self-acceptance: In the Harlem Renaissance, the acceptance of and fascination with African Americans themselves
and their origins, culture, personalities and styles was highlighted. It was felt that African Americans should define themselves and
be the expressers and interpreters of their own culture. This concentration on Blackness went beyond the quaint, homey and
pleasant characters of Paul Laurence Dunbar and broke new ground to explore complex and sometimes unpleasant themes. In many
ways this theme anticipated the ideas of the Black is Beautiful movement decades later in the 1960s and 70s.
Black vs. white mainstream culture: Though they were African Americans, Harlem Renaissance cultural activists were also
intellectuals in general and they thus also felt a kinship with general artistic and literary trends. The tension between belonging to
and being spokespersons for a specific group while also belonging to a general artistic tradition created a sense of dividedand
competing loyalties. Their racial identity made them Black but their profession placed them in what was then considered a European
intellectual tradition. Some were concerned with proving to the world that African Americans could create and express European
culture as well as any European could while others wanted to abandon Europe as a cultural model and base their work on African,
Caribbean or southern Black models. Some artists, musicians and writers handled this conflict differently from others.

36. CREDITS
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