History of the Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was an African American culture movement starting in the 1920s and lasting until the early 1930s. This movement was centered in New York City and eventually impacted urban areas throughout the United States. Through music, art, and literature, African Americans broke from copying European and white American styles and demonstrated their own creativity.

Two important elements that united the supporters of the Harlem Renaissance were the idea of taking part in a common effort and committing to giving artistic expression to African Americans. An interest in the roots of the 20th century African American experience, a sense of racial pride, and a desire for social and political equality were the most common themes touched on in the music, art, and literature of the Harlem Renaissance. The most characteristic element of this movement was the diversity of expression.

To the artists, this period represented racial equality and racial pride, with the help of mainstream publication. This movement saw a greater unity, in that popularity achieved in the United States was surpassed by the greater popularity achieved abroad in Europe. Mostly, artists wanted to prove that whites did not have a monopoly on literature and culture.

Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith (1894-1937) was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. In the beginning, Smith performed on the streets with her brother, to raise money for her impoverished home, but in 1912, she got her big break as a dancer after her brother returned home with the Stokes troupe and arranged an audition for her with the managers. Smith worked for several years in the early 1920s as the star of the musical How Come? and signed to Columbia records in 1923. She recorded about 160 songs with Columbia, and those songs often featured some famous musicians of the time, including Louis Armstrong, James Price Johnson, Charlie Green, and Fletcher Henderson.

Smith’s song “’Tain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do,” expresses her belief in doing what you please, despite others’ opinions because no matter what you do, someone will always be there to criticize you for doing it.

This song embodies the era because a theme that ran through some of the work during the Harlem Renaissance was a sense of identity. The artists wanted to express themselves freely, no matter what the white public or even the black public thought.

Lyrics to "'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do":

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bessie+smith/taint+nobodys+bizness+if+i+do_20323196.html

Archibald Motley Jr.

Archibald Motley Jr. (1891-1981), considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, was a painter famous for his colorful works displaying the African American experience in the 1920s and 1930s. Unlike most Harlem Renaissance artists, Motley spent most of his life in Chicago and never lived in Harlem. His high social class gave him the opportunity to be classically trained at the Art Institute of Chicago. After receiving the Harmon Foundation award in 1928, Motley was the first African American to have a one-man exhibit in New York City, and achieved an impressive feat for an up and coming black artist by selling twenty-two of the twenty-six paintings in the exhibit. Motley won the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1929, which he had been denied from in 1927, and studied in France for a year. The works of great Renaissance artists in the Louvre inspired Motley more than looking back at Africa, which inspired most contemporary artists.

Motley's painting Blues represents the fusion of Africa and America in a popular jazz club in Paris, where the people gather to dance and listen to the newest African American music. It depicts an urban black culture that is not as popular as the images of black Southerners.

This painting embodies the Harlem Renaissance because it shows equality between everyone, despite their skin color. Since the painting is set in Paris, this painting also represents the popularity and power of the movement for it to carry that equality into foreign countries.

Claude McKay

Claude McKay (1889-1948) was a writer and poet, originally from Jamaica. In his early life, McKay was a communist, but decided being a communist was too confining after visiting the Soviet Union. McKay published his first book of poems called Songs of Jamaica in 1912, with the help of Walter Jekyll. Shortly after the publication of the second volume, Constab Ballads, McKay left for the United States and was shocked by the racism he faced in Charleston, South Carolina. Disgusted by the "semi-military, machine like existence there", he transferred to Kansas State University and sparked his interest in political involvement. McKay came to be involved in the Harlem Renaissance and wrote three books entitled Home to Harlem, which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, Banjo, and Banana Bottom. Harlem Shadows, a book of poetry, was one of the first books published during the Harlem Renaissance.

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

This poem by McKay called If We Must Die was a response to the white assaults on black neighborhoods in 1919. McKay encourages those on the receiving end of the assaults to fight back and to not immediately give in.

If We Must Die embodies the Harlem Renaissance by writing of the racial violence that was prevalent in that time. McKay urges for a strong sense of pride in the face of that violence.

Nella Larsen

Nella Larsen (1891-1964) was a novelist of the Harlem Renaissance, who was of mixed-race. Though her writings were few, two books and a few short stories, Larsen gained great recognition from fellow writers and present day critics. Larsen was born Nella Walker, the daughter of a Danish immigrant mother and a West Indian father, who disappeared from her life while she was young. Her mother remarried, and Larsen took her Scandinavian stepfather's name. After graduating from an all-black nursing school in 1915, Larsen became the head nurse of an Alabama hospital and training school, but was soon turned off by working conditions and moved back to New York in 1916. Larsen completely left nursing behind after working through the Spanish flu pandemic and took a job as a librarian. She began writing and in 1920 published her first pieces. For several years, Larsen traveled Europe on a Guggenheim Fellowship and wrote a book about a love triangle between all white people, but it was never published.

Quicksand was Larsen's first novel, where the main character was based off of herself. Since it is based off of Larsen, the character is biracial, Danish and black, and is in search of her identity but never finds fulfillment since she is shunned by her white half and finds hypocrisy in her black half.

