5/04/11 AmLit Agenda Bell Ringer: Take out Garvey essay from Monday’s class. Wrap-up discussion of the article 3rd period—FINISH INFERENCING PRE-TEST Harlem Renaissance slides and note-taking Internet exploring with Ms. Armstrong

The Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance (HR) is the name given to the period from the end of World War I and through the middle of the 1930s Depression, during which a group of talented African-American writers, poets, musicians and artists produced a large contribution to American culture.

The Great Migration Many African-Americans didn’t leave the South right after the Civil War even though slavery officially ended because they knew that getting a job in the North might be difficult. With outbreak of World War I, this changed because: war generated new opportunities for jobs much of existing labor supply left the work force for the war immigrant labor pool was smaller End result: The Great Migration …which brought together black populations in northern cities like Chicago and New York in unprecedented numbers. Relative to the South, the North provided greater educational, political, and social opportunities, but rising northern racism led to strict residential segregation that caused overcrowding, run-down conditions, and high rents. [THINK ABOUT BIGGER IN NATIVE SON!] This situation got a lot of African-Americans thinking and wanting to express themselves!

The concentration in New York city was on the upper west side, in Harlem. 

In addition to art, music, and poetry, many important publications were created during the Harlem Renaissance, such as Crisis magazine, which was edited by W. E. B. DuBois. Publications such as this one gave Black writers a forum where their voices could be heard.

Alain Locke from “Harlem” published in Survey Graphic: “If we were to offer a symbol of what Harlem has come to mean in the short span of twenty years it would be another statue of liberty on the landward side of New York. It stands for a folk-movement which in human significance can be compared only with the pushing back of the western frontier in the first half of the last century, or the waves of immigration which have swept in from overseas in the last half. Numerically far smaller than either of these movements, the volume of migration is such none the less that Harlem has become the greatest Negro community the world has known--without counterpart in the South or in Africa. But beyond this, Harlem represents the Negro's latest thrust towards Democracy”

The Making of Harlem by James Weldon Johnson To my mind, Harlem is more than a Negro community; it is a large scale laboratory experiment in the race problem. The statement has often been made that if Negroes were transported to the North in large numbers the race problem with all of its acuteness and with New aspects would be transferred with them. Well, 175,000 Negroes live closely together in Harlem, in the heart of New York, 75,000 more than live in any Southern city, and do so without any race friction. Nor is there any unusual record of crime.

Now we will do some further exploring on the internet! [End of AmLit day 1 slides] Now we will do some further exploring on the internet!