I have Black History (or African American History) on my mind everyday. But this month is the one chosen to celebrate so I have decided to pay homage to those who have blazed trails and made their marks on the world. The Harlem Renaissance has been my favorite era since I first learned about it in ninth grade. Let me paint a picture for you. Actually a picture alone will not do. When I think of the Harlem Renaissance and the artists, scholars, and activists who it consisted of, I see colors, I hear rhythms both musically and lyrically. I imagine the spirited intellectual debates that sprang out of the thirst for knowledge. Jazz, rhymes, philosophy, pride, negritude, and all with soul.
The Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, as it was also called, was a cultural, literary, artistic and intellectual movement that started around 1919 and went on through 1935. The movement brought to light many of the important issues affecting African Americans through various forms of literature, music, painting, sculpting, movies, and protests. These voices of protests inspired institutions and leaders who in turn served as mentors for aspiring writers. Though the movement started in Harlem, its influence was seen nation wide and beyond.
One of the things that I most like about the Harlem Renaissance is that it was a time when African Americans still saw education as the great equalizer. During this time, African Americans saw education to be extremely important and the key to success. Because New York prohibited segregated schools by law, African Americans looked at it an opportunity for a quality education. Harlem attracted thousands of blacks from the south and the West Indies because of its economic and educational opportunities. Blacks in the south were also fleeing racist activities that threatened life and limb. Blacks also had a greater militancy and awareness that the promises for a better life after World War I had not been kept. West Indians who came to the U.S. seeking economic opportunity and prosperity had almost no illiteracy among them. They had great business minds and were said to have made up one third of the city's professionals, physicians, dentists, and lawyers. West Indians were not accustomed to the racial hostility and harassment found in America, and the same ethos that led some to become professionals, led others to become political radicals.
The most significant event regarding education during the Harlem Renaissance was the philosophical debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois regarding the most beneficial education for the needs of African Americans. Booker T. Washington, an educator and first leader of the Tuskegee Institute, believed that African Americans should have an industrial education, learning to be farmers, mechanics and domestics and providing much of the services and produce needed by white society. He felt history, mathematics and science was impractical for the Negro. He stressed that if African Americans wanted to be successful, there needed to be an economic foundation built from land ownership agriculture and industry. He also advocated building relations with whites and discouraged African Americans from leaving the south. W.E.B. Dubois, a scholar and a teacher, found Washington's views too narrow and economic in its objectives. He also felt Washington's views were disapproving of institutions of higher learning as well as too conciliatory of the south's destruction of African Americans political and civil rights. Dubois advocated an educational concept for African Americans labeled "The Talented Tenth." This represented a small number of educated professionals who were committed to improving race relations and civilizing, uplifting, and elevating the masses. Both ideologies had proponents, and both men certainly had many followers. Regardless of the vast differences in opinions, it was inspirational to see African Americans so spirited and engaged with educating themselves.
Renaissance means re-birth or revival. If you look up the word alone, it talks about a period in Europe from the 14th through the 17th centuries in which there was a rebirth of the arts. It was the time when Da Vinci, Botticelli and Michelangelo emerged. I look at the Harlem Renaissance as a time when Africans in American had a rebirth or revival of the gifts from their ancestors, a re-awakening of their heritage. An unprecedented amount of creativity from black writers emerged, inspired by the anger of discrimination and the anxiety of culture lost, left in Africa. These expressions started as literary discussions that brought young black writers and intellectuals from around the country, the Caribbean, and Africa to Harlem. This movement gave rise to the likes of Alain Locke, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Dubois who all edited magazines or papers and served as inspiration to the literary masses.
My favorites are the writers. Among the poets, fiction writers, and essayists were Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Helene Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, and Jean Toomer. These artists were the New Negro. They were assertive, racially conscious, articulate, and in control of what they produced.
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
The Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, as it was also called, was a cultural, literary, artistic and intellectual movement that started around 1919 and went on through 1935. The movement brought to light many of the important issues affecting African Americans through various forms of literature, music, painting, sculpting, movies, and protests. These voices of protests inspired institutions and leaders who in turn served as mentors for aspiring writers. Though the movement started in Harlem, its influence was seen nation wide and beyond.
