Harlem is a neighborhood in the northern part of New York City. After a fall in real estate prices in the early 1900s, the neighborhood quickly transformed. Apartments and homes became more affordable, and people from all over the world moved to the area. Some groups came from different neighborhoods in the city; others immigrated from countries in the Caribbean. Harlem also became a popular destination for many African Americans who lived in the South, where they had spent their lives struggling against racial prejudice to find good jobs and decent wages. They traveled north to look for new prospects as part of what was called the Great Migration.
By the 1920s, around 100,000 African Americans had moved to Harlem. In a short span of time, the neighborhood had more African Americans living together than anywhere else in the United States. The number of thinkers, writers, and artists in the area made Harlem into one of the most vibrant places in the world. The outburst of ideas and art that came from Harlem during this time became known as the Harlem Renaissance.
So, who were some of the people who contributed to the literary and artistic expression of the Harlem Renaissance?
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes was a poet, novelist, and playwright. He created a new style of poetry that had the rhythm of jazz and blues music that was also similar to how people spoke. His poems were about himself and the African American experience. He also wrote about what he believed African Americans could accomplish. Hughes’s poems would influence the work of many other poets during the Harlem Renaissance.
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston was a writer and anthropologist (someone who studies human beings) who wrote short stories, plays, and novels. After college, she traveled throughout the South and collected the stories of African Americans who lived there. She wrote about what these people remembered about their parents and grandparents and how they were raised. Her goal was to keep the past alive so that African Americans living across the United States could remember where they had come from. Hurston’s writing would inspire many writers.
W.E.B. Du Bois
W.E.B. Du Bois was an educator, poet, writer, and one of the first activists to support the rights of African Americans. He founded the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). He also edited a magazine called The Crisis, which gave African Americans a chance to express themselves through stories and poetry.
Duke Ellington
Music was another form of African American expression during the Harlem Renaissance. Duke Ellington was a musician, composer, and leader of a jazz orchestra. His unique brand of “big-band jazz” blended genres and incorporated interesting harmonies, attracting Black and white audiences to the neighborhood. Because of Ellington and other musicians at the time, Harlem’s clubs and theaters–such as the Cotton Club, the Savoy, the Lafayette Theatre, and the Apollo–became famous. Ellington’s work also showed that jazz music could be as beautiful and important as classical music.
Aaron Douglas
Aaron Douglas was one of the first American visual artists to use African subjects and images in their art. In the past, most images of African Americans were created by white artists. The images usually showed African Americans in a bad light. Douglas portrayed African Americans positively. For everyone who passed by, his powerful murals displayed both the prejudice African Americans faced and the pride they felt about their rich history.
These are just some of the African Americans who were part of the Harlem Renaissance. However, their voices and work have carried far outside Harlem, echoing for a century to influence generations of people across the world.
