Contributions Of The Harlem Renaissance

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The Harlem Renaissance was an artistic, intellectual, musical, political and literary movement that sparked a new cultural identity within the African American Community, primarily in Harlem, New York City, New York, spanning from the 1920s to the 1930s. After the introduction of the “New Negro” following the Great Migration, in which thousands of African Americans migrated to the north after their newly found freedom and also World War I, which introduced the opportunities and hope for cultural acceptance as well as better jobs. It was significant in such a way that it created an exotic visual of the everyday lives of African Americans in a segregated society through their works. It wasn’t until this time when African Americans who were …show more content…

After moving to Harlem, not being born there, he contributed his unique perspective of the place he chose to become his home to the movement. Many of his works, including “America” and “Home to Harlem”, include the relative love hate relationship that many of the African Americans of that era were feeling. “Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, and sinks into my throat, her tiger’s tooth, stealing my breath of life, I will confess, I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!” This excerpt of McKay’s poem explains the pain that America was bringing him due to the racism and segregation that he’d experienced after his stay in the south. But he also grasps the love that he still has for the freedom that it has allowed him to have through his work. He later goes on to portray his hope for change within America stating, “Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, and see her might and granite wonders there, beneath the touch of time’s unerring hand, like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.” Here he feeds his audience hope that there will be better days in due time. His political views were also something that gained him recognition. Later in his career he used his platform to raise awareness on both social and political issues from the perspective of a black man. Not only did he influence other immigrants but also younger voices of the Harlem

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