ipl-logo

Harlem Renaissance Research Paper

579 Words3 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance, which occurred throughout the 1910’s and 1920’s, was a big leap for black communities because the African Americans got a chance to use their creativity and culture to become a strong and equal society in America. The Harlem Renaissance was a time for the black communities of America to find their individuality through art, literature, music, and other aspects of their culture. Through the use of this artwork, African Americans were able to voice their feelings and opinions on the situations they were dealt with during the time of the Civil Rights Movement. This is similar to the works of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois because he voiced his reasoning in the use of literature. Du Bois was a major impact on the Harlem Renaissance …show more content…

W.E.B. Du Bois used his novel, The Souls of Black Folk, to give African Americans the push they needed to achieve the respect from white Americans and most importantly, themselves. He used many terms that made it easier for Americans of every color to identify with. Some of the most important and influential terms Du Bois uses in his book include, the ‘Veil’, which was a divisional line that separated the blacks and the whites and made it difficult for the African Americans to be seen as equal. ‘The Color Line’ was a term Du Bois used for the roles in society that the whites and blacks held. In short, the whiter and richer you were, the higher you were on the color line. Another term he used was ‘double consciousness’, which was how the African Americans viewed themselves as if they were looking at themselves in the eyes of the white people, their ‘masters’. Du Bois put into context that this is not the way America has to work anymore. For centuries, the African Americans were treated with hate and disrespect, they did not know how to view themselves after they received freedom. “Work, culture, liberty, - all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together, each growing and aiding each, and all striving toward the vaster ideal that swims before the Negro people, the ideal of brotherhood (8).” After the powerful words of Du Bois, the African Americans started to view themselves differently, in a more respected manner. The White Americans started to open their eyes to see how they have been treating the black

Show More
Related

Similarities Between W. E. B. Dubois And Booker T. Washington

1629 Words | 7 Pages

Due to the political, civil, and institutional failures for African Americans during the Reconstruction era, two pioneers posited programs for uplift: W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. In Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois argued Washington’s solutions created a triple paradox that encouraged disenfranchisement, self-deprecating pacifism, and academic ignorance. Moreover, DuBois found Washington was misguided by three dangerous half-truths: The South was justified in its treatment of African Americans, higher education was wrong, and uplift was primarily the burden of African Americans. Conversely, Du Bois argued to judge the South with discriminate criticism, which reoriented African American political thought. Furthermore, Du Bois demanded

Read More

Comparison Of Booker T. Washington And W. E. B. Dubois

2471 Words | 10 Pages

The concept and discourse surrounding the battle for racial uplift has remained a pillar of Black activism and intellectual debates for over a century. While there have been a multitude of individuals involved in the struggle for racial uplift whose names never made it into the history books, there have also been a small number of individuals for whom history did capture. Two of the most famous members of the racial uplift battle were Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. While both Washington and Dubois made it of paramount importance to improve the lives of Black people living in American society, they disagreed on the methodologies for how this racial uplift should be implemented. Through a comparative analysis of Booker T. Washington’s and W.E.B. Du Bois's theories on racial uplift, this paper contends that while both Du Bois and Washington highlight the importance of the power of individual agency, they differ markedly to the degree in which they emphasize multiple social institutions and the power of the social institutions to drive positive change in American Society.

Read More

W. E. B Dubois Color Line Analysis

870 Words | 4 Pages

Du Bois take on the Color Line Question: Class and Race in the Globalization Age William Edward Burghardt Dubois born in 1868 and died in 1963 was a Black American academic, activist for peace and civil rights, and socialist who wrote about sociology, philosophy, race equality, history and education. The evaluation of W.E.B Du Bois’s studies brings out social and intellectual initiatives especially his color line concept and its role to the history of African Americans (Butler, 2000). The color line concept is the role of racism and race in society and history. However, an analysis that is multidimensional which finds and evaluates the intersection of race together with class as modes of resistance and domination on national and international

Read More

Black Community: The Harlem Renaissance

132 Words | 1 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance was a period of great cultural growth in the black community. It is accepted that it started in 1918 and lasted throughout the 1930s. Though named the ‘Harlem’ Renaissance, it was a country-wide phenomenon of pride and development among black Americans, the likes of which had never existed in such grand scale. Among the varying political actions and movements for equality, a surge of new art appeared: musical, visual, and even theatre. With said surge, many of the most well-known black authors, poets, musicians and actors rose to prevalence including Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Louis Armstrong, and Eulalie Spence.

Read More

The Harlem Renaissance: Afro-American Voice

210 Words | 1 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance is a term that encompasses an intellectual and literary movement of the 1920s and 1930s. A renowned scholar, Alain Locke, argued that “Negro life is seizing its first chances for group expression and self determination” (1926). Moreover, The Harlem Renaissance refers to the re-birth of African Americans who needed “an affirmation of their dignity and humanity in the face of poverty and racism” (Gates, 1997: 929). In their research, Shukla and Banerji state the the Harlem Renaissance “can be considered as the spring of Afro-American voice” that previously remained unheard and unnoticed (2012). For the first time black musicians and artists came to the fore of attention and started to be praised for their work.