This novel embodies the Harlem Renaissance because it is largely based on finding your identity, which was especially hard for her from being biracial. It also touches on the struggle of finding racial equality and pride.

History of the Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement worked toward achieving equality under the law throughout the world around 1960-1980. It was the political, legal, and social struggle by African Americans to gain full citizenship rights and racial equality. Discrimination became the largest issue because even if every person is treated equally by the state, equality was not achieved due to discrimination within society. The Civil Rights Movement aimed to end racial discrimination through historical events and reform movements. It is sometimes called the Second Reconstruction era.

This movement's most important element was challenging segregation and discrimination. Various protests, marches, boycotts, and refusal of abiding segregation laws were actions taken by individuals and organizations who focused on the elimination of both segregation and discrimination.

Those involved in this movement sought to gain complete rights as a citizen and racial equality. This period represented the opening of economic and political opportunities for African Americans. The actions taken to achieve the goal of abolishing segregation and discrimination were actions of a more aggressive and direct manner because it was the focus of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Staple Singers

The Staple Singers (1948-1994) were an American gospel, soul, and R&B group. The group starting making appearances in churches in 1948. It was not until 1952 that the band signed a professional contract. They recorded with many labels including United Records, Vee-Jay Records, Riverside Records, and Epic Records. While on Epic, The Staple Singers reached mainstream pop markets in 1967. After signing to Stax Records in 1968, they released the two albums Soul Folk In Action and We'll Get Over. Moving into a more funk and soul direction, The Staple Singers recorded "Respect Yourself", which peaked at number two on the R&B charts in 1971. The song followed the Civil Rights Movement and it's theme of self-empowerment contained universal appeal.

Their song "When Will We Be Paid For The Work We've Done?" brings the entire African American struggle into light. This song demands equality as payment for the horrors and exploitation the African American working class has faced.

This song embodies the Civil Rights Movement because it demands complete rights and racial equality.

Ernest C. Withers

Ernest C. Withers (1922-2007) was a photojournalist who documented the making of history through his photos and was a participant of the Civil Rights Movement. Withers also wrote a book on Emmett Till's murder that helped motivate the push for equal rights. His nearness to the movement was not only physical but ideological as well. Withers was in the midst of all the action. He captured the quiet dignity of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, such as Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the the violence. Withers was able to document the emotional event of awaiting Martin Luther King Jr. on one of the first desegregated buses in Montgomery. In 1968, Withers won the National News Association, Best Photographer of the Year Award.

This photograph captured the Memphis, Tennessee Sanitation Workers strike that was sparked by the violence the workers endured. The workers are all carrying signs reading, "I Am A Man." Like all of Withers' other photos, this photo encouraged prominent African Americans to become involved in the Civil Rights Movement.

Withers' photos embody the Civil Rights Movements because they captured the determination and power of the historical events fighting for equality.

Richard Wright

Richard Wright (1908-1960) was an author whose books and short stories were known for their power and the controversy they caused sometimes. His literature usually contained racial themes. Due to his father leaving Wright's family at a young age, and his mother's illness, Wright and his brother were moved around constantly in several towns in Arkansas and Mississippi. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Wright was allowed to stay with his grandmother until late 1925. Wright developed a permanent and uncompromising hostility towards religious situations due to his aunt and grandmother always forcing him to pray to God. At fifteen, Wright wrote his first story, entitled The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre and it was published in the local black newspaper. Wright was named class valedictorian but refused to recite a carefully written speech that would not offend the white school officials, and he finally convinced the black administrators to let him read what he wrote. In 1933, Wright joined a Communist party and was known as a revolutionary poet.

Wright's novel Native Son is about a troubled youth who realized his identity after attaining a job. The character kills a white women, runs from the police, rapes and kills his girlfriend, and is caught and tried. Wright does not apologize for the character's actions because he is sympathetic to the inevitability behind them.

This novel embodies the Civil Rights Movement because it focuses on the power of racial inequality and social injustices. It encourages racial equality because without it, it becomes impossible to determine where social expectations and conditioning ends and where free will begins.

Similarities and Differences of the Eras

The greatest similarity of the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement was obviously the fight for racial equality and the end of discrimination. Both eras also represented the violence of the time due to racism in some way. These movements were essentially lead by African Americans, since they were the ones on the receiving end of that violent racism. Both of the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movements created several positive changes towards what they were fighting for.

The greatest difference in these two is the approach of abolishing racism and creating equality. The Harlem Renaissance was a time of cultural exploration using creativity to encourage identity and culture, while the Civil Rights Movement was a political and social movement using large gatherings to encourage equal rights and an end to discrimination. The actions of those in the Harlem Renaissance were in a passive nature from the music, art, and literature, while the Civil Rights Movement was more aggressive in its protests, marches, and boycotts. The locations of these two movements were different as well in that the Harlem Renaissance was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, and the Civil Rights Movement originated in the South.