Harlem Renaissance - Research Paper Example

The participants also wanted to eliminate the influence of Victorian society principles that propagated racial discrimination. The movement created the basis for African American culture development and greatly influenced the attitude towards blacks in the whole world. Harlem, the district of the New York City, was the heart of the movement. The Harlem Renaissance also affected the social life of blacks, because a bit later, in 1940-50, many blacks moved to northern American cities that testified about the improvement of their social influence and the development of their cultural and social life.

There were also many organizations created in order to defend and promote the rights and freedoms of African Americans, to inspire blacks and to remind them about their cultural identity (Huggins). As a result, African Americans found the way to such big centers as Paris and New York City and, what is the most important, they managed to unite and support each other on their way to cultural revival. The influence the Harlem Renaissance had on social sphere made this period of cultural development unique in the world history.

Not only fiction literature was created during this period but also a great number of social magazines and newspapers were issued. “The Crisis”, “Opportunity”, “Negro World” are among them. . It is interesting that Harlem was the place of white people residence, and when the movement was created, it turned into a residence of black people. Certainly, this was a kind of a victory and as a result other regions of the New York, which were close to Harlem, also became full of blacks. African American intellectuals from other American cities came to Harlem to live or just to meet each other.

Such unity played a very important role as it helped revive African American cultural identity and make whites respect them and their culture (Patton). The Harlem Renaissance presented American history with many outstanding personalities. The poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967) became famous after his publications in “The Crisis”, the famous magazine in Harlem Renaissance period. His poems helped shed the light on the real life of African Americans and contained hard critics of the prejudices and racial discrimination.

His poems called African Americans upon to stop despise their own culture, to start respect themselves, to build their cultural identity and make whites also respect them. He wrote “the night is beautiful, so the faces of my people, the starts are beautiful, so the eyes of my people. Beautiful also is the sun, beautiful also are the souls of my people” (Hughes, cited in Rampersad, 1988). Such poems were written in order to make black people like the color of their skin and their appearance, to remind them that they have beautiful and wise souls.

“My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind" (Hughes, cited in Rampersad, 1988). Claude McKay is another interesting figure in Harlem