1. Welcome to the Harlem Renaissance

2. The Harlem Renaissance
How does the artist use symbolism to describe the Renaissance?

3. Can you see any evidence from this map that this is an African American community?

4. Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City, was the center of the African American political, cultural, and artistic movement in the 1920s and early 1930s.

5. 1930
1920
1911

6. Harlem in the early 1930s
Based on these pictures, describe what life was like in Harlem in the early 1930s.

7. Every family has that one member that they don’t want to admit to!
Causes
What events and movements do you think may have helped lead to the Renaissance?
Great Migration: the movement of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from rural areas in the South to urban areas in both he North and South.
Every family has that one member that they don’t want to admit to!
Don’t let it be you!!!
What push factors led to the migration? What pull factors led to the migration?

8. ??????????
What does it mean to have “PUSH” and “PULL” factors (reasons) when it comes to a movement (cause)?

9. Push and Pull factors The Great Migration
The Great Migration began because of a "push" and a "pull." Disenfranchisement and Jim Crow laws led many African Americans to hope for a new life up north. Hate groups and hate crimes cast alarm among African American families of the Deep South. The promise of owning land had not materialized. Most blacks toiled as sharecroppers trapped in an endless cycle of debt.

10. More Push and Pull
In the 1890s, a boll weevil blight damaged the cotton crop throughout the region, increasing the despair. All these factors served to push African Americans to seek better lives. The booming northern economy forged the pull. Industrial jobs were numerous, and factory owners looked near and far for sources of cheap labor.

11. And more… push and pull
Unfortunately, northerners did not welcome African Americans with open arms. While the legal systems of the northern states were not as delaying toward African American rights, the prejudice among the populace was as hostile. White laborers complained that African Americans were flooding the employment market and lowering wages. Most new migrants found themselves segregated by practice in run down urban slums. The largest of these was Harlem. Writers, actors, artists, and musicians glorified African American traditions, and at the same time created new ones.

12. Causes
Growing African American Middle Class: developed as a result of improved educational and employment opportunities for African Americans.
The Harlem section of New York became the center of this new African American class.

13. How do these pictures contrast to the ones in the previous slide in meaning?

14. Philosophical Standpoints
Philosophical Foundation:
The notion of “twoness,” a divided awareness of one’s identity, was introduced by W.E.B. DuBois, one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) and the author of The Souls of Black Folks (1903): “One feels ever his two-ness – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled stirrings: two warring ideals in one dark body.”

15. Marcus Garvey pushed for the Back to Africa movement
Causes
Political Agenda For Civil Rights by African Americans: leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and the NAACP helped to inspire racial pride in the middle and working class.
Du Bois, author of The Souls of Black Folks, was instrumental in the foundation of the NAACP.
Marcus Garvey pushed for the Back to Africa movement

16. The NAACP published The Crisis, a journal used to share the literary works of African Americans.
Du Bois believed that artistic and literary work could be used as a form of propaganda to help combat racial stereotypes and gain new respect for the race.
What message does this song title, written by an African American, send to the general public?
How do images like this hinder the efforts of African Americans like Du Bois?

17. Prohibition
Prohibition: The 18th Amendment to the Constitution gave rise to the culture of the speakeasies and club scene in Harlem. Whites and blacks alike frequented jazz clubs, giving rise to greater awareness of black music.
It also allowed whites to enjoy the music without having to explain themselves…because it was new and hip..

18. What is the imagery used in the poem?
African American Poet, Claude McKay memorialized the bloody summer of 1919 with the poem, “If We Must Die,” which was published in the magazine Liberator.
If We Must Die
If we must die--let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die--oh, let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe; Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
What is the imagery used in the poem?
What message is the author sending to African Americans?
Do you agree or disagree with the author? Why?

19. Impact
The Harlem section of New York City was transformed from a deteriorating area into a thriving middle class community.
Before
After

20. Modernism & the Harlem Renaissance
Blacks view surge in art, music and literature as the creation of a new cultural identity.
Whites see it as another new, exotic, and trendy form of entertainment.

21. As Modern Artists look to “make it new” they turn to the “New Negro” arts movement.

22. Jazz Shapes American Culture
How did the following artists impact American popular music?

23. Differences in Artistic Vision
Dubois & Locke
“Thus all art is propaganda and ever must be despite the wailing of the purists.”
“The great social gain in this is the releasing of our talented group from the arid fields of controversy and debate to the productive fields of creative expression.”
Hughes & Hurston
“We younger Negro artists who create now 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.”
What do you believe was more important: fighting racial prejudice and stereotyping, or true personal expression? (An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he must choose)…an quote from “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” by Langston Hughes”

24. Examples of Music from the Renaissance