Journey to the Harlem Renaissance

1272 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The effects of the Harlem Renaissance today

Journey to the Harlem Renaissance

As America moves into a more cultural and diversified era, more people are taking the time to learn about the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was the foremost form of freedom for African Americans. It showed blacks that they were becoming equals in American society. The talents of African Americans soared in art, music, literature and especially poetry. The main writers embodying the Harlem Renaissance were Claude McKay, Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen.

Claude was born in Jamaica, in 1898. He got his education from his older brother, who “possessed a library of English novels, poetry and scientific texts.” (Callahan, 784) Claude was a little older when he created his first piece of literary work. He published a book called Songs of Jamaica. It was a “record of his impressions of black life in Jamaica.” (Callahan,783) In 1912, he finally got to America, where he wrote Harlem Shadows; “his most important book of poetry.” (Callahan 784) While there, he attended the Tuskegee Institute. In 1914 he moved to Harlem, “the center of black culture in the U.S.” (Anderson, 704) He later published two sonnets, “The Harlem Dancer” and “Invocation”, in 1917. He “would later use the same poetic form to record his reactionary views on the injustices of black life in America.” (Callahan, 785) In addition to social and political concerns, McKay wrote on a variety of subjects, “from his Jamaican homeland to romantic love, with a use of passionate language.” (Callahan, 785) During the twenties he developed an interest in Communism, so he visited Russia to meet the architects of Russian Communism, Lenin and Trotsky. He also lived in France. When he came back to the U.S., he moved back ...

... middle of paper ...

...hree for the new millennium?

Bibliography:

Works Cited

Anderson, Robert, et al. “Langston Hughes: 1902-1967.” Elements of Literature: Fifth Course. Austin: Holt, 1989. 706

Callahan, John F. “A Long Way From Home”: The Art and Protest of Claude McKay and James Baldwin.” Contemporary Literature 34.4 (1993): 783-785.

Countee Cullen. 7 Feb. 2002 http://members.aol.com/hynews/cullen.htm.

Hampson, Thomas. I Hear America Singing. 7 Feb. 2002

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poets/hughes.html.

Jackson, Steven. Father of Jazz. 14 Feb. 2002 http://www.redhotjazz.com/hughes.html.

Johnson, James Weldon, ed. The Book of American Negro Poetry. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1992; BoondocksNet edition, 2001.

Reuben, Paul P. “Chapter 9: Harlem Renaissance-Langston Hughes” http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/hughes.html

Show More
Related

  • Analysis: The Harlem Renaissance

    946 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance is the name given to a period at the end of World War I through the mid-30s, in which a group of talented African-Americans managed to produce outstanding work through a cultural, social, and artistic explosion. Also known as the New Negro Movement. It is one of the greatest periods of cultural and intellectual development of a population historically repressed. The Harlem Renaissance was the rebirth of art in the African-American community mostly centering in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. Jazz, literature, and painting emphasized significantly between the artistic creations of the main components of this impressive movement. It was in this time of great

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance: The New Negro Movement

    1679 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives” This was said by Aberjhani in the book Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotation from a Life Made Out of Poetry. Poetry during the Harlem Renaissance was the way that African Americans made sense out of everything, good or bad, that “contextualized” their lives. The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the Black Renaissance or New Negro Movement, was a cultural movement among African Americans. It began roughly after the end of World War 1 in 1918. Blacks were considered second class citizens and were treated as such. Frustrated, African Americans moved North to escape Jim Crow laws and for more opportunities. This was known as the Great Migration. They migrated to East St. Louis, Illinois, Chicago 's south side, and Washington, D.C., but another place they migrated to and the main place they focused on in the renaissance is Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance created two goals. “The first was that black authors tried to point out the injustices of racism in American life. The second was to promote a more unified and positive culture among African Americans"(Charles Scribner 's Sons). The Harlem Renaissance is a period

    Read More

  • The Voice of the Harlem Renaissance

    1587 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance was one of the most culturally important reformations in America. The Harlem Renaissance directly influenced many great civil rights leaders, and one could argue it was the foundation for the battle of equality. Many great members of the Harlem Renaissance committed their whole lives to improving race relations for themselves and for the future of the race. The strength African Americans achieved during the period after slavery through until the Harlem Renaissance provided them with enough strength to persevere. The atrocities African Americans went through during the early 20th century can only be matched by the years of enduring slavery.

    Read More

  • Claude McKay & Jean Toomer

    692 Words  | 2 Pages

    Claude McKay was born on September 15th 1890, in the West Indian island of Jamaica. He was the youngest of eleven children. At the age of ten, he wrote a rhyme of acrostic for an elementary-school gala. He then changed his style and mixed West Indian folk songs with church hymns. At the age of seventeen he met a gentlemen named Walter Jekyll, who encouraged him to write in his native dialect. Jekyll introduced him to a new world of literature. McKay soon left Jamaica and would never return to his homeland.

