The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance
Emergence of a Cultural Voice

Introduction || Activity || Activity - Online Version ||

Introduction

"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 tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs colored people are pleased; we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves."

Langston Hughes
"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain"

In the 1920s Harlem changed. Before American involvement in World War I, Nieuw Haarlem, as it was named by early Dutch settlers, stood as an elite suburb of Manhattan. During the war, its black population increased dramatically, as some 400,000 southern blacks migrated north in search of wartime work. Many settled in Harlem, and in the decade of the 1920s New York City's black community surged from 152,000 to 327,000.

As a newly formed community of African Americans, Harlem soon became a vibrant center of black cultural activity. "Let the blare of the Negro jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith singing Blues penetrate,” wrote Langston Hughes. Those hearing the sounds represented, Alain Locke affirmed, the New Negro, the younger generation that is "vibrant with a new psychology [and a] new spirit."

This tumult of new sounds, new ideas, new art, and new expectations became a cultural "happening," the Harlem Renaissance. Though complex in its motivations and its expressions, the Harlem Renaissance stands as the first time in American history that African Americans self-consciously engaged in a movement to affirm their culture heritage – a blend of their African roots and their American experiences. They sought --- and succeeded --- to validate that their experiences, their vernacular, and their rhythms had value.

This activity challenges you to leave aside your own cultural bearings, and acquaint yourself with the emerging cultural nationalism of some of our nation’s first migrants --- African Americans.