1. Great Migration What is it?
Large-scale movement of African Americans from the South to cities in the North (hundreds of thousands)
Why did the African American Population shift North?
Escape Racial Discrimination (hard to make a living)
More job opportunities (factories, steel mills, stockyards, automobiles) especially during WWI
Recruited by Northern manufacturers – gave them free railroad passes to come North making it easier to move

2. Great Migration

3. Harlem Renaissance

4. Definition African American Art Movement
Stimulated artistic development, racial pride, a sense of community and promoted political organizations
Sparked African Americans to start demanding more rights and equality
Heart of movement was Harlem, NY

5. Writers
Proclaimed that African Americans would no longer accept 2nd class citizenship
Wrote of racial pride
Wrote about racism and the effects of it
Continue to influence white and black writers today

6. Claude McKay
Poet who wrote of American racism and expressed a proud defiance and hatred of racism
Exposed what life was really like growing up in black ghettos

7. Langston Hughes
Poet who became leading voice of the African American experience, especially for working class blacks
Wrote of black defiance and of hope
Dealt with issues of cultural heritage

8. Hughes’s Work

9. Jazz, Blues, and Theater
First time African Americans were given serious roles on the American stage
Blues – soulful style of music that evolved from African American spirituals
Jazz – New form of music that was improvised
Influenced by Dixieland and ragtime music

10. Louis Armstrong Introduced an early form of jazz to Chicago
First great cornet and trumpet soloist

11. Duke Ellington Composer, pianist, and bandleader
Got start along with many other musicians at famous Harlem nightspot, The Cotton Club

12. Famous Women Bessie Smith – Empress of the Blues
Josephine Baker – First African American Female to star in motion pictures
Worked on Broadway then moved to Paris
Bessie Smith – Empress of the Blues

13. W.E.B. DuBois Leading voice in African American community
Help start the NAACP
Worked to end discrimination and mistreatment of African Americans in the US

14. W.E.B DuBois
Editor of The Crisis – a magazine that promoted African American arts movement
The Crisis today - discusses critical issues confronting people of color, American society and the world
Brings attention to the historical and cultural achievements of these diverse peoples.

15. Marcus Garvey
Founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which promoted black pride and unity
Advocated self-reliance and independence/ separation from whites
Wanted blacks to return to Africa to create new empire

16. What led to the Harlem Renaissance?
Great Migration
African Americans moving from rural South to urban North
Why?
Had economic and domestic impact