Friday, March 25, 2011

A Journey Into the Harlem Renaissance

  • The Harlem Renaissance movement happened in the 1920's and early 1930's. 
  • It was a cultural movement of African American art, literature, theater, politics, and music.
  • It was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City.
  • It is also known as the New Negro Movement, the New Negro Renaissance, and the Negro Renaissance.
  • It was the first time that publishers and critics took African American literature and art seriously.
  • There was no common literary style or political ideology--this movement was held together by commitment to getting African American art recognized.
  • Also, racial pride and desire for social and political equality bound them.
  • During this movement about 16 writers published over 50 volumes.
  • The literature from this period was read not only by the African American middle class, but the white book-buying public too.
  • The successful black entertainers even moved downtown so that more white people could come visit. 
Josephine Baker


  • She was a singer and dancer.
  • She moved to Paris, France.
  • There she introduced many Europeans to African American culture.
  • She became famous for a dance called the banana dance.
  • She was the first African American to star in a major motion picture.
Claude McKay


  • Claude was a poet and writer.
  • He was one of the first black authors to be popular among white people.
  • His poems that told of injustice towards African Americans were sonnets.
  • He traveled to Russia and France.
  • His work was mostly at the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance--inspiring others and setting the tone for it.
Zora Neale Hurston


  • She was a writer, anthropologist, and folklorist.
  • Zora was the more significant and successful black woman writer for the first half of the 1900's. 
  • She grew up in the African American society in Eatonville, where she experienced a lot of culture that would want her to give that to the rest of the world.
  • She did not go to school as a teenager, but went back at age 26 and pretended to be 16 and born in 1901. She pretended this was her real birth date for the rest of her life.
  • She wrote the famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which my English class will soon start reading.
Sources:
Wintz, Cary DeCordova. "Harlem Renaissance." Microsoft® Student 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.

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