The+Harlem+Renaissance


 **__The Harlem Renaissance-Langston Hughes__ (1920-1935)-The Harlem Renaissance (1902-1967)-Langston Hughes **



My name is Langston Hughes. I lived during The Harlem Renaissance, the apex of African-American culture and intellect. This period, blossoming from 1920 to 1940, was expressed through many cultural mediums—visual art, dance, music, theatre, literature, poetry, history and politics. Instead of using direct political means, we, artists, writers, and musicians, used our proud culture as a source to fight for our goals of gaining equality. This climate that greatly promoted our beliefs eradicated any fear that may have previously been in our minds to freely publish our principles. Thus, The Harlem Renaissance influenced us writers to freely express our beliefs through works of literature and art. We marked our rightful place in history by instigating The New Negro Movement.

** Hey! Click that play button and turn up the volume so that you can experience some of the music that inspired me! **

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Background information regarding The Harlem Renaissance    This event did not merely occur from 1920 till approximately 1935, for because this event is a Renaissance, it has continued to greatly impact life in the 21st century. The Harlem Renaissance was the instigation of the Civil Rights Movement which stretched till its peak in the 1960’s. This “[|New Negro Movement]” fostered a more amiable view towards our community. The Harlem Renaissance also gave birth to “jazz,” a musical art form that dominated the modern world. I, Langston Hughes, the poet laureate of the African-American community, was greatly influenced and inspired by jazz as depicted in my poetry such as “The Weary Blues,” and “Jazzonia."

I believe that when we really began to unite and publish our beliefs was during World War I. Due to the strict immigration  laws that were enacted during this time and the men who departed to fight in Europe, there was an opportunity for us African-Americans to acquire jobs and attain a decent living. Harlem, New York, was the epicenter of our cultural activity. The Harlem Renaissance served a great purpose in recognizing who we really are, the African-American, not as the demeaning stereotype so greatly ingrained into White-American minds, but the African-American who is part of a flowering cultural scene and who is invaluable to society. The night life in Harlem during that period was very lively. Bars, pubs and restaurants gave a new life to people at night. This gave the first spark to "Black Jazz" music which started the jazz age. We African-Americans were widely recognized for our music. Most of us were receiving good education during that period which gave us the confidence to write.

In the decades immediately following World War I, huge numbers of fellow African-Americans migrated to the industrial North from the economically depressed and agrarian South. In cities such as Chicago, Washington, DC, and New York City, the recently migrated sought and found (to some degree) new opportunities, both economic and artistic.

During the 1920's and into the 1930's, African American literature flourished during the Harlem Renaissance. Known mostly for the emergence of great literature by black authors, the Harlem Renaissance was a result of several factors. Before the Renaissance, thousands of blacks migrated from the South to the Northern industrial cities as more employment opportunities became available during World War I. In addition, the black middle class was increasing and more educational opportunities were available to blacks.Furthermore, a new radicalism among blacks emerged prior to the Harlem Renaissance. With the publication of black magazines, such as A. Philip Randolph’s "The Messenger" and the NAACP’s "The Crisis" (edited by W.E.B. Du Bois), the development of what was referred to as a “new consciousness” about racial identity occurred. Along with these publications, Marcus Garvey’s radical ideas of an independent black economy, racial purity, and the creation of societies in Africa were also influential. These publications and ideas brought attention to the need for economic and social equality and brought a new sense of pride in being an individual of African descent.

The legacy of the Harlem Renaissance opened doors and deeply influenced the generations of African American writers that followed, including Robert Hayden and Gwendolyn Brooks. In the forties, fifties, and sixties, Hayden taught at Fisk University and the University of Michigan and served two terms as the Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress. Since the publication in 1945 of her first book, //A Street in Bronzeville//, Brooks has combined a quiet life with critical success. Her second book, Annie Allen, won the 1950 Pulitzer prize, the first time a book by a black poet had won that coveted distinction, and the last time until Rita Dove's //Thomas and Beulah//, almost forty years later. Brooks was a virtuoso of technique, her exquisite poems exploring, for the first time, the interior lives of my fellow African-Americans. Brooks' perspective shifted mid-career, her later work influenced by the politically and socially radical Black Arts Movement of the sixties.   **Click this play button also! Maybe this song will inspire you as well! Don't forget to pause the other song or else you will hear both songs at the same time!**

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**Watch this video about several writers from The Harlem Renaissance! It even includes a section devoted to me!**

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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px;"> <span style="background-color: #f5dff6; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">Great Contributors <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Early Renaissance authors [|Charles W. Chesnutt], [|Claude McKay], and [|James Weldon]Johnson paved the way for other authors with their literary works about black life and racial identity. Johnson published his first book, autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man anonymously in 1912 and McKay broke the color barrier in the publishing industry with the publication of his collected works of poetry, Harlem Shadows (1922). Other early works by black writers included Cane (1923) by Jean Toomer and There is Confusion (1924) by Jessie Redmon Fauset. The Harlem Renaissance movement received a decisive boost with the publication of the special issue Harlem (1925) published by Survey Graphic magazine. The issue highlighted work by other black writers. Alain Locke, editor of that issue, furthered the movement in 1926 when he summed up the Harlem Renaissance in his book //The New Negro//. Suddenly, there was an increased interest in black life and publishers began looking for literature by black writers. Black literary writers covered such issues as black life in the South and the North, racial identity, racial issues, and equality. Theses popular themes were a part of poetry, prose, novels, and fiction. Some of the more popular writers tackling these issues included Countee Cullen, [|Jessie Redmon Fauset], [|Rudolf Fisher], Sterling A. Brown, [|Zora Neale Hurston], [|Nella Larsen], Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 95%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">My colleague, [|Countee Cullen], thought long and hard in his poems about his own and collective African-American identity. Some of his strongest poems question the benevolence of a Creator who has bestowed a race with such mixed blessings. Claude McKay, another dear friend of mine who was born and raised in Jamaica, wrote about the immigrant's nostalgia and the American negro's pride and rage. [|Sterling Brown], for many years a professor at Howard University, emerged in the thirties with sometimes playful, often pessimistic poems in standard English and black vernacular and in African American and European forms. In many of Brown's poems, strong men and women resist the oppression of racism, poverty, and fate.

