Charles S. Johnson's Opportunity magazine became the leading voice of black culture, and W.E.B. DuBois's journal, The Crisis, with Jessie Redmon Fauset as its literary editor, launched the literary careers of such writers as Arna Bontemps, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen (Wintz, Cary D. 1988). Civil Rights Movement The success of African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance helped lay the foundation for the post-World War II phase of the Civil Rights Movement. Moreover, many black artists who rose to creative maturity afterward were inspired by this literary movement. Activists such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X followed some of the principles of people like Marcus Garvey and Hubert Harrison.
These two African American poets helped inspire other African America individuals to express their culture during the Harlem Renaissance. The first influential African America poet during the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes. He was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. According to the Poetry Foundation, Langston Hughes was known as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes style of writing primarily focused on the fact that individuals should celebrate African American
Assignment 2: Project Paper World Cultures II – HUM 112 The Harlem Renaissance was a renewal and flourishing of black literary and musical culture during the years after World War I which started approximately around 1914 and ended around 1919, in the Harlem section of New York City. This topic is also very historical, and creative, literally and figuratively. But, overall it is something different instead of writing about World Wars and the Civil Rights Movement; it is imperative to know the history of where “black arts” comes from. The Harlem Renaissance was the most influential times of cultural black history, in so many different aspects. (Bontemps, 1972) The Harlem Renaissance helped “black folk” in ways that catapulted them to a higher level in the arts, music, and literature.
Writers, poets, painters, and musicians joined together to protest in there own way against the quality of life for black folks in the United States. Out of this grew what has been called the “Harlem Renaissance” or the “The Black Renaissance” or “The Black Renaissance” or “The Negro Movement”. But James Johnson informally inaugurated the movement with his publication of Fifty Years and Other Poems. His title poem referred to the fifty years that elapsed since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation which was suppose to bring first class citizenship to Negroes (Johnson 1968). Other books soon followed with collections of poems, novels written by Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, James Johnson, and
Many noted that “the jazz of The Jazz Age was black Americans’ most powerful influence on Americans” (Baughman). Musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Martin, Bessie Smith, and Duke Ellington used their extraordinary to talent to travel the world with their music in order to show the world their pride in their African American culture. Prominent authors such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Debuois, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale used this era as an advantage to publish novels, short stories, and poems about their history. In addition to being a brilliant author, he was also the founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
It took some of the greatest minds of the time to bring about freedom. The Harlem Renaissance brought notice to great works that might otherwise have been lost or never published. The results were unusual. The artists, authors, poets, and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance definitely transformed African American culture. However, American culture had an equally strong impact.
In conclusion, the African American’s during the time will never be forgotten or not acknowledge for their right being. They gave us more than hope, they was making history during this movement of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a period of great cultural, economic and identity assertion among talented and expressive African Americans. Its high point had occurred but it had started before then and continued after. It involved many Boyd
Enters the New Negro, Alaine Locke Alaine Locke’s piece of work “Enters the New Negro” is one of the scholarly works that have garnered a lot of publicity from all corners of the world. In this piece of work, Locke describes a revolutionary time when the African Americans experience a new light of hope to put an end of their past miserable life, a condition that had been heightened by the existence of racial boundaries. The work of this scholar marks an ending of suffering and equal treatment of all American nationalists, whether white of black. The critics of this novel have pointed out that the Locke’s prediction of hope Black Americans was the first leg of a new journey towards salvation of the enslaved African. The feature of Harlem Renaissance used by the author, points out to the long journey of liberation that African Americans had to undergo during their stay in America.
Melissa Cox P:1 The Harlem Renaissance was a rebirth during the 1920’s. I found the two poems, “From the Dark Tower” by Countee Cullen and “As I Grew Older” by Langston Hughes. Both of these poems originated from the Harlem Renaissance Era and they deal with the difficulties African Americans faced in society beginning during the 1920’s. Hughes and Cullen attached these ideas in two different methods; however, the underlying messages were quite similar. When I first read the poems, I noticed how both speakers identified the tremendous challenges all African Americans were confronted with.
The Crisis Magazine helped blacks have their literature published for the people to read. “As African American journals such as W.E.B. Du Bois’s Crisis and Opportunity, edited by Charles S. Johnson, began to flourish, it became possible for African American writers to publish in a style that suited their tastes.” (The Harlem Renaissance Gale Group 1). It was a great key to get their work recognized. People were beginning to see how much the black community can contribute.