Harlem Renaissance

The “New Negro”

The Harlem Renaissance is, in the narrow definition, the flowering of black culture in Harlem in the 1920s and early 1930s. Blacks encouraged to celebrate their new freedom came under the label “the New Negro,” coined in 1925 by Alain Locke, sociologist and critic. Some use the phrase “Harlem Renaissance” interchangeably with “New Negro Renaissance” and apply the term to African American cultural flowering regardless of geographic setting.

The Harlem Renaissance is noted for poetry, novels, painting, and sculpture. The Harlem Renaissance brought recognition that black literature and art were legitimately a part of world culture. Blacks from the Caribbean and the southern United States came to Harlem, and the blending of cultures helped nourish the arts.

The New Negro demanded inclusion and empowerment within American society, and just about all major cities had a group of elite blacks. Although centered in Harlem, the flourishing of the arts—literature, drama, music, and movies— and the outpouring of protest spread its influence to black artists, Americans and other people in the diaspora, particularly Afro-Caribbeans in Paris. But the major flowering of black artistic expression was centered in Harlem.

The father of the Harlem Renaissance was Hubert Harrison, born in the Virgin Islands and transplanted to New York at age 17. Harrison attended night school while working as a bellhop. He was a socialist and worked with other black radicals, lecturing about socialism and civil rights, advocating unity, education, and Afrocentrism. Among those he influenced was Marcus Garvey.

A Musical Renaissance

The postwar increase in black writing, music, and visual arts in the city attracted attention from middle-class white New Yorkers. Black artists felt conflicted between being true to their art and altering it to the tastes of the dominant white society. Cultural tourists went to the Cotton Club in Harlem for the floor shows, somewhat debasing to performers but nevertheless an opportunity for black artists to develop ties to white entertainment entrepreneurs.

...