African American Studies

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African-American Studies

How Harlem Renaissance was perceived

The Harlem Resistance represented a phase of a greater New Nergro movement which

emerged in the early 20

century and somehow ushered in the civil rights movement during the

late 1940s and early 1950s. The social foundation behind the creation of the movement was the

Great Migration of African Americans from the rural area to the urban spaces as well as from the

South to the North. This migration led to a raise in the levels of literacy, developing race pride

such as programs and pan-African sensibilities as well as the creation of national organizations

that pushed for the civil rights of African Americans including opening socioeconomic

opportunities and uplifting the race.

The Harlem Renaissance was traditionally viewed as a literary movement from Harlem

that continually grew from the black migration and the forthcoming of Harlem as the premier

black metropolis in America (Haggins 9). Simply, the Harlem Renaissance was a very important

event in 20

century’s African American cultural and intellectual life. Even though it was best

known for its literature, every aspect of the African American artistic creativity and literacy was

touched by Harlem Renaissance from the time World War 1 came to an end all the way through

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the Great Depression. Musical theater, critical writing, theater, literature, visual arts and music

were transformed by this movement.

Also, the movement had impact on social development, politics as well as almost all

aspects of the African American experience since the mid-1920s till the mid-1930s. However,

the Harlem Renaissance had something ephemeral that was vague and hard to define. At that

time, Harlem Renaissance was an artistic movement and an African American literary centered

in Harlem that extended to and influenced communities of African Americans across the country

and beyond. Additionally, as seen, the movement is viewed to have no precise beginning or

ending. It rather developed out of the social and intellectual upheaval in communities of the

African Americans that followed World War 1, flourished in the 1920s, and finally faded in the

mid-to-late 1930s and early 1940s (Haggins 8).

Also, the movement did not have any defined stylistic standard or ideology that brought

together its participants or told what the movement was all about. Rather, those who participated

in the movement resisted white or black efforts to narrowly categorize or define their art. For

instance, a group of writers in 1926 like Spearhead by writer Wallace Thurman as well as Zora

Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and Aaron Douglas the artist, among others, produced a

literary magazine of their own, Fire!! The idea behind this venture was that they wanted to

declare their intent of assuming ownership of the literary Renaissance (Haggins 5).

Through the process, they turned against W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke and others

who wanted to channel back creativity into what they saw as political and proper aesthetic

directions. Despite Thurman’s efforts and those of his young colleagues, Fire!! died off after a

single issue leaving the movement ill defined. Rather, Langston Hughes’s essay, “The Negro

Artist and the Racial Mountain”, published in The Nation on June 16, 1926 defined the

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philosophy of the new literary movement. This essay, like Fire!!, was the declaration of the

movement’s independence (Locke 6).

However, resistance to this independence emerged especially from those whose concern

was on political costs that the realistic expressions of the black life could endanger. Black

writer’s declaration to pursue their own artistic vision brought about the artistic diversity that

was considered the principal characteristic of the Harlem Renaissance. Experimentation and the

diversity also characterized music. For instance, Bessie Smith’s blues and jazz range from Jelly

Roll Morton’s early rhythms to Louis Armstrong’s instrumentation or the sophisticated

orchestration of Duke Ellington (Haggins 9).

In the midst of this diversity, Harlem Renaissance’s character was set from several

themes that emerged. No artist, black writer or musician expressed all of the themes. Rather,

each of them did address one or more of these themes in their work. One of the themes was the

dedication to recapture the past of the African American people, that is, its African heritage,

urban experience and rural southern roots. There was correspondence in the interest put in the

African past and the rise of Pan-Africanism in the politics of African Americans which was

Marcus Garvey’s central ideology as well as W. E. B. Du Bois’s concern in the 1920s.

Another theme addressed by the Harlem Renaissance’s literature was race. Most of the

poetry and virtually all plays and novels, were all about race in America especially about the

effect of racism and race on African Americans. These works protested racial injustices in their

own simple form. For instance, in the sonnet genre, “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay was

among the best. Finally, aspects of the creative works of the African American culture were

incorporated in the Harlem Renaissance (Wintz 7). This was shown from the range of the use of

black music to inspire poetry or black folklore for short stories and novel inspiration.

