P.

452-459

THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

Objectives

Identify the causes and results of the migration of African

American to Northern cities in the early 1900s
Describe the prolific African-American artistic activity that
became known as the Harlem Renaissance

AFRICAN-AMERICAN VOICES IN THE 1920S

The Move North

American Americans

The Great Migration

The movement of hundreds of thousands of
African- Americans north to big cities in search for
jobs

56.7%

43.3%

5.2 m of 12 m African American

25 race urban race riots

Northern Cities

Rural South

AFRICAN-AMERICAN VOICES IN THE 1920S

African-American Goals

Founded in 1909
Urged AAs to protest racial
violence
W.E.B. De Bois led a 10,000
strong march in NYC
National Association for
the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP)

James Weldon Johnson

NAACP Executive Secretary
Push for antilynching laws
3 bills made where introduced to
Congress, by none passed

NAACP began to represent a

new, more militant voice

AFRICAN-AMERICAN VOICES IN THE 1920S

Marcus Garvey and the UNIA

Marcus Garvey
Jamaican immigrant
Believed that AAs should build a separate society

Universal Negro Improvement Association

(UNIA)

Founded 1914
Mid-1920s Garvey claimed to have a million followers
Promoted AA business
Encouraged a return to Africa to help natives remove
colonial oppressors, and build a mighty nation
Appeal for the movement dwindled when Garvey was
convicted of mail fraud and jailed

THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE FLOWERS IN NEW YORK

The Harlem
Renaissance
Literary and artistic
movement celebrating
African-American culture

African-American Writers

Well-educated, middle class who

were expressing a new pride in
the African-American experience
Tails of being black in a white world

The New Negro

Collection of literary works by many
promising young African-American writers

THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE FLOWERS IN NEW YORK

African-American Writers (cont.)

Claude McKay

Langston Hughes

Best known poet

Difficult lives of the working class
Some moved to the tempo of jazz and the blue

Novelist, poet
Militant verse that spoke about resisting prejudice and discrimination
Pain of life in the black ghetto

Cane

Mix of poems and sketches about black in the South and North

THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE FLOWERS IN NEW YORK

African-American and Jazz

Jazz
Started in New Orleans in the early 20th
century

Joe King Oliver & the Creole

Jazz Band
Travel to Chicago in 1922
Joined by Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong
Made expression a key part to jazz
Became perhaps the most important and
influential musician in the history of jazz

Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington

Jazz pianist and composer
Led his 10 piece orchestra at the Cotton Club
a whites-only establishment even though it
featured many of the best black
entertainers and jazz musicians of the era