Influence During The Harlem Renaissance: The Arts

1056 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The harlem renaissance: the rebirth of black arts and culture in the north

Harlem Renaissance: The Arts “Plunge deep through laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through hope, through disappointment, into the very depths of the souls of our people and drag forth material crude, rough, neglected. Then let 's sing it, dance it, write it, paint it.” - Aaron Douglas (Urton) The Harlem Renaissance or “New Negro Movement” as coined by Alain Locke was a time when African Americans emerged in the literary, performing and visual arts creating a “black” cultural explosion as we now know it. “Negro has been man without a history because he has been considered a man without a worthy culture (Schomburg, pg. 66) was no longer accurate as black culture was becoming more prominent each day. With slavery being abolished, African …show more content…

Although New Orleans is known as the birthplace of jazz, it was taken to the next level during the Harlem Renaissance by artists such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith. Being born and raised in New Orleans music, particularly jazz, is part of my heritage, my culture. In New Orleans, jazz is sort of a way to express what can’t be put into words. Growing up I remember attending jazz funerals with my grandmother. Jazz funerals, performed by brass bands, are a way of celebrating or remembering the deceased through music to release their spirits; the music starts slow and gradually becomes upbeat forming a style of jazz mostly performed at second …show more content…

According to Rogers, “jazz has absorbed the national spirit, that tremendous spirit of go, the nervousness, lack of conventionality and boisterous good-nature characteristic of the American, white or black” (Rogers, pg 54). The Harlem Renaissance improved the mainstream of black music in the entertainment business today, giving others ideas to copy as well as to add to black culture and heritage. Today I still attend jazz funerals and second lines and I must say that I enjoy the music even move now that I’m older. I would say that jazz is valuable to me as it is music that that I grew up on and get to experience it live with my family and friends not to mention it’s tradition in New Orleans. Visual Arts: The Negro

Show More
Related

  • Harlem Renaissance and Jessie Redmon Fauset

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement of blacks that helped changed their identity. Creative expression flourished because it was the only chance blacks had to express themselves in any way and be taken seriously. World War I and the need for workers up North were a few pull factors for the migration and eventually the Renaissance. A push was the growing discrimination and danger blacks were being faced with in the southern cities. When blacks migrated they saw the opportunity to express themselves in ways they hadn’t been able to do down south. While the Harlem Renaissance taught blacks about their heritage and whites the heritage of others, there were also negative effects. The blacks up North were having the time of their lives, being mostly free from discrimination and racism but down South the KKK was at its peak and blacks that didn’t have the opportunities to migrate experienced fatal hatred and discrimination.

    Read More

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

    1482 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lewis’s viewpoint is not without it’s truths. The Harlem renaissance was overseen by a number of intellectuals such as Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Dubois. Booker T. Washington‘s, a highly influential speaker of the age, words appealed to both Caucasians and African-Americans. Washington forged an interracial bridge of communication through his unique tactics in the quest for equality. He believed in more subtle ways of gaining equality through hard work, cunning, and humility. He stated, “The wisest among my race understands that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.”(Salley, 15) With this statement, Washington himself denies that this new awakening in equality and arts could be forced,...

    Read More

  • Radicalism In The New Negro, By Alain Locke

    926 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The New Negro” as described by Alain Locke is seeking social justice, however he is doing so in a way different from the various forms of resistance that preceded him. Locke describes a shift from radicalism in the fight for social justice to a need to build a relationship between races. The “New Negro” has come to the realization that assimilation into American culture is not a viable answer; therefore he has decided to build his own culture in collaboration with American culture. The construction of this culture became known as The New Negro Movement or The Harlem Renaissance. This was the attempt by the black community to birth for themselves a status quo in which they were no longer defined by their oppressors’ views.

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    641 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance, originally known as “the New Negro Movement”, was a cultural, social, and artistic movement during the 1920’s that took place in Harlem. This movement occurred after the World War I and drew in many African Americans who wanted to escape from the South to the North where they could freely express their artistic abilities. This movement was known as The Great Migration. During the 1920’s, many black writers, singers, musicians, artists, and poets gained success including Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Du Bois. These creative black artists made an influence to society in the 1920’s and an impact on the Harlem Renaissance.