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Through these themes, Harlem Renaissance musicians, writers and artists had the

determination of expressing the experience of being African American in all of its complexity

and variety in the most realistic way possible. This determination to realism was from the ghetto

realism that caused controversy when the artists exposed aspects of the black American life in a

negative way, to beautifully detailed and crafted description of black life in small towns like ‘Not

Without Laughter’ by Hughes. The movement relied on and appealed to mixed audience, that is,

white art consumers and the African American middle class (Haggins 2).

Even though these literary outlets were important, they were not enough to support a

literary movement. Also, the movement heavily relied on enterprises that were owned by the

white people for its creative works. Recording companies, art galleries, publishing houses and

theaters were all white-owned, and support on finances through prizes, awards and grants

involved white money generally. Actually, Harlem Renaissance’s major accomplishment was to

push for a pathway to mainstream publishing houses, periodicals and funding sources.

Moreover, Harlem Renaissance’s relationship to white audiences and white venues

created controversy. While most black American critics supported the movement strongly, others

such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Benjamin Brawley sharply criticized and even accused the writers

of Renaissance of creating negative stereotypes of African Americans. From the moment Harlem

Renaissance came forth, debates on its legitimacy came up. Nevertheless, its success was clear;

the Harlem Renaissance became the first time that a large number of critics and mainstream

publishers took black American literature seriously and was also the first time that the art and

literature of African Americans attracted attention from the nation (Haggins 4).

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Effects of the major artists

Aaron Douglas

One of the notable artists during the Harlem Renaissance was Aaron Douglas. Douglas

moved to New York City and settled in Harlem when he finished his BFA at the University of

Nebraska in the year 1922. A few months after his settlement, Douglas began producing

illustrations for The Crisis and Opportunity, considered to be the two most important magazines

that are associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Also, Douglas began studying with Winold

Reiss, a hired German artist to illustrate The New Negro (Locke 4). The teaching of Reiss helped

Douglas come up with the modernist style that he would use for the next decade.

The engagement of Douglas with Egyptian and African design caught the attention of Dr.

Locke and W. E. B. Du Bois, who were pushing young African American artists to express their

African American folk culture and African heritage in their work (Wintz 2). Douglas married

Alta Sawyer in 1926 and lived together in Harlem for several years. The two opened their home

to a powerful and important circle of writers and artists that are now called the Harlem

Renaissance.

Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence, born in 1917 and died in 2000, was an African American painter

popularly known for his portrayal of the life of African Americans. Jacob was not only an

interpreter, painter and storyteller but also an educator. Jacob brought the experience of the

African American life by the use of browns and black juxtaposed with vivid colors. He is one of

the best known African American painter from the 20

century. At twenty three years, Jacob was

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nationally recognized with his 60-panel Migration series. The series portrayed the African

American’s Great Migration from the rural south to the urban north (Haggins 2).

Part of the series was featured in a 1941 issue of Fortune Magazine. He is widely known

from his epic narratives of the historical figures and history of African Americans as well as his

modernist expression of everyday life. Lawrence’s works are found in numerous museums such

as, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum, Philadelphia

Museum of Art, Reynolda House Museum of American Art and the Phillips Collection.

Langston Hughes

One of the artists who greatly flourished during Harlem Renaissance was author and poet

Langston Hughes. Langston was not only known for braking boundaries with his poetry but also

found kindred spirits with his fellow artists, drew on international experiences, stood for black

art possibilities as well as influencing how the Harlem Renaissance would be remembered. He

also to a stand on promoting black artists, for instance, George Schuyler wrote the article “The

Negro-Art Hokum” in June 1926 for an edition of The Nation. The article discounted the

presence of “Negro art”, posing an argument the black American artists shared influences by the

Europeans with their American counterparts, and as such the work they were producing was the

same (Locke 9).

When Hughes was invited to make a response, he penned “The Negro Artist and the

Racial Mountain.” He described black artist’s rejection of their racial identity as a mountain

which is standing in the way of any true Negro art in America (Locke 3). Additionally, Hughes

insisted that instead of rejecting their identity, they should instead express their individualism as

dark-skinned selves with no shame or fear. This clear call about the importance of doing art from

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a black perspective was not only the philosophy behind much of the work done by Hughes, it

was also reflected throughout the Harlem Renaissance.

