Presenting: The Harlem Renaissance

1. Presenting: The Harlem Renaissance What? Who? When?

2. What Was the Harlem Renaissance? • It involved all the fields of art; not just writing, but also… • It was not just an artsy-fartsy kind of thing, though. • It was also a fight against racism • It was a time to celebrate culture and heritage

3. When Did This Happen? Why Wasn’t I Told? Why Am I Always the Last to Hear About These Things? Seriously… • The Harlem Renaissance occurred mostly during the 1920s • It happened largely because of the migration of African-Americans to northern cities in the early 1920s

4. Who Did What? • Poets and other authors included: Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston • Also, black entertainers such as Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker became well-known • Painters such as William H. Johnson and Lois Mailou Jones became famous for their visual art.

5. The New Negro • Q: Who used this term? • A: Alain Locke, an African-American professor at Howard University, coined this term • Q: What does it mean? • A: It was a “new spirit” in African-Americans; it meant pride in being black and a recognition that black people were not inferior. It was a sense of self-respect and self-dependence. • Enter the New Negro • Q: What was the “old negro,” then? • A: He/she was a thing, not a person. A stereotype which was to be “kept down” or “helped up.”

6. So What? So… • The Harlem Renaissance was one of the first instances in which whites began to pay attention to black culture and work with blacks to create and promote art • It was also the first place for civil rights leaders, such as W.E.B. DuBois, and African nationalists such as Marcus Garvey to speak out – African-Americans were starting to see themselves as an organized but (unfortunately) separately group • Black artists were finally able to publish positive images of African-Americans -All of this helped pave the way for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s…