The Harlem Renaissance - Essay Example

The Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance, at the time referred to as the “New Negro Movement”, was a cultural movement spanning the 1920s decade (Herringshaw 36). The movement’s first name was after Alain Locke’s anthology in 1925. The movement’s center was the Harlem neighborhood in the city of New York and was inclusive of the new cultural expressions of the African-Americans that existed in the urban settlements in the Midwest and Northeast United States. These were the result of the Great migration of African-Americans, which had Harlem as its largest settlement. The Renaissance is considered to have started in 1919 and existed until the mid or early 1930s.The influence of the Renaissance was felt on a scale larger than the United States as it is credited with having impacted on black writers from colonies in the Caribbean and Africa, that were French-speaking and living in Paris. The ideas and beliefs of the movement lived on for a long time after the movement ceased to exist. Majorities of African-Americans who were enslaved and lived in the agrarian south of the United States up to the end of the Civil War. After the civil war, the slaves were free to move and do as they pleased. The African-Americans started striving for political equality, participation in civic positions and self-determination in cultural and economic fields. Black congressional representatives made speeches that addressed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and reprimanded the bill. This necessitated the Civil Rights Act of 1875. However, Democrat whites had regained power in the south leaving the African-Americans without representation in the congress. This allowed them to draft and pass bills that disenfranchised many poor whites and most Negros establishing white supremacist regimes (Ushistory.org, 2013). There was denial of the African-American political and civil rights through terrorizing attacks from lynch mobs and vigilante groups. A convict labor system also forced thousands of African-Americans into unpaid labor on plantations and in mines was reminiscent of slavery. Only a small number purchased land after the civil war. The African-Americans started migrating to the industrially emerging north from the agrarian south that had become increasingly difficult. However, the reception in the north was not a walk in paradise. Northerners were prejudiced against the African-Americans though the legal systems in the states were not as imposing on their rights as the south. White laborers complained of the flooding of the employment market by the African-Americans and lowering of wages. The “Negroes” segregated in urban slums by practice (Rau 7). Among these slums was Harlem. The neighborhood was a design for white workers who needed to commute to the city. Nevertheless, the project was overambitious, as the transportation could not cater for the populace. The district abandoned by whites, was sold, and rented to black real estate agents and tenants. The push of blacks from the city’s metropolitan area saw them move to the neighborhood en masse. The brightest black intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and advocates positioned themselves in Harlem bringing institutions, businesses, and a wide range of talents and ambitions with them. The neighborhood became “the Black Mecca” (Herringshaw 26). A large number of African-Americans joined the neighborhood during the First World War. The activities of the war created a deficit and demand for industrial labor while ceasing the migration of laborers from European countries. This caused the Great Migration of thousands of African –Americans in the city and into the neighborhood of Harlem. After the war, African-American soldiers from units like the Harlem Hellfighters returned to a nation with citizens who had no respect for their accomplishments due to the virulent White Racism (Ushistory.org, 2013). The Renaissance started developing in the late 1910s. The “Three Plays for a Negro Theatre” were play written by Ridgely Torrence that premiered in 1917 and conveyed yearnings and human emotions that were complex, through African-American actors. The plays rejected blackface stereotyping ad minstrel show traditions (Herringshaw 70). The same year saw “The Father of Harlem Radicalism”, Hubert Harrison starts The voice, the first newspaper and the Liberty league the first organization of the “New Negro Movement”. These political tools also encouraged the arts. “If We Must Die”, a militant sonnet, was the work of poet Claude McKay published in 1919 that defied the racism and nationwide race lynching and riots at the time. The plays and sonnet described the real contemporary life of the African-Americans who heard the message. In the early years of the 20th century, middle class African-Americans pushed a new political agenda advocating for racial equality. The movement centered in Harlem, New York. At the time at the forefront of civil rights movements was W. E. B. Du Bois, a black sociologist historian, and Harvard scholar. In 1905, Du Bois met with a group of African-American political activists in New York and discussed the challenges that the black community faced (Kallen 9). To promote the fight against African-American