Term Paper on Harlem Renaissance
(First
3 Pages)
For
centuries the black African community had been subject to humiliation by the
white American race. In the pre-civil war era, the slave traders brought loads
of blacks from the African continent and shipped them to North America where
they were sold like sheep and goats. The white American bought them and kept
them to work on their plantations. The large estates were solely dependant on
the slaves labor force. The slaves were deprived of basic human rights and their
lives were worst than animals. They did not have any access to education and
also not allowed to practice religion. The Northern and Southern states of
America entered the civil war, in addition to others, on the issue of slavery.
Even after that bloody revolution that cost hundreds and thousand of lives, the
black population of the United States is still awaiting to win a social status
equal to their white counterparts.
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During the post-civil period, a number of ex-slaves compiled their memories in
form of books. Most of these books were refused to be printed by the white
publishing houses. Some succeeded while others waited for long time to get their
works published and be brought to the public. The scenario lasted till the end
of World War I. Between 1919 and 1926; a large number of African Americans
migrated towards the northern cities of Chicago, Washington D.C. and New York.
Many of these Negroes settled in New York districts of upper and lower
Manhattan. The lower Manhattan area was commonly called Greenwich Village while
upper Manhattan was known as Harlem. It was from Harlem, the African American
cultural movement stated that become known as “The New Negro Movement” and later
on got famous as “Harlem Renaissance”. The Harlem Renaissance was thus the
African American movement of the 1920s and early 1930s that started and
flourished in Harlem.
The African American art and literature developed gradually just before the turn
of the 20th century. Primarily the Harlem movement was a literary movement but
afterwards its scope was extended to other forms of arts and also politics. The
black artists established their impression in fields of performing arts and
theater working as songwriters, musicians, composers and singers. The movement
served as a base for the social and intellectual growth of the African American
community of the early 20th century.
There were a number of facilities that served as the basis and ground for the
Harlem Renaissance. The main reason as described earlier was the necessity of
African Americans to have a sound social and intellectual set up. The economic
and social conditions for black Africans were extremely miserable before the
civil war. Even after the war, the scenario did not change at once. The
ex-slaves from the rural Southern states migrated towards the industrialized
Northern part. The main objective of this great migration was to discover new
and better job opportunities and to seek a comfortable life style and relaxed
social conditions in the North. After World War I, a large number of employment
opportunities were created and the black African Americans came forward to
occupy these vacancies. “One of the factors contributing to the rise of the
Harlem Renaissance was the great migration of African-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. DuBois, editor of The Crisis
magazine — all contributed to the particular styles and unprecedented success of
black artists during the Harlem Renaissance period.” (Harlem Renaissance)
The number of blacks received education that was previously a forbidden
phenomenon for that community. As socio-economic conditions improved, a
considerably large middle class emerged among the African American community.
When this educated middle class migrated and settled in and around Harlem, it
was turned into a cultural and political center for the black Americans. Also
emerged in different parts of the United States, a class that advocated the
racial equality. These advocates tried to shrink the gulf between the white and
black races in the country and emphasizes on the need to have an American nation
irrespective of cast, color and religion. These thoughts were popular among the
growing middle class of the country.
Previously, a large number of black writers, poets and artists did not have
access to the common man and their works were not recognized and acknowledged.
The renaissance combined a large number of writers in the name of race and
served as a platform from where the issues and lives of blacks were watched and
dealt from a black perspective.
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