Essay On The Harlem Renaissance

The African Americans used art to prove their humanity and demand for equality. He argued that the "Negro Literary Renaissance" notion overlooked "the stream of literary and artistic products which had flowed uninterruptedly from Negro writers from 1850 to the present", and said the so-called "renaissance" was largely a white invention. Duke Ellington gained popularity during the Harlem Renaissance. Many in the Harlem Renaissance were part of the early 20th century Great Migration out of the South into the Negro neighborhoods of the North and Midwest. 10 As life in the South became increasingly difficult, African Americans began to migrate north in great numbers.

And was based in Harlem, New York. African American artists used this time to escape southern democratic oppression, while black leadership was forming and shaped into an ideology of Alain Locke. He was a prominent philosopher that influenced Black people during the Harlem Renaissance. The most significant African Americans that I believe stood out during the Harlem Renaissance are Duke Ellington, Alain Locke, and Jesse Owens. Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was most famous for his musical contribution to the Harlem Renaissance.

** • Jazz music was part of the popular minstrel shows and vaudeville shows, both of which introduced the music to wider audiences. • Scott Joplin bought jazz into homes all over the country, and the Ragtime craze was on. It really caught on in New Orleans allowing Jazz to flourish due to its less rigid social backgrounds. New Orleans became the first true jazz centre. • This encouraged the popularity and growth of jazz music.

Thus, modernism was in a transient stage where writers were attempting make strives to move from the old forms of literature. In observation of Langston Hughes, he was considered a modernist that contributed a major part in the African American community. He was one the founders who incorporated jazz and poetry. This was during the period of the Harlem Renaissance when the African American culture was at its highest. The Harlem Renaissance was of the embracing of literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts it was set apart for whites.

Starting around the year of 1918 and thriving all through the 1920’s, abandoning commonly used stereo-typical terms and projecting their beliefs that they shouldn’t be considered second class citizens. They were politically, socially, and culturally declined, and yet they all wanted to be a part of the American society. They had ambition, and the Harlem Renaissance gave them leeway to become socially acceptable. The ideas that kicked off this revolutionary movement came from a play which denied black face and customs of minstrel show that were considered common stereotypes. Then came along radical literary works which laid the framework for ideals that became an instruction sheet for the movement.

The Harlem Renaissance took place in the 1920s , the African-Americans developed a new culture and they could freely express themselves / ideas . Before this , they experienced the Jim Crow laws from the south . The African-Americans escaped it by moving to harlem . The Harlem Renaissance helped the Africans shine with their culture and arts . The whites came to harlem to enjoy the blacks music and shows .

Even though society suppressed African Americans, society needed them to achieve these dreams. If African Americans did not achieve their dreams during the Harlem Renaissance we would not have many great celebrities we know today. Babe Ruth would not become a baseball legend, Louis Armstrong would not be one of the best musicians of the decade and Langston Hughes would not have been the inspiring writing he was. Without these African Americans who followed their dreams, like Hughes implied through disturbing imagery, society would have been extensively hurt. With the use of imagery, Hughes is able to get this idea across.

Langston Hughes, the brilliant poet and author of the twentieth century, once wrote that it was the “mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.” This mission delegated to all artists was no easy task; especially African-Americans who were consistently persecuted and ignored by white supremacists. For example, if you had an idea - an idea that would change the way that people think of you - but were persecuted and attacked for presenting it, would you make that idea a reality? The African-American artists of the 1920s and 1930s went against all oppression and published wonderful works, making them one of the first people of color to openly share their masterpieces in a racist America. This period of mass publication in the 1920s was known as the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a time of rebirth for African-American culture, which left a legacy in jazz, literature, theater productions, motion pictures, and visual rats.

During the 1920s and 1930s jazz began to be popular and interesting among young people, black and whites. They were attracted by the freedom and artistic nature of it. When white popular musicians started to integrate the Bebop style with their own music, it became that much more popular, not only in America, but around the world. Jazz became a way to unify cultures through music. It helped to bring down barriers.

Langston poetry always showed his strong commitment to social justice in the 1930s, throughout the Great Depression, his political beliefs turned radical[endnoteRef:15]6. He portrayed heavily on his urban experience in work[endnoteRef:16]6. Hughes used element of spirituals for the African Americans church in the finals version of the poem[endnoteRef:17]6 ?When Sue Wears Red?[endnoteRef:18]6. In 1925 Hughes published ?The Weary Blues? in his first experiment in the incorporation of the African American musical Motifs from the blues, jazz, and spirituals into his verse[endnoteRef:19]6.