Zora Neal Hurston

Hurston was a known black author of novels, short stories and plays. Having close

relation with W. E. B. Du Bois, who she refered to as the “Dean of American Negro Artists”,

Hurston was highly involved with the rights of African Americans and their acceptance into the

society. Her wish was to break barriers based on skin color by the use of her writing skills to

inform people of injustices such as racism. During her time in leadership at the Harlem

Renaissance, Hurston helped protect African American rights. Her irreverence, wit and folk

writing style made her known during the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston was an inspiration of the

movement on civil rights and she will always be remembered for that.

Claude McKay

Claude was a famous poet during the Harlem Renaissance. His poems, ‘If We Must Die’

and ‘America’ defined the complicated relationship black Americans with the world surrounding

them. Though many writers of Harlem Renaissance were born and raised in the United States,

Claude’s perspective was different as she was born and raised in Jamaica but later migrated to

the United States. His poems portrayed the United States in a way that mixed pain and pleasure,

love and hate. Aside from giving black immigrants a voice, he was one of the first black

American poets during the Harlem Renaissance (Haggins 1).

Therefore, Claude influenced later poets such as Langston Hughes. He paved way for

poets who were black to discuss racism and the conditions that they faced through their poems.

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Charles Henry Alston

Charles Henry Alston was an African American sculptor, muralist, teacher, illustrator and

painter who lived and worked in Harlem. He designed and painted murals at the Golden State

Mutual Life Insurance Building and the Harlem Hospital. His work was inspired by works from

Diego Rivera, Aaron Douglas and Jose Clement Orozco. Alston was chosen to the board of

directors of the National Society of Mural Painters in 1943. Some of his works included Public

School 154, Golden State Mutual, Criminal Court, Harlem Hospital, and the Abraham Lincoln

High School in Brooklyn, New York (Haggins 9).

Paul Robeson

Black actors received opportunities to work on stage after the cultural boom in Harlem.

Traditionally, black actors only appeared on stage during minstrel show musicals and in serious

drama with roles that were non-stereotypical though rarely. Paul Robeson, an actor, activist,

writer, singer, among others was in the midst of this stage revolution. He believed that culture

and art were the best door-ways forward for African Americans to overcome racism and make

advances in the culture that was greatly dominated by whites (Wintz 3).

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Effects on black musicians in the current era

Artists in the Harlem Renaissance have greatly affected black musicians in the modern

era. For instance Childish Gambino’s song ‘This Is America’ clearly shows how black people are

harmed and or trapped by the American culture .The song starts with a man playing a guitar

while seated in a warehouse. The man is actually Calvin the second. The camera then finds

Glover. Glover stands behind Calvin the Second, with a bag covering Calvin’s head, and pulls

out a gun from his back pocket and shoots Calvin. The character portrayed by Glover shows how

black people are oppressed by the white American culture why he periodically kills innocent

performers (Cookney 6)

As a choir sings joyfully the verse “Get your money, black man, get your money”, Glover

emerges from a door and dances in front of the choir. He is given a weapon and shoots all the ten

choir singers and then walks away. The imagery causes an imagination of the massacre that

happened in Charleston church in 2015 whereby those in attendance of the prayer service were

killed by self-described white supremacist, Dylann Roof. At the end of the video, Glover is

chased down a hallway that is dark with the darkness representing the Sunken Place, a prison for

people with mental disorders where the Armitage family matriarch sends the black people in

“Get Out” by Jordan Peele (Cookney 6).

The video portrays a clear picture of how black people are oppressed by the American

culture. As shown in Childish Gambino’s song, modern black artists are trying portray how

African Americans are treated just like what Harlem Renaissance artists did.

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Works Cited

Cookney, D. J., and K. Fairclough. "Childish Gambino: This is America uses music and dance to

expose society’s dark underbelly." The Conversation (2018).

Haggins, Nathan Irvin, and Arnold Rampersad. Harlem renaissance. Vol. 700. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1971.

Locke, Alain LeRoy, ed. The new Negro: Voices of the Harlem renaissance. New York:

Touchstone, 1997.

Simmons, Kimberly Eison. "Race and Racialized Experiences in Childish Gambino's “This is

America”." Anthropology Now 10.2 (2018): 112-115.

Wintz, Cary D. Culture and the Harlem Renaissance. Houston: Rice University Press, 1988.

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