The Harlem renaissance happened in the 1920s and was characterized by an artistic, social and intellectual explosion among the blacks in the Midwest and Northeast Unites States. It was also referred to as the New Negro Movement since it awakened the expression of African-American culture among many urban cities 1 . The Renaissance is considered as the rebirth of African American art. However, the movement did not occur only in Harlem in New York. It also happened in some francophone and Caribbean colonies. It is noted that the Renaissance also influenced some black writers from Paris and the Caribbean countries.
The year 1910 to mid-1930s was a golden age when African American cultural awareness was greatly manifested in art, stage performance, music, and literature. It all started in Northern Manhattan an upper-class residence in neighboring Harlem, and the place was rapidly overdeveloped without residents. The landlords desperately seek for tenants and few middle-class African American families filled the houses. In the 1900s other middle-class African American families from Bohemia also moved to Harlem 2 . The Whites resisted the Black occupancy in Harlem but failed. They eventually moved away allowing the African Americans to occupy Harlem and its neighborhoods. The blacks’ population grew, and the great migration took place, and over 300,000 had migrated north from south including the Caribbean and Harlem was their popular destination. This prompted the start of the renaissance to expose Black art, culture, literature, and music.
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African American intellectuals, writers, artists, and designers including Langston Hughes, Eric D Warton, Omar Al Amiri, Allain Locke, James Weldon, Claude McKay, and Jessie Fauset escalated the African social and cultural values in the society. Musicians like Duke Ellington gained great popularity in the United States. Play writers like Willis Richardson provided black actors the opportunity to write and do stage performance. This elicited the exposure of the African culture and society in various stages. In Music, the works of Noble Sissles and Eubie Blake created a platform for Josephine Bakers. Josephine Bakers a dancer and an African fashion artist also influence African culture in America 3 . Aaron Douglas was celebrated as the father of African American art since he used African techniques in creating boob illustrations, murals, and painting. In 1023, Augusta Savage created and used African American sculptures and clay portraits that elicited the enlisting of black sculptures in the Federal Art Project. James Vander Zee did great African American and Caribbean photography that depicted optimism despite the existing philosophy of inferiority.
Harlem Renaissance brought about a new experience of Blacks in American cultural history. As the sociological level, the renaissance redefined the view of African Americans to the Americans and the world at large. The movement of the Blacks from the south to the Urban North was an indication of changed perceptions and identity from rural, poor and uneducated to cosmopolitan, educated and urban dwellers 4 . The new perception led to better social consciousness hence increased expansion of Blacks social and intellectual contacts. The Renaissance brought about a spirit of self-determination that led to the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s. This African culture explosion led to the creation of the creation of the National Urban League and the NAACP - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. These organizations took center stage in seeking for the African Americans and other minorities civil rights. There were also African magazines, and publications like the Opportunity and Crisis were started to increase the African art and culture sensitization. The magazines and publications also featured the African Americans state of affairs in Harlem and the Caribbean.
The Caribbean in the south of the United States also contributed to the cultural explosion since the emigrants in the south enhanced the social and political base of Harlem. The people in the Caribbean were the ancient Amerindians, the Afro Caribbean and the Indo Caribbean’s. The great migration from the south (Caribbean) provided substrata that catalyzed the Harlem Renaissance 5 . The Caribbean’s and Africans movement into urban areas sparked an increase in literacy, the opening of socioeconomic opportunities as well as the opening of African pan programs. The Huiswouds in the Caribbean took part in the Renaissance as they migrated and found Harlem a home after facing racial discrimination. There became dedicated socialists and political activists for the minority and the Black identity. The eventual outcome of the Renaissance and the African American civil rights movements became a bride of the Caribbean population.
Bibliography
Farebrother, Rachel. The Collage Aesthetic in the Harlem Renaissance . London: Routledge, 2016. p11-15.
Soto, Michael. Mapping the Harlem Renaissance in the Americas. A Companion to the Harlem Renaissance (2015): 441 – 449.
1 Michael, S. Mapping the Harlem Renaissance p.441
2 Ibid, 442
3 Rachel, F. The Collage Aesthetic in the Harlem Renaissance . P.11.
4 Michael, S. Mapping the Harlem Renaissance p.443
5 Rachel, F. The Collage Aesthetic in the Harlem Renaissance . p.12.