One of the things that I most like about the Harlem Renaissance is that it was a time when African Americans still saw education as the great equalizer. During this time, African Americans saw education to be extremely important and the key to success. Because New York prohibited segregated schools by law, African Americans looked at it an opportunity for a quality education. Harlem attracted thousands of blacks from the south and the West Indies because of its economic and educational opportunities. Blacks in the south were also fleeing racist activities that threatened life and limb. Blacks also had a greater militancy and awareness that the promises for a better life after World War I had not been kept. West Indians who came to the U.S. seeking economic opportunity and prosperity had almost no illiteracy among them. They had great business minds and were said to have made up one third of the city's professionals, physicians, dentists, and lawyers. West Indians were not accustomed to the racial hostility and harassment found in America, and the same ethos that led some to become professionals, led others to become political radicals.
The most significant event regarding education during the Harlem Renaissance was the philosophical debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois regarding the most beneficial education for the needs of African Americans. Booker T. Washington, an educator and first leader of the Tuskegee Institute, believed that African Americans should have an industrial education, learning to be farmers, mechanics and domestics and providing much of the services and produce needed by white society. He felt history, mathematics and science was impractical for the Negro. He stressed that if African Americans wanted to be successful, there needed to be an economic foundation built from land ownership agriculture and industry. He also advocated building relations with whites and discouraged African Americans from leaving the south. W.E.B. Dubois, a scholar and a teacher, found Washington's views too narrow and economic in its objectives. He also felt Washington's views were disapproving of institutions of higher learning as well as too conciliatory of the south's destruction of African Americans political and civil rights. Dubois advocated an educational concept for African Americans labeled "The Talented Tenth." This represented a small number of educated professionals who were committed to improving race relations and civilizing, uplifting, and elevating the masses. Both ideologies had proponents, and both men certainly had many followers. Regardless of the vast differences in opinions, it was inspirational to see African Americans so spirited and engaged with educating themselves.
Renaissance means re-birth or revival. If you look up the word alone, it talks about a period in Europe from the 14th through the 17th centuries in which there was a rebirth of the arts. It was the time when Da Vinci, Botticelli and Michelangelo emerged. I look at the Harlem Renaissance as a time when Africans in American had a rebirth or revival of the gifts from their ancestors, a re-awakening of their heritage. An unprecedented amount of creativity from black writers emerged, inspired by the anger of discrimination and the anxiety of culture lost, left in Africa. These expressions started as literary discussions that brought young black writers and intellectuals from around the country, the Caribbean, and Africa to Harlem. This movement gave rise to the likes of Alain Locke, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Dubois who all edited magazines or papers and served as inspiration to the literary masses.
My favorites are the writers. Among the poets, fiction writers, and essayists were Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Helene Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, and Jean Toomer. These artists were the New Negro. They were assertive, racially conscious, articulate, and in control of what they produced.
Heritage by Claude McKay
Now the dead past seems vividly alive,
And in this shining moment I can trace,
Down through the vista of the vanished years,
Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face.
And suddenly some secret spring's released,
And unawares a riddle is revealed,
And I can read like large, black-lettered print,
What seemed before a thing forever sealed.
I know the magic word, the graceful thought,
The song that fills me in my lucid hours,
The spirit's wine that thrills my body through,
And makes me music-drunk, are yours, all yours.
I cannot praise, for you have passed from praise,
I have no tinted thoughts to paint you true;
But I can feel and I can write the word;
The best of me is but the least of you.
The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
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| Aaron Douglas |
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| Palmer C. Hayden |
Visual artists played a key role in creating depictions of the New Negro. Artists Palmer C. Hayden. James Van Der Zee, and Aaron Douglas among others created stylized portraits of the African American lifestyle as well as African Americans during this time.
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| James Van Der Zee |
Then, of course, there was the music. Musicians like Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Ethel Waters, and Louis Armstrong took jazz to another level. They used music as a way to express discontent with the treatment of African Americans as well as a musical expression of the soul of black people. Duke Ellington took jazz to new heights when he recorded Jazz music's' first two-sided, six-minute song in 1929 with his version of The Original Dixieland Jass Bands' "Tiger Rag" (part 1) and (part 2) in 1929 and began to push the limits of 78 rpm records (three minutes per side).
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