Anyone know any interesting facts about the Harlem Renaissance?

Question

Anything that would interest a 5th grader?

Answer 1

You could talk about the Apollo Theater during this time. Since the Renaissance started sometime during the 1920's, people would think that the Apollo would have been at the for-front of this change, but the Apollo was still whites only. It stayed that way until 1934, during the time when Harlem Renaissance was at its peak.

You could also talk about the Cotton Club where a lot of the great African-American entertainers played, such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and Ethel Waters. Again though, it was for whites only. It did, however, give these legends a place to perform their works. It closed temporarily in 1936 after the race riot the previous year. It reopened at another location and closed for good in 1940.

On interesting fact, it was during this time that George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" was performed on Broadway for the first time. Interesting and sad that a white song writer had to bring the African-American culture to the white community.

Answer 2

The Harlem Renaissance, also called NEW ***** MOVEMENT, period of outstanding literary vigour and creativity that took place in the 1920s, changing the character of literature created by black Americans, from quaint dialect works and conventional imitations of white writers to sophisticated explorations of black life and culture that revealed and stimulated a new confidence and racial pride. The movement centred in the vast black ghetto of Harlem, in New York City, where aspiring black artists, writers, and musicians gathered, sharing their experiences and providing mutual encouragement. One of the leading figures of the period was James Weldon Johnson, author of the pioneering novel Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1912), and perhaps best known for God's Trombones (1927), a collection of seven sermons in free verse, expressing the characteristic style and themes of the black preacher in pure and eloquent English. Johnson also acted as mentor to many of the young black writers who formed the core of the Harlem group. Claude McKay, an immigrant from Jamaica, produced an impressive volume of verse, Harlem Shadows (1922), and a best-selling novel, Home to Harlem (1928), about a young *****'s return from World War I. Countee Cullen was another important black poet. Cullen helped bring more Harlem poets to public notice by editing Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by ***** Poets in 1927. Langston Hughes published his first collection of verse, The Weary Blues, in 1926, and his novel Not Without Laughter appeared in 1930. Wallace Thurman and William Jourden Rapp collaborated on a popular play, Harlem, in 1929. Thurman, one of the most individualistic talents of the period, also wrote a satirical novel, The Blacker the Berry (1929), that ridiculed some elements of the New ***** movement. The Harlem Renaissance was accelerated by philanthropic grants and scholarships and was supported by white writers such as Carl Van Vechten, author of ***** Heaven (1926). The Great Depression caused the Harlem group of writers to scatter; many were forced to leave New York or to take other jobs to tide them over the hard times.

Answer 3

The Harlem Renaissance, also called NEW ***** MOVEMENT, period of outstanding literary vigour and creativity that took place in the 1920s, changing the character of literature created by black Americans, from quaint dialect works and conventional imitations of white writers to sophisticated explorations of black life and culture that revealed and stimulated a new confidence and racial pride. The movement centred in the vast black ghetto of Harlem, in New York City, where aspiring black artists, writers, and musicians gathered, sharing their experiences and providing mutual encouragement. One of the leading figures of the period was James Weldon Johnson, author of the pioneering novel Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1912), and perhaps best known for God's Trombones (1927), a collection of seven sermons in free verse, expressing the characteristic style and themes of the black preacher in pure and eloquent English. Johnson also acted as mentor to many of the young black writers who formed the core of the Harlem group. Claude McKay, an immigrant from Jamaica, produced an impressive volume of verse, Harlem Shadows (1922), and a best-selling novel, Home to Harlem (1928), about a young *****'s return from World War I. Countee Cullen was another important black poet. Cullen helped bring more Harlem poets to public notice by editing Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by ***** Poets in 1927. Langston Hughes published his first collection of verse, The Weary Blues, in 1926, and his novel Not Without Laughter appeared in 1930. Wallace Thurman and William Jourden Rapp collaborated on a popular play, Harlem, in 1929. Thurman, one of the most individualistic talents of the period, also wrote a satirical novel, The Blacker the Berry (1929), that ridiculed some elements of the New ***** movement. The Harlem Renaissance was accelerated by philanthropic grants and scholarships and was supported by white writers such as Carl Van Vechten, author of ***** Heaven (1926).

The Great Depression caused the Harlem group of writers to scatter; many were forced to leave New York or to take other jobs to tide them over the hard times.

Answer 4

The Harlem Renaissance (also known as the Black Literary Renaissance and New ***** Renaissance) refers to the flowering of African American literature, art, and drama during the 1920s and 1930s. Though centered in Harlem, New York City, USA, the movement impacted urban centers throughout the United States. Black novelists, poets, painters, and playwrights began creating works rooted in their own culture instead of imitating the styles of Europeans and white Americans.


