Capitalism In The Harlem Renaissance

Many African American artists who accepted support from white patrons often found themselves in an obviously dependent position. However, the motivation of these patrons ranged anywhere from genuine interest of the movement and friendship to more of a social controlled situation. Patrons, also known as Negrotarians, became the primary financial and aesthetic maintainers of the literary and art movement which lead to a cultural exchange between the two races. However, financial arrangements often lead to resentment among black intellectuals. On one hand, financial patronage served to maintain the Harlem Renaissance, but by that same notion, provided access for whites into black culture. American historian, author, and educator, Nathan Huggins criticized the movement saying, “whose sensibilities, tastes, and interests were being served by such art, the patron or the patronized?” Huggins doubted the value or merit of the art in his discourse, “When it is racial, there is, at first, the suspicion that the patron values negro-ness, not the art.”

Sadly, these intellectuals were regarded as the voice of Negros. Author, Richard Wright, confirmed in his lecture in 1960 that “Whether the Negro artists and intellectuals, profess to or not, they are regarded by the dominant white society as spokesmen for their people.” Those like Alain Locke, Langston Hughes, and most members of the black avant-garde understood their position in the movement and used it to advance the struggle for the social