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    1572 Words  | 4 Pages

    Occurring in the 1920’s and into the 1930’s, the Harlem Renaissance was an important movement for African-Americans all across America. This movement allowed the black culture to be heard and accepted by white citizens. The movement was expressed through art, music, and literature. These things were also the most known, and remembered things of the renaissance. Also this movement, because of some very strong, moving and inspiring people changed political views for African-Americans. Compared to before, The Harlem Renaissance had major effects on America during and after its time.

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance: Planned Phenomenon and The Search for An Identity

    1482 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the introduction to The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, David Levering Lewis states the Harlem Renaissance was not a cohesive movement, but a constructed and forced phenomenon that was “institutionally encouraged and directed by leaders of the national civil rights establishment for the paramount purpose of improving race relations.” (Lewis, xiii) However, after researching many influential artists, politicians, and orators of the time, I must disagree. While, yes, the movement of an entire cultural and racial awakening can only be seen as a phenomenon and the movement itself was by no means cohesive, these powerful men and women needed no institutionalized encouragement. Each of their works were their own with diverse ideas and methods, yet somehow, came together to form an interconnected goal within the movement.

    Read More

  • Alcohol And The Prohibition During The Harlem Renaissance

    286 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance was a movement in the 1920s in which African American writers, painters and musicians flourished, changing American culture. It was a time of cultural celebration because African Americans had gone through centuries of slavery and other social problems. The Harlem Renaissance helped

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    641 Words  | 2 Pages

    All in all, the Harlem Renaissance was a black cultural movement that took place in the North, particularly in Harlem. Many African Americans stood out including Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Du Bois. They were all different kinds of artists who were a part of the Great Migration. These artists traveled from the South and other parts if the world to the North because of the increase in black population and culture. Each one of them made a large impact on the Harlem Renaissance and changed black culture forever.

    Read More

  • America, by Claude McKay

    1105 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...for equal rights. In some poems McKay even called for violent acts to change the laws, however, as an educated man, reason prevailed. As result he adopted religion, and his poetry, like himself became conflicted. Out of this confliction came some of the most powerful African American poetry in history. Claude McKay poured his soul onto to paper, and as a result, it seeps in to all who read it.

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance Essay

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poetry served as another form of self expression for African-Americans, similar to that of Jazz and the Blues. This form of media served the same (or a very much similar) as music did, Some notable poets include the likes of Langston Hughes, who is considered by some to be one of the most important and influential Harlem Renaissance poets of the time, James Weldon Johnson, and Claude McKay. Most notable of the three is, poet and intellectual, Langston Hughes who, in addition to writing books and plays, served to spread the emotions of African-Americans as well as himself and to make clear the ambitions and dreams of the American people within the United States. As stated by Concordia Online Education, ”Hughes wrote novels, plays and short stories, but it is his emotional, heartfelt poems that expressed the common experiences of the culture of black people for which he is most remembered”.

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    533 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance was a time of racism, injustice, and importance. Somewhere in between the 1920s and 1930s an African American movement occurred in Harlem, New York City. The Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. It was the result of Blacks migrating in the North, mostly Chicago and New York. There were many significant figures, both male and female, that had taken part in the Harlem Renaissance. Ida B. Wells and Langston Hughes exemplify the like and work of this movement.

    Read More

  • Claude McKay's Prominent Position in the Harlem Renaissance

    914 Words  | 2 Pages

    Claude McKay real name is Festus Claudius McKay was an important person in the Harlem Renaissance, a prominent literary movement of the 1920s. His poems are traditional in technique and on the sentimental side in subject and tone.1

    Read More

  • The Negative Impacts of the Harlem Renaissance

    1138 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... The Harlem Renaissance was a time of growth and development for African-Americans. They wrote novels, performed in clubs, and created the genre of Jazz. However, the Renaissance was imprisoned by its flaws. Rather than celebrating the unique culture of African-American’s, it oftentimes caters to what the White Americans would want to see and hear.

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance refers to a prolific period of unique works of African-American expression from about the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Although it is most commonly associated with the literary works produced during those years, the Harlem Renaissance was much more than a literary movement; similarly, it was not simply a reaction against and criticism of racism. The Harlem Renaissance inspired, cultivated, and, most importantly, legitimated the very idea of an African-American cultural consciousness. Concerned with a wide range of issues and possessing different interpretations and solutions of these issues affecting the Black population, the writers, artists, performers and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance had one important commonality: "they dealt with Black life from a Black perspective." This included the use of Black folklore in fiction, the use of African-inspired iconography in visual arts, and the introduction of jazz to the North.[i] In order to fully understand the lasting legacies of the Harlem Renaissance, it is important to examine the key events that led to its beginnings as well as the diversity of influences that flourished during its time.

    Read More

  • Harlem Renaissance Essay

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    Harlem Renaissance was a period where the black intellectuals comprised of the poets, writers, and musicians explored their cultural identity. This paper will explain what the Harlem Renaissance period was really about , as well as the artists that were associated with this practice including Marian Anderson, James Weldon Johnson, and Romare Bearden.

    Read More

More about Journey to the Harlem Renaissance

Open Document