- The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of African American art, literature, music and culture in the
- Historians believe it began ca. 1919 and ended during the 1930s;
- The zenith of this “flowering of Negro literature,” or the "Harlem Renaissance" as James Weldon Johnson put it, is placed between 1924 when Opportunity magazine hosted a party for black writers where many white publishers were in attendance and 1929, the year of the stock market crash and the resulting economic Great Depression;
- Most of the participants in this African American literary movement were descendants from a generation whose parents or grandparents had witnessed the injustices of slavery, whilst others sought relief from prejudices against them for a better standard of living in the North and Midwest regions of the
- Most of them converged in
- The New Negro’s idea was that intellect, the production of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and stereotypes from the larger white community of that era to promote progressive social integration; thus, the creation of art and literature would serve to “uplift” the race;
- It was supported by a number of white Americans who through genuine altruistic generosity, paternalism, and perhaps a degree of liberalism provided various
- forms of assistance to these black artists and opened doors for them which otherwise would have remained closed to the publicizing of their work to a larger audience outside of the black American community;
- This support often took the form of being a patron, a publisher, or another artist of some variety;
- Then, there were those whites interested in so-called “primitive” cultures, as many whites viewed black American culture at that time and wanted to see this “primitivism” in the work coming out of the Harlem Renaissance;
- This vogue of the African American would extend to Broadway, as in Porgy and Bess, and into music where in many instances white band leaders would defy racist attitude to include the best and the brightest African American stars of music and song;
- For blacks, their art was a way to prove their humanity and demand for equality. For a number of whites, preconceived prejudices were challenged and overcome.
- The Harlem Renaissance would help lay the foundation of the Civil Rights Movement.
Original article: wikipedia.org (abriged by me)
