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From 1920 until
about 1930 an unprecedented outburst of creative activity among black Americans
occurred in all fields of art. Beginning as a series of literary discussions
in the lower Manhattan (Greenwich Village) and upper Manhattan (Harlem)
sections of New York City,
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It is a peculiar sensation,
this double- consciousness, this sense
of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring
one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and
pity. One ever feels his twoness — an American, a Negro; two souls, two
thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body... |
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W. E. B. Du Bois,
The Souls of
Black Folk (1903) |
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This African American cultural movement became known as "The
New Negro Movement" and later as the Harlem Renaissance. More than a literary
movement and more than a social revolt against racism, the Harlem Renaissance
exalted the unique culture of African Americans and redefined African American
expression. Black Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage
and to become "The New Negro," a term coined in 1925 by sociologist and
critic Alain LeRoy Locke.
One of the factors contributing to the
rise of the Harlem Renaissance was the great migration of black Americans
to northern cities (such as New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.)
between 1919 and 1926. In his influential book The New Negro (1925),
Locke described the northward migration of blacks as "something like a
spiritual emancipation." Black urban migration, combined with trends in
American society as a whole toward experimentation during the 1920s, and
the rise of radical black intellectuals — including Locke, Marcus Garvey,
founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and W.
E. B. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis magazine — all contributed
to the particular styles and unprecedented success of black artists during
the Harlem Renaissance period.
You can also read more about the artists
of the Harlem Renaissance in the Encarta Concise Encyclopedia — see the
Encarta
Articles page for a comprehensive list of related articles.
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Learn about artists of the Harlem Renaissance — including
Langston
Hughes, Bessie
Smith, and Billie
Holiday, shown above — in Encarta Concise Encyclopedia.
W. E.
B. Du Bois
NetNoir
features a 1996 Black History Month spotlight topic that provides information
about the Harlem Renaissance.
The University
of Southern California library provides an in-depth bibliography about
the Harlem Renaissance and other topics in African American history.
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