The Harlem Riot in Harlem Runs Wild by Claude McKay

471 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Claude McKay's Harlem Shadows Essay

The Harlem Riot in Harlem Runs Wild by Claude McKay In Harlem Runs Wild, Claude McKay depicts the Harlem Riot of 1935 as merely "…a gesture of despair of a bewildered, baffled, and disillusioned people." (McKay 224) The Harlem Riot of 1935 was spontaneous and unpremeditated. It was not a race riot in the sense of physical conflict between white and non-white groups as there was little direct violence to white persons. McKay states, "The mass riot in Harlem was not a race riot." (McKay 221) Its distinguishing feature was the persons' attack upon property rather than persons, and resentment against whites that, while exploiting Negroes, denied them an opportunity to work. Communists did not instigate the riot, though they sought to profit by it and circulated a false and misleading leaflet after the riots were well underway. In The Invisible Man, Ras the Destroyer is shown as the primary cause of the riot that breaks out in Harlem. Scofield and Dupre begin to blame the riot on Ras, but change their beliefs and say that it is because of the heat, calling them dog days....

Show More
Related

  • 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

  • White Teacher by Vivian Gussin Paley

    818 Words  | 2 Pages

    "‘My Children are black. They don't look like your children. They know that they are black, and we want it recognized. It's a positive difference, an interesting difference, and a comfortable natural difference. At least it could be so, if you teachers learned to value difference more. What you value, you talk about.'" p.12

    Read More

  • The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

    1330 Words  | 3 Pages

    As Elie Wiesel once stated, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” (“Elie Wiesel Quote”). Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow, which discusses criminal justice and its role in mass incarceration, promotes a similar idea regarding silence when America’s racial caste system needs to be ended; however, Alexander promotes times when silence would actually be better for “the tormented.” The role of silence and lack of silence in the criminal justice system both contribute to wrongly accused individuals and growing populations behind bars.

    Read More

  • Racial Challenges During The Progressive Era

    1166 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Chicago riot was the most serious of the multiple that happened during the Progressive Era. The riot started on July 27th after a seventeen year old African American, Eugene Williams, did not know what he was doing and obliviously crossed the boundary of a city beach. Consequently, a white man on the beach began stoning him. Williams, exhausted, could not get himself out of the water and eventually drowned. The police officer at the scene refused to listen to eyewitness accounts and restrained from arresting the white man. With this in mind, African Americans attacked the police officer. As word spread of the violence, and the accounts distorted themselves, almost all areas in the city, black and white neighborhoods, became informed. By Monday morning, everyone went to work and went about their business as usual, but on their way home, African Americans were pulled from trolleys and beaten, stabbed, and shot by white “ruffians”. Whites raided the black neighborhoods and shot people from their cars randomly, as well as threw rocks at their windows. In retaliation, African Americans mounted sniper ambushes and physically fought back. Despite the call to the Illinois militia to help the Chicago police on the fourth day, the rioting did not subside until the sixth day. Even then, thirty eight

    Read More

  • chap 2

    970 Words  | 2 Pages

    The rioters were mostly working class men since the draft focused on them while allowing the wealthy to pay $300 to exclude themselves from serving the Union. Soon the violence spilled over into anger against the free negroes on the streets, resulting in hangings. An orphanage for negro children was targeted, as were many other buildings.25

    Read More

  • Essay On Jim Crow Law

    638 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...DuBois, a black civil rights activist, wrote “During that year seventy-seven Negroes were lynched, of whom one was a woman and eleven were soldiers; of these, fourteen were publicly burned, eleven of them being burned alive.” In most of the race riots the problem was started by a white person attacking a black person. However in almost every riot the police force sided with the white people by either participating in the riot and attacking the black people or by failing to stop the fight. One major reason for this is because the black people had no power, the entire police force and justice system was made of only white people.