African American topics
African American history
Atlantic slave trade · Maafa
Slavery in the United States
African American military history
Jim Crow laws · Redlining
Civil rights (1896 to 1954)
Civil rights (1955 to 1968)
Civil rights · Reparations
African American culture
African American studies
Contemporary issues
Black Colleges · Kwanzaa
Art · Dance · Literature
Music · Blackface · Minstrel show
Religion
Black church · Black Buddhists
Black Muslims · Nation of Islam
Black Jews · Black Hebrew Israelites
Doctrine of Father Divine
Vodou · Hoodoo · Santería
Political movements
Black conservatism · Black supremacy
Black nationalism · Black power
Black populism · Black capitalism
Black leftism · Black Panther Party
Pan-African · Garveyism

Civic and economic groups
NAACP · SCLC · CORE · SNCC · NUL
Rights groups · ASALH · UNCF
NBCC · NPHC · The Links
Sports
***** Leagues
CIAA · SIAC · MEAC · SWAC
Languages
English · Gullah · Creole
African American Vernacular
Lists
African Americans
Landmark legislation
Related topics
Category · Project · Portal


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This box: view • talk • edit
The Harlem Renaissance began as a result of the changes in the African American community after the end of the Civil War. The African American community had established a middle class, especially in the cities. The Great Migration brought hundreds of thousands of African Americans to the cities of the Northern United States. Harlem, in New York City, became a center of social and literary change in the early 20th century. Alongside the social change was a political undercurrent, fostered by groups such as the newly-formed NAACP and individuals such as Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois. Jazz and Blues, staple music of the South, came to the North with the migrants and was played in the nightclubs and hotspots of Harlem.

After the end of World War I, many African American soldiers came home to a nation that did not always respect their accomplishments. Race riots and other civil injustices occurred throughout 1919.

Historians disagree as to when the Harlem Renaissance began and ended. It is unofficially recognized to have spanned from about 1919 until the early or mid 1930s, although its ideas lived on much longer. The zenith of this "flowering of ***** literature", as James Weldon Johnson preferred to call the Harlem Renaissance, is placed between 1924 (the year that 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 then resulting Great Depression).

Most of the participants in the African American literary movement descended from a generation whose parents or grandparents were slaves, and themselves having lived through the gains and losses of Reconstruction after the American Civil War. Many of these people were part of the Great Migration out of the South and other racially stratified communities who sought relief from prejudices and a better standard of living in the North and Midwest regions of the United States. Others were Africans and people of African descent from the Caribbean who had come to the United States hoping for a better life. Uniting most of them was their convergence in Harlem, New York City.

Characterizing the Harlem Renaissance was an overt racial pride that came to be represented in the idea of the New ***** who through intellect, the production of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and stereotypes of that era to promote progressive or socialist politics, and racial and social integration. The creation of art and literature would serve to "uplift" the race. There would be no set style or uniting form singularly characterizing art coming out of the Harlem Renaissance. Rather, there would be a mix of celebrating a wide variety of cultural elements, including a Pan-Africanist perspective, "high-culture" and the "low-culture or low-life," from the traditional form of music to the blues and jazz, traditional and new experimental forms in literature like modernism, and in poetry, for example, the new form of jazz poetry. This duality would eventually result in a number of African American artists of the Harlem Renaissance coming into conflict with conservatives in the black intelligentsia who would take issue with certain depictions of black life in whatever medium of the arts.

The Harlem Renaissance was one of primarily African American involvement and an interpersonal support system of black patrons, black owned businesses and publications. On the periphery, however, it was supported by a number of white Americans who provided various forms of assistance, opening doors which otherwise would have remained closed to the publicizing of their work outside of the black American community. This support often took the form of patronage or publication. 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. Other interpersonal dealings between whites and blacks can be categorized as exploitative because of the desire to capitalize on the "fad", and "fascination" of the African American being in "vogue". 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. In the early 20th century the Harlem Renaissance reflected social and intellectual changes in the African American community. An increase of education and employment opportunities had developed by the turn of the century.

Contributions that lead to the rise of the Harlem Renaissance included the great migration of African Americans to the northern cities and World War I. Factors leading to the decline of this era include the Great Depression.

Corresponding with the Harlem Renaissance was the beginning of mainstream publishing. Many authors began to publish novels, magazines and newspapers during this time. Publishers began to attract a great amount of attention from the nation at large. Some famous authors during this time included Jean Toomer, Jessie Fauset, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson and Alain Locke and Eric D. Walrond.

The Harlem Renaissance would help lay the foundation of the Civil Rights Movement. Moreover, many black artists coming into their own creativity after this literary movement would take inspiration from it.