The New Negro Renaissance: 1920s, 30s, 40s and Beyond Beginning in the 1920s, there was a growth in pride of African-American heritage… The New Negro Renaissance: 1920s, 30s, 40s and Beyond

Exemplified by Marcus Garvey’s UNIA & the Pan-Africa Movement “First man on a mass scale to give millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny” – MLK Vision of “universal African-centered Negro liberation,” blacked needed their own nation & identity 1914, Founded UNIA with the goal of black-owned businesses & separatism 1923, Garvey arrested and sentenced to 5 years in prison for mail fraud. 1927, President Coolidge commutes Garvey’s sentence; Garvey deported to Jamaica

Coincided with/connected to the early years of the Great Migration Migrants had visions of economic & social opportunity—they aimed to advance the New Negro They experienced severely restricted opportunities Restrictions in employment & housing, violence & other forms of racial hostility & discrimination At times the hostility was from blacks who lived in those areas already

Flowering of African American culture—artists, writers, poets, visual performers and musicians At the time it was called the “New Negro Movement,” while later “The Harlem Renaissance” came to be more in vogue Called for a “new negro” who was determined to transform the stereotypical image of black Americans away from the image of the ex-slaves, toward that of a proud icon for the culture. Interest in African American culture among upper-middle-class white New Yorkers Some wanted to experience black life (“slumming it”) or simply had the money & interest to sponsor & befriend black artists Nightclubs (ex: The Cotton Club) were whites-only, with AA staff and entertainment Floorshows often portrayed blacks as primitives Club jobs expanded opportunities for individual artists who performed there Also reinforced African American exoticism & otherness

While Harlem became a cultural center for AA life, other places flourished as well. Today we’ll look at the work of 6 well-known NNR poets, writers & artists: Influential NNR writers include Gwendolyn Brooks, of Chicago’s South Side, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Annie Allen, a poetry collection that was published in 1950.

Frank Davis, was famous for his poetry, as well as his activism in politics as a community organizer in Chicago. (Left) Langston Hughes was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry, and is perhaps one of the most famous NNR writers from Harlem. (Right)

Zora Neale Hurston wrote four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays; she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Between living in Harlem and Florida, during the 1930s, she lived in Westfield, New Jersey, where Langston Hughes was a neighbor. (Right) Claude McKay was a Jamaican- American writer and poet. In 1928, he published his most famous novel, Home to Harlem, which depicted street life in Harlem, and which had a major impact on black intellectuals in the Caribbean, West Africa, and Europe. (Left)

Jacob Lawrence was a NNR painter whose (perhaps) greatest work, The Great Migration, was funded by the Works Project Administration’s Federal Art Project during the Great Depression. In 1971 he brought NNR art to Seattle where he taught students at the University of Washington.