    Read More

  • The Souls Of Black Folk by Du Bois

    1584 Words  | 4 Pages

    Lynch is a writer and teacher in Northern New Mexico. In the following essay, she examines ways that the text of The Souls of Black Folk embodies Du Bois' experience of duality as well as his "people's."

    Read More

  • The March on Washington - August 28, 1963

    1353 Words  | 3 Pages

    Shaskolsky, Leon. “The Negro Protest Movement- Revolt or Reform?.” Phylon 29 (1963): 156-166. JSTOR. U of Illinois Lib., Urbana. 11 Apr. 2004 .

    Read More

  • Essay On The Harlem Renaissance

    1230 Words  | 3 Pages

    How do musicians during the Harlem Renaissance relate to musicians in today’s society and how do they influence them? Musicians relate and influence musicians in today’s society for many different reasons. However, not only do musicians during the Harlem Renaissance relate to musicians in today’s society and influence them but artists, actors, painters and poets in the Harlem Renaissance did also. During the 1920s is when the Harlem Renaissance blossomed in the African American culture, particularly in creative arts and influential movement in African American literary history. Without the Harlem Renaissance eminent people today such as Beyoncé Knowles, Jay-Z, Morris Chestnut, Maya Angelou and Gabrielle Union would not be relevant.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of A Rage In Harlem

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    An adequate, detailed description of the setting in ay novel is essential to the reader’s experience. The reader is not provided with any visual cues (unless it is a rare case and the book is illustrated) and must rely solely on the author’s writing ability to achieve a sense of full emersion into the storyline. When the reader is provided with vague detail it is easy for the individual to become frustrated and quickly lose interest. In Chester Himes novel “A Rage in Harlem”, Himes does an excellent job of putting the reader directly in the center of twentieth century Harlem. At times his descriptive writing style border on the extreme, perhaps even making the reader in an emotionally uncomfortable situation. However, with his unique writing style was able to bring the city of Harlem to life for many individuals, who if not to Himes, would have never been exposed to the reality of Harlem and individuals who “lived” Harlem every single day of their lives.

    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

  • Essay On The Harlem Renaissance

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    Few people have heard of the Harlem Renaissance, let alone know what a large impact it had on society today. During World War One, African Americans had fought alongside whites to defeat their enemies. However, they were welcomed home with the same cruel, unfair prejudice as before the war. Although slavery had been abolished long ago, many Caucasians still held a serious grudge against the black population in general. Very little of African American culture had trickled through the enormous racial dam built by Caucasians at that time. However, the 1920’s was a time of extreme cultural reformation for society where blacks began to share their work in art, literature, and other cultural aspects with the changing world. Despite the severe oppression enforced by the white population of America, a period of cultural rebirth occurred in the 1920’s, more commonly known as the Harlem Renaissance.

    Read More

  • The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Dubois

    3326 Words  | 7 Pages

    The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Dubois is a influential work in African American literature and is an American classic. In this book Dubois proposes that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." His concepts of life behind the veil of race and the resulting "double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others," have become touchstones for thinking about race in America. In addition to these lasting concepts, Souls offers an evaluation of the progress of the races and the possibilities for future progress as the nation entered the twentieth century.

    Read More

  • Harlem by Langston Hughes

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    population is oppressed and must ignore or postpone their dreams. The more dreams are postponed

    Read More

  • Harlem Renaissance Essay

    836 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance was an African-American cultural movement that took place in the 1920’s and the 1930’s, in Harlem NYC, where black traditions, black voice, and the black ways of life were celebrated. Alain LeRoy Locke, also known as the “Father of the Harlem Renaissance”, was a philosopher best known for his writing and support of the movement. Alain LeRoy Locke impacted the Harlem Renaissance by helping the spread of black culture and being declared the father of the movement; the movement has also influenced African-American art and culture into the modern era since the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance can be seen in the work of Jo-Vaughn Virginie Scott and in movement groups such as Black Lives Matter.

    Read More

More about The Harlem Riot in Harlem Runs Wild by Claude McKay

Open Document