disenfranchisement and civil rights, the group later started the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in 1909. It was at this time that Marcus Garvey started promoting his Back to Africa movement through founding the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA_ACL). He advocated for the people of African origin to reunite into a single community under an absolute government while encouraging their pride in their race and heritage. These two groups together with the National Urban League (NUL) that counseled, trained and educated the blacks, established a sense of empowerment and community for the Negroes in New York and the whole country. The civil rights activists used the writers and artists of their culture to achieve the goals of equality and civil rights rather than the more politically direct means. African-American literature and art, and jazz music focused attention on the disenfranchised population after their absorption into the mainstream culture. This blossomed in the societies of Europeans and Americans and came to be known as The Harlem Renaissance (Kallen 31). The NUL started publishing Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life and the magazine’s editor, Charles S. Johnson printed promising black writers in every issue (Herringshaw 48). In his work Johnson met Jessie Fauset the editor of Du Bois, magazine, Crisis, who told him about Confusion (1924) her first novel. Johnson organized a release party for the novel in the form of a civic club dinner that acted as a forum for promising Afro-American artists to meet white patrons who were wealthy. In the end, the dinner was a success that launched careers for several writers (Herringshaw 56). The following year, 1925, the magazine Survey Graphic published an issue on Harlem. Under Alain Locke as the editor, it featured works by Cullen, Fauset, Hughes, and Claude McKay and expanded later on in the year in an anthology known as The New Negro. The anthology fueled the American captivation of African-American writers. The artist used their work and fame to highlight issues that were problematic in the American culture. With the First World War over an economic boom spread over the American nation with rejection of ideologies of war and increased liking for leisure among the populace. More time and money was invested inn activities of leisure and artistic endeavors. It was around this time that the Prohibition Act came into place making the purchase of alcohol a legal nightmare. Speakeasies, the nightclubs that served liquor, developed models for the public to socialize and indulge in the consumption of alcohol. Cotton Club was a speakeasy in Harlem furnished to have a feel and look resembling a luxurious plantation as in the south (Herringshaw 77). The clientele were whites only, though with a few exemptions, and entertainers were only African-Americans to complete the theme (Rau 29). As a result, the joint attracted high profile celebrities to watch the most-talented entertainers of African heritage in the days. The stage was graced by the most famous jazz artists of the time such as Lena Home, Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington. This allowed the whites to drink and mingle with blacks, two taboos of the era. The mingling allowed the blacks to highlight their issues and create awareness among the whites (Herringshaw 83). The mainstream music scene had a jazz outburst. Older generations associated raucous behavior of the younger generations with jazz music. The decade got the label “The Jazz Age”. However, the American infatuation with Harlem and the artists that constituted the Harlem Renaissance was limited to the 1920s decade and ended with the end of the decade (Ushistory.org, 2013). The enthusiasm associated with “The Roaring 20s” ended due to the effect of The Great Depression (Herringshaw 86). The populace cut on leisure activities and the patronage of artists and establishments of Harlem took a major blow. The American dream flew away from the blacks after layoffs and foreclosures making the black leaders to shift focus to financial and social issues instead of culture and art (Rau 36). Though the movement had died, the effects of the movement of society were more alive (Herringshaw 101). The movement succeeded in highlighting the Black experience in the American cultural history. The view of African-Americans by the world changed because of the movement that also created social consciousness among them. Harlem and Harlem Renaissance set the stage for the appreciation of the varieties of Black life and culture. Though some critics may claim otherwise, the Harlem Renaissance was important in setting the stage for the movements and civil rights groups that advocated for and made it possible to have equal rights for all races. References Herringshaw, DeAnn. The Harlem Renaissance. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub. Co, 2012. Internet resource. Kallen, Stuart A. The Harlem Renaissance. Edina, Minn: Abdo & Daughters, 2001. Internet resource. Rau, Dana M. The Harlem Renaissance. Minneapolis, Minn: Compass Point Books, 2006. Print. Ushistory.org. 2013. The Harlem Renaissance [ushistory.org]. [online] Available at: http://www.ushistory.org/us/46e.asp [Accessed: 28 Oct 2013]. Read More