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<span style="background-color: #eef8d3; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">**Let's talk about some Prominent Writers!** __**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Claude McKay **__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 90%;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> My friend, Claude McKay, a poet, a novelist, and a journalist, was born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica. As a socialist, McKay eventually became an editor at <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">// The Liberator. // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> McKay resided in England from 1919 through 1921, then returned to the United States. McKay was involved in the Harlem Renaissance and wrote three novels: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">// Home to Harlem // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> (1928), a best-seller which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">// Banjo // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> (1929), and <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">// Bananas Bottom // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> (1933). McKay also authored a collection of short stories, "Gingertown"(1932), and two autobiographical books, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">// A Long Way from Home // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> (1937) and <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">// Harlem: Negro Metropolis // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> (1940). His book of poetry, "Harlem Shadows" (1922) was among the first books published during the Harlem Renaissance. He was also awarded in Jamaica for his great contributions to literature. Claude McKay once said, "Nations, like plants and human beings, grow. And if the development is thwarted they are dwarfed and overshadowed."

<span style="background-color: #e3efc7; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 140%;">**__James Weldon__** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Another great writer, James Weldon Johnson was born in 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida. He was <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> encouraged to study English literature and the European musical tradition. He attended Atlanta University with the intention that the education he received there would be used to further the interests of the black people. The poetry of Johnson, Paul Lawrence Dunbar and the works of people like W.E.B. Du Bois comprised the Harlem Renaissance. In 1922, he edited <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 90%;">//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">The Book of American Negro Poetry // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">, which the Academy of American Poets calls "a major contribution to the history of African-American literature." One of the works for which he is best remembered today is, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 90%;">//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 99%;"> was published in 1927 and celebrates the tradition of the folk preacher. He once said,"Labor is the fabled magician's wand, the philosophers stone, and the cap of good fortune.” Here he acknoledges all of our black community who were once slaves and farmers. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 90%;">

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 126%;">** __Charles W. Chesnutt__ ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 138.6%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 99%;">Charles Waddell Chesnutt, an Afro-American man of letter, was born in Cleveland. I say so because he was white in color. He was the first African American fiction writer to earn a national reputation, Charles W. Chesnutt remains best known for his depictions of Southern life before and after the Civil War. In terms of style and subject matter, the writings of Charles Chesnutt straddle the divide between the local color school of American writing and literary realism. Among the era's literary writers, Chesnutt was well-respected. In 1905, Chesnutt was invited to Mark Twain's 70th birthday party in New York City. This is a great achievement. Several of Chesnutt's novels have been published posthumously. In 2002, the Library of America added a major collection of Chesnutt's fiction and non-fiction to its important American authors series, under the title //Stories, Novels And Essays: The Conjure Woman, The Wife of His Youth & Other Stories of the Color Line.// One of his best quotes was, "Impossibilities are merely things of which we have not learned, or which we do not wish to happen."<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 90%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">** The decline of The Harlem Renaissance and its impact on the 21st century ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> After a high period, I began to feel some decline in The Harlem Renaissance during the 1930s after the effects of The Great Depression set in. The economic downturn led to the abatement of Harlem’s prominent writers. But this was not an end to the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was so successful that it proceeded to bring the Black experience into the corpus of American cultural history. The legacy of The Harlem Renaissance--not only on the cultural but also on a sociological level--is that it redefined how America, and the whole world, viewed us, the African-American population, better than before. The migration of southern African-Americans to the North changed the image of the African-American from rural, uneducated peasants to urban, cosmopolitan individuals. We have become dynamic actors on the world stage, expanding intellectual and social contacts internationally. The Harlem Renaissance changed the dynamics of African-American arts and literature in the United States forever. The writers that followed in the 1930's and 1940's found that publishers and the public were more open to our African American literature during that period than they had been at the beginning of the century. Furthermore, the existence of African American literature from this period also inspired writers such as Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright. The influence of the Harlem Renaissance is not confined to the United States. My friends Claude McKay, and Countee Cullen, actor and musician Paul Robeson, dancer Josephine Baker, and others traveled to Europe and attained a popularity abroad that rivaled or surpassed what they achieved in the United States. For thousands of African-Americans around the world, the Harlem Renaissance is proof that Whites alone did not hold a monopoly on literature and culture.

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==Now, I have a strong opinion regarding why students of future generations should continue to read works of literature from The Harlem Renaissance. If you would like to read my opinion about the impact of The Harlem Renaissance, click on the following link:==

http://harlemrenaissanceimpact.blogspot.com/2009/10/impact-of-harlem-renaissance.html

If you want to learn more about The Harlem Renaissance or if you want to learn about my own accomplishments, you can just visit these following links:
<span style="background-color: #f4f6d5; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12px;">[|http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-02/2005-02-02-voa68.cfm?moddate=2005-02-] <span style="background-color: #f4f6d5; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">[] <span style="background-color: #f4f6d5; display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">[] [] [|rpp.english.ucsb.edu/ classroom/] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

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