The Harlem Renaissance

How does the artist use symbolism to describe the Renaissance?

Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City, was the center of the African American political, cultural, and artistic movement in the 1920s and early 1930s.

1930

1911

1920

CausesWhat events and movements do you think may have helped lead

to the Renaissance?

•The Great Migration

What push factors led to the migration? What pull factors led to the migration?

CausesGrowing African American Middle Class: due to improved educational and employment opportunities for African Americans.

The Harlem section of New York became the center of this new African American class.

Modernism & the Harlem Renaissance• Blacks view surge in art, music and literature as the

creation of a new cultural identity.• Whites see it as another new, exotic, and trendy form

of entertainment.

As Modern Artists look to “make it new” they turn to the “New Negro”

arts movement.

How does the modernist trend towards “primitivism” impact this?

Jazz Shapes American CultureHow did the following artists impact American popular music?

Bessie Smith Duke Ellington Louis Armstong

(left side) Imagine you were just at a jazz club listening to both of those songs being performed. Describe the music and what the atmosphere of the jazz club would be like.

ImpactThe Harlem section of New York City was transformed from a

deteriorating area into a thriving middle class community.

Before After

CausesPolitical Agenda For Civil Rights by African Americans: leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and the NAACP helped to inspire racial pride in the middle and working class.

Marcus Garvey pushed for the Back to Africa movement

Du Bois, author of The Souls of Black Folks, was instrumental in the foundation of the NAACP.

The NAACP published The

Crisis, a journal used to share the literary works of

African Americans.

Du Bois believed that artistic and literary work could be used as a form of propaganda to help combat racial stereotypes and gain new respect for the race.

What message does

this song, written by an

African American, send to the

general public?

How do images like this hinder the efforts of African Americans like Du Bois?

Du Bois also believed in the “talented tenth.” This was the idea that a small percentage of the African American population who were exceptionally skilled should be designated and educated as artistic and cultural leaders. He proposed absolute equality for the "talented tenth" and technical training for the black masses.

“Back to Africa” MovementThe HR was more than just a literary movement: it included racial consciousness, "the back to Africa" movement led by Marcus Garvey, racial integration, the explosion of music particularly jazz, spirituals and blues, painting, dramatic revues, and others.  

Marcus GarveyMarcus Garvey• 1887-1940• Poor Jamaican • Excellent orator, attended London University• 1914- in the U.S. • 1917- organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association to

organize blacks around the world and found a strong Negro nation• 1919- Marcus Garvey and UNIA had launched the Black Star Line- a

shipping company that would establish trade and commerce between Africans in America, the Caribbean, South and Central America, Canada, and Africa

• W.E.B. Du Bois called Garvey, "the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America”

• 1922- Marcus Garvey and three other UNIA officials were charged with mail fraud involving the Black Star Line. 1923, Garvey was convicted and sentenced to prison for five years

• 1927- released from prison and deported to Jamaica.

J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI watched Garvey…

Primary Sources: FBI Memo J. Edgar Hoover to Special Agent RidgelyWashington, D.C., October 11, 1919

MEMORANDUM FOR MR. RIDGELY.

The following is a brief statement of Marcus Gravey and his activities:

Subject a native of the West Indies and one of the most prominent negro agitators in New York;

He is a founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League;

He is the promulgator of the Black Star Line and is the managing editor of the Negro World;

He is an exceptionally fine orator, creating much excitement among the negroes through his steamship proposition;

In his paper the "Negro World" the Soviet Russian Rule is upheld and there is open advocation of Bolshevism.

Respectfully,J. E. Hoover

African American Poet, Claude McKay memorialized the bloody summer of 1919 with the poem, “If We Must Die,” which was published in the magazine Liberator.

If We Must DieIf we must die--let it not be like hogsHunted and penned in an inglorious spot,While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,Making their mock at our accursed lot.If we must die--oh, let us nobly die,So that our precious blood may not be shedIn vain; then even the monsters we defyShall be constrained to honor us though dead!Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!What though before us lies the open grave?Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

What is the imagery used in the poem?

What message is the author sending to African Americans?

Do you agree or disagree with the author? Why?

Differences in Artistic Vision

What do you believe was more important: fighting racial prejudice and stereotyping, or true personal expression? (Read: p. 458-459 and answer #1 comparing in your notebook)

Dubois & Locke

• “Thus all art is propaganda and ever must be despite the wailing of the purists.”

• “The great social gain in this is the releasing of our talented group from the arid fields of controversy and debate to the productive fields of creative expression.”

Hughes & Hurston

•“We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.”

The Negro Speaks of RiversLangston HughesI've known rivers:I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.My soul has grown deep like the rivers.I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.I've known rivers:Ancient, dusky rivers.My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Dubois’ Influence on LiteratureIncidentCountee CullenOnce riding in old Baltimore,Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,I saw a BaltimoreanKeep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small,And he was no whit bigger,And so I smiled, but he poked outHis tongue, and called me, "Nigger."I saw the whole of BaltimoreFrom May until December;Of all the things that happened thereThat's all that I remember.

How can these poems (and others we will examine) be seen as propaganda?