The Harlem Renaissance

When? During the larger Modernist movement Post WWI (1914) Lasting through much of the 1920’s and shortly into the 30’s At a perfect time when jobs and economy were booming (an after-effect of the war and prior to the great depression)

What? The Harlem Renaissance, though it originated in Harlem, denotes a larger movement in African American culture. Though we are speaking specifically about literature, the movement, like the early Renaissance, included advances in music, art, drama, religion, etc. During this time, blues, jazz, spirituals, and other form of music popularized by African Americans were gaining momentum. Poetry was becoming somewhat experimental (in terms of language and form) and sought to express the conditions of the African American.

Continued The HR sought to portray the “black” struggles in a still very “white” America. Marginality, introspection, and uniqueness of culture were all themes that garnered a great deal of attention from the young black authors and poets. Like the “other” modernists, the black writers of the HR were concerned about writing for elite audiences and also struggled with issues revolving around identity and consciousness.

Two Schools Even within the HR, there was some subdivision. Some of the authors felt like using folk material, dialect, and the African American past were great ways of exemplifying AA culture. However, other authors felt like they wanted to be great black authors without having to be specifically “black” or talking about black issues. In other words, their race was secondary to the fact that they wanted to be great writers deserving of notice.

Effects All in all, writers like Hurston, Hughes, Toomer, Baraka, etc. produced a sizable amount of work that had lasting effects of black history, black intellectualism, and even the Modernist movement as a whole.