    Read More

  • Harlem Stride Piano: The Harlem Renaissance's Artifact Movement

    1832 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... and percussion instruments were intertwined. This new style was played predominately in clubs and attracted white audiences from all around. This then created another dialogue and narrative of whites appreciating black culture and entertainment recognizing and further realizing the mass appeal and potential for these artists. In all this along with the other cultural contributions of the Harlem Renaissance played part in creating a cultural shift. Not only were African Americans more united, but their status it would seem in regards to the arts was raised as well. Even though Harlem Stride style piano and Jazz music may not be the sole reason that the Harlem Renaissance was able to revive African American pride and culture, it did however keep the spirit of the movement alive and allowed African American musicians to have a lasting effect on American society.

    Read More

  • Literature During the Harlem Renaissance

    527 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance is one of the most historic and significant movements in American history; it has become a phenomenon marking something more than the fact that the African Americans wrote poems and stories, painted and sculpted, and infused new life into the American theater (Huggins 3). The Renaissance sustained to create an identity of African Americans it is best remembered as the beginning of African-American creativity that came from their talented minds. Although it was a literary movement, it also embraced art, dance, and music. The creative minds that sprung from the Harlem Renaissance used artistic expressions to make an impact on society in the 1920s and still today. African American writers had been published since the 19th century, but what made Harlem Renaissance different and memorable was the spread of topics that the writers wrote about. Although the artists created lasting and important works of literature, art, and music, it became just as important in a way which gave African Americans a legitimate culture and a pride in embracing that culture.

    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

  • jazz

    575 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jazz is the kind of music that makes me want to do one of two things. Depending on the mood of the jazz, sometimes I feel like relaxing and just listening to the music and letting it run through me. Other times I feel like getting up and dancing as if I have not a care in the world. The jazz concert I attended on at SLO Brewing Company on October 6, 2001 inspired me to do both of these due to the variety used by the musicians in dynamic, rhythm, tempo, and many other aspects of music.

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    1153 Words  | 3 Pages

    “I’d rather be a lamppost in Harlem than Governor of Georgia.” (Watson 14) Why would such a phrase become the saying amongst colored people of the early twentieth century? In Harlem, New York, before there was a revolution full of art, music, and innovation the majority of blacks were treated with disgrace. It was not until the 1920s and 30s, when the renaissance was at its prime, did the white’s attitudes slowly begin to change. W.E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, and Shuffle Along were just a few of the well-established Harlem people and products that earned their title and credibility in the twentieth-century. Harlem provided an area free of discrimination where whites and blacks could bond over the arts. The Harlem Renaissance led to an uprising in the black spirit encouraging the outburst of the Civil Rights Movement.

    Read More

  • Music of the Harlem Renaissance

    692 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance enriched America through its music. Countless African Americans became key figures in music during this time. The Harlem Renaissance was a time of African American expression in art, music, and literature. The Harlem Renaissance was instigated by the migration of African Americans to northern cities that was taking place in America at that time. (Hutchinson) The music of the Harlem Renaissance brought about a sense of equality among black and white Americans and was a sense of inspiration, which was made possible through African American migration and led to civil rights movement of the 1960s.

    Read More

  • Impact of Music of the Harlem Renaissance Upon the Artists of Today

    1614 Words  | 4 Pages

    By the end of World War I, Black Americans were facing their lowest point in history since slavery. Most of the blacks migrated to the northern states such as New York and Chicago. It was in New York where the “Harlem Renaissance” was born. This movement with jazz was used to rid of the restraints held against African Americans. One of the main reasons that jazz was so popular was that it allowed the performer to create the rhythm. With This in Mind performers realized that there could no...

    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

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the 20th century a unique awakening of mind and spirit, of race consciousness, and

    Read More

  • The Influence Of Jazz Music In The 1920's

    1081 Words  | 3 Pages

    I have played the music and appreciated the work of many artists myself. I listen to the genre in my free time and enjoy the sound. I have also read a large amount of credible books and sources on the music, and especially of the jazz era. It was in this time period that jazz really found itself and had a large presence during that decade. It is an important time period for anyone to learn about, and jazz played a large influence. The jazz of the 1920’s grew in popularity and was an immense part of society due to the instruments and sound, the artists, and the effects that it caused. To begin with, a major aspect of jazz that inspired its influence and growth was the instruments and sound that it

    Read More

  • Influence of Jazz on American Culture

    1953 Words  | 4 Pages

    Now a days, many believe that jazz is not that important of music genre, but with our history, jazz plays a big role. “Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but it is a gift that America has given to the world.”, quoted by Ahmad Alaadeen. Jazz in the 1920’s opened the eyes of whites and invited them into African American culture; it evolved Americans to where we are today since it brought a change to the music scene, an acceptance of African Americans, and a change of lifestyles.

    Read More

More about Influence During The Harlem Renaissance: The Arts

Open Document