Read More

Plessy V. Ferguson's Theory Of Civil Rights

1551 Words | 7 Pages

The NAACP’s primary goal during Du Bois’ time was to invalidate the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson. He was fond of Booker T. Washington, mentioned earlier, and many of his own views surrounded the concept of double consciousness. Du Bois believed that as a result of Plessy v. Ferguson African Americans began to judge themselves based on white standards, ultimately leading to the internal acceptance of inferiority. He describes the state of double consciousness as, “a peculiar sensation this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others…” (143). In other words, black people have reached a state of double consciousness where they look at themselves in the way that white people look at them.

Read More

Similarities Between The Stranger And W. E. B. Dubois

625 Words | 3 Pages

Du Bois wanted to show people what it was to African American in America. Du Bois belive that African Americans was held back from achieving equality. Du Bois’s double consciousness was about always looking at oneself through the eyes of others. Du Bois claimed that African Americans struggle with multi-faceted conception of self “a double consciousness”. In this

Read More

Harlem Renaissance Research Paper

1545 Words | 7 Pages

204). The art showed off their love and passion for their culture and the fearlessness they possessed with the challenges they’ve faced daily. The upper and middle classes of the black community could only relate to the white community by denying their tie to the lower class (Huggins, p. 204). The difference is, the lower class wasn’t so effected by the shame, they loved every part of their poor, loud, and acentric lives.

Read More

Pros And Cons Of E. B. Dubois

838 Words | 4 Pages

Du Bois described them as hopeless, voiceless, humiliated, disrespected, and ridicule and how society was too focused on politics and wealth. “Would America go poor if white people acknowledge black folk are human beings like any other?”

Read More

Compare And Contrast Web Du Bois And Booker T Dubois

807 Words | 4 Pages

Dr. W.E.B Du Bois uses this essay to sway the audience of the insufficiency of the statements that Mr. Booker T. Washington has made about African Americans being submissive of rights and the creation of wealth. Mr. Washington believes that the black race should give up and give into what the society norms were at that time sequentially just to have a certain right. Dr. Du Bois refused to believe that the black race should give up one right to get another right. Especially, when the white South had all rights without expecting to give up anything to have those rights.

Read More

Harlem Renaissance Influence

1645 Words | 7 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance was a black literary and art movement that began in Harlem, New York. Migrants from the South came to Harlem with new ideas and a new type of music called Jazz. Harlem welcomed many African Americans who were talented. Writers in the Harlem Renaissance had separated themselves from the isolated white writers which made up the “lost generation” The formation of a new African American cultural identity is what made the Harlem Renaissance and the Lost Generation unique in American culture because it influenced white literacy and it was a sense of freedom for African Americans.

Read More

How Did W. E. B. Dubois Impact Society

871 Words | 4 Pages

DuBois’s first post-dissertation book, The Philadelphia Negro, released in 1899, determined that housing and employment discrimination were the principal barriers to racial equality and black prosperity in the urban North. (blackpast.org/aah/dubois-william-edward-burghardt-1868-1963) In his written book, The Souls of Black Folks, released in 1903, he argued for "manly" and "ceaseless agitation and insistent demand for equality” which demanded a education of equality for blacks that’s not inferior to whites. (W. E. B. Du Bois and the NAACP, Virginia Historical Society) Du Bois promoted the idea of self improvement, without giving up full citizenship rights, which impacted the general well being of African American and visualized the idea of having an exclusive group of all black, educated leaders called “The

Read More

The Harlem Renaissance: Civil Rights Movement

1516 Words | 7 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that reflected the culture of African Americans in an artistic way during the 1920’s and the 30’s. Many African Americans who participated in this movement showed a different side of the “Negro Life,” and rejected the stereotypes that were forced on themselves. The Harlem Renaissance was full of artists, musicians, and writers who wrote about their thoughts, especially on discrimination towards blacks, such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Langston Hughes. The Harlem Renaissance was an influential and exciting movement, and influenced others to fight for what they want and believed in. The Harlem Renaissance was the start of the Civil Rights Movement.

Read More

The Color Line Racism

1740 Words | 7 Pages

In Du Bois’ the Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the 20th Century, he gives context that places the prejudice of America on a scale, he states, “This fissure between white and black is not everywhere of the same width. Naturally it is the widest in the former slave states and narrowest in the older and more cultivated east. It seldom, however, wholly closes up in New England, while it is threatening width in the south is the Negro Problem,” (Du Bois, 35). The color line in this sense is the fissure of the whites and blacks. The greatest depth of the line is that closest in the heart of the south.

Read More

W. E. B. Dubois Analysis

944 Words | 4 Pages

In Souls of Black Folk, one of the first analogies made was considering the “veil”. When I first read about the veil, it was confusing to consider what it meant and how it related to the community. However, upon further reading and consideration, the veil is the most accurate description of what was going on racially and socially then and now. Specifically, when he stated that behind the veil, one can see in and out but from outside the veil, you cannot see in, it was accurate because the white Americans of the time were trying to explain something they could not see into. This was impactful now as well due to the fact other want to claim that racism and oppression does not exist but yet have never experienced it.

Read More

More about Harlem Renaissance Research Paper

Related Topics

Open Document