The Harlem Renaissance was primarily a literary and intellectual movement composed of a generation of black writers born around the turn of the century. Among its best known figures were : Langston Hughes Zora Neale Hurston Countee Cullen Claude McKay Jean Toomer

Artists and writers of the Harlem Renaissance worked to illustrate five major themes : 1.Express Racial Pride 2.Celebrate African-American Achievers and Heroes 3.Advance the Black Race 4.Incorporate Elements of African- American Folklore 5.Explore Self or Individual Identity. Poet Sterling Brown in Harlem Renaissance by Kelly Howes p. 35.

“Let us train ourselves to see beauty in ‘black.’” -Meta Warrick Fuller, African-American sculptor of the Harlem Renaissance

In an essay published in 1926, Langston Hughes gave voice to the proud spirit of his generation during the Harlem Renaissance : We younger artists who create 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. If 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 as quoted in The Harlem Renaissance by Kelly Howes p. 35

“Before 1920, if you were black and wanted to create art, American was not the place to do it. Europe, on the other hand, welcomed African- American artists. Galleries and museums displayed their work and investors purchased it. In the U.S., African Americans were not simply discouraged from the visual arts, they were frozen art. Most art schools refused to accept blacks, while libraries, art galleries, and museums did not display their work and made black visitors feel unwelcome.” (Hill 115)

“Harlem, I’ll grant you, isn’t typical - but it is significant… it is prophetic.” -Alain Locke

The higher purpose of literature and art is “to hold up the mirror to nature. With only the … ‘exceptional’ and ‘quaint’ portrayed, a true picture of Negro life in America cannot be.” -Zora in Speak p. 28

Published in 1923, Jean Toomer’s brilliant novel CANE was one of the first books marketed by white publishers that depicted African-American characters and culture authentically, rather than as caricatures. This novel rejected old stereotypes and substituted instead notions of self-respect, self-reliance, and racial unity. Wm. Braithwaite, the most respected black literary critic of the pre-Renaissance period, wrote, “CANE is a book of gold and bronze, of dusk and flame, of ecstasy and pain, and Jean Toomer is the bright morning star of a new day of the race in literature. From Harlem Stomp by Laban Hill p. 50

Artist Jacob Lawrence – The Migrations – Series #1

“ It is not that we are ashamed of our color and blood. We are instinctively and almost unconsciously ashamed of the caricatures done of our darker shades. Black as caricature is our half-conscious thought and we shun in print and paint that which we love in life…. We remain afraid of black pictures because they are cruel reminders of the crimes of the Sunday “comics” and “Nigger” minstrels. Off with these thought chains and inchoate soul-shrinkings, and let us train ourselves to see beauty in “black.” - W.E.B. DuBois, writing in 1920 about his hopes for the creation of new images of African Americans

“I thought about how even the Bible was made over to suit our vivid imagination. How the devil always outsmarted God and how that over-noble hero Jack or John… outsmarted the devil.” Zora Neale Hurston (from Introduction to Mules and Men in Zora Neale Hurston : Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings)

It is the duty of the younger Negro artist… to change through the force of his art that old whispering “ I want to be white,” hidden in the aspiration of his people to “Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!” - Langston Hughes in (Hill 70)`