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"My aim is to express in a natural way what I feel, what is in me, both rhythmically and spiritually, all that which in time has been saved up in my family of primitiveness and tradition, and which is now concentrated in me."

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Meta Fuller, Langston Hughes, WEB DuBois, Madam C.J. Walker, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Carter Woodson, Zora Neal Hurston

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The Harlem Renaissance is the name for a movement in African-American culture in the 1920s and 1930s which has had a big influence on African-American literature, philosophy and music. The Harlem Renaissance is also called the "Black Literary Renaissance", '"The New Negro Movement" and "The flowering of Negro literature".

The movement began in Harlem, New York after World War I. In 1925 a book was published called "The New Negro", edited by Alain Locke. This book was a collection of writing by African-Americans which looked at their people's lives and experiences since the Civil War. From 1925 onwards, there was a movement called the "New Negro Movement", named after the book.

The movement began to affect the thinking of many African-American writers and artists of all sorts. They challenged the thinking of many white Americans towards black Americans. They refused to be treated as if they were not equal. They refused to just copy the sorts of writing, art and music that white Americans did. They wanted to celebrate the fact that their African culture had survived through the terrible years of slavery, and was being "reborn". (The word " Renaissance" means "rebirth" and is generally used for a time from 1400 to 1600 in Europe.)

Important writers and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance

Musicians/Composers

Popular entertainment

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"An' the stars began to fall." by Aaron Douglas

Blues singer Gladys Bentley

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The Harlem Renaissance is the name for a movement in African-American culture in the 1920s and 1930s which has had a big influence on African-American literature, philosophy and music. The Harlem Renaissance is also called the "Black Literary Renaissance", '"The New Negro Movement" and "The flowering of Negro literature".

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A time of intense creativity that took place in the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance was a celebration of African American heritage. In Harlem, a Black neighborhood in New York City, a talented and determined group of writers decided to use their work to express pride in being African American.

Encouraged by scholar Alain Locke, poets such as Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes wrote about the Black experience; Jean Toomer penned stories about everyday life; and Claude McKay published a best-selling novel about a Black soldier returning home. These were only some of the writers who were busy during the Harlem Renaissance. Jazz music, though not born in Harlem, was also flourishing at the time and it, too, drew the public's attention to the richness of African American culture. Before this renaissance, or rebirth, African American culture had been unknown to most Americans.

Although it is remembered primarily as a literary movement, the Harlem Renaissance was a period of intense creativity in music and the visual arts as well. Outside of literature, artists such as Henry Ossawa Tanner and Aaron Douglas and performers such as Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker made their mark as well.

In 1929 the onset of the Great Depression, a 10-year period of severe economic hardship, caused the Harlem group of writers to scatter. But the spirit of the movement was carried on by later writers, including Zora Neale Hurston.

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A time of intense creativity that took place in the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance was a celebration of African American heritage. In Harlem, a Black neighborhood in New York City, a talented and determined group of writers decided to use their work to express pride in being African American.