Presenters:
•Marina Britton
•Imani Lewis
•Amber Edwards
•Jehrade McIntosh
OBJECTIVES
The aims of this presentation are to:
Provide a thorough yet concise explanation of The Harlem Renaissance.
List and explain the catalysts of the movement. Examine the movement from literary, social and cultural perspectives.
Highlight and discuss the key figures and events linked to the renaissance.
Discuss the effects as well as failures of the movement.
What was The Harlem
Renaissance?
According to Richard Wormser, “The
Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s.”
What Caused The
Renaissance?
The Great Migration
New Era of Black Nationalism
The aftermath of WW1
1876 Presidential Election
Locus Classicus: Plessey V. Ferguson
The Harlem Renaissance and Literature
The Harlem Renaissance and Society
The Harlem Renaissance and Culture
Who were the Leaders of the Renaissance?
Significant Occurrences of the Renaissance
Alain Locke (leader of HR) declared in 1926 that through art,
“Negro life is seizing its first chances for group expression and self determination.” Harlem became the center of a “spiritual coming of age” in which Locke’s ideas transformed “social disillusionment to racial pride.”
Literature focused on a realistic portrayal of black life and conservative black critics feared that the depiction of ghetto realism would impede the cause of racial equality.
The Harlem Renaissance influenced future generations of black writers, but it was largely ignored by the literary establishment after it waned in the 1930s. With the occurrence of the civil rights movement, it again acquired wider recognition.
What were the effects of the Renaissance?
The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the “New Negro
Movement” was one of the corresponding effects of how upper class white Americans migrated and colonized African
Americans and there culture into rundown parts of Northeast and Midwest America.
The legacy of the Harlem Renaissance redefined the way
African Americans were viewed by the world. By many, they were no longer viewed as less than human and uneducated beings. Their new assimilated sophistication to the idea of
“American Culture” led to worldwide opportunity for blacks to become involved in society, socially, and economically on an international level.
During this time African Americans progressively began to unite defining black community which aided the struggles they faced during the ensuing era of the 1950’s Civil Rights Movement.
What were the
Shortcomings of the
Renaissance?
To critics, The Harlem Renaissance can be viewed as an attempt of the African American people to rid themselves of their deeply rooted African culture in attempt to develop a new one. One that obtained aspects of European culture but in a sufficiently separate way.
While claiming new racial independence African
Americans resulted to mimicry adopting the clothing, mannerisms, and etiquette of white Americans while developing the revolution.
The fact that blacks were viewed globally as a minority hindered The “New Negro” from escaping “white values” due to their strength as the majority.
The Renaissance and
Lorraine Hansberry
Terms From The Harlem
Renaissance:
Passing
Harlem Renaissance: black person, passing as a white person in the U.S. *General: a person passing as another race. Negro Zionism strategies like rebellion, secession, or the various Back to Africa movements
Mulatto
a person of mixed white and black ancestry, esp. a person with one white and one black parent. Expressions of the HARLEM
RENAISSANCE
Harlem is vicious
Modernism.
BangClash.
Vicious the way it's made, Can you stand such beauty. So violent and transforming. - Amiri Baraka (LeRoi
Jones
Harlem ... Harlem
Black, black Harlem
Souls of Black Folk
Ask Du Bois
Little grey restless feet
Ask Claude McKay
City of Refuge
Ask Rudolph Fisher
Don't damn your body's itch
Ask Countee Cullen
Does the jazz band sob?
Ask Langston Hughes
Nigger Heaven
Ask Carl Van Vechten
Hey! ... Hey!
" ... Say it brother
Say it ..."
- Frank Horne, "Harlem"
Work cited
American Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 1,
Special Issue: Modernist Culture in
America (Spring, 1987), pp. 84-97
The Journal of Blacks in Higher
Education, No. 11 (Spring, 1996), pp.
102-109
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