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Harry Lawrence Freeman produced one of the first operas from an all African-American company. The play describes a risky love story and a jealous attempt to stop it. Above is linked Act l of Voodoo.
#jealousy #AfricanAmericanplaywriter

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During the Day in Harlem, everyone was dressed down from the nightlife. People had to go to their jobs like; cooks, factory workers, laundresses, and cabbies. During the night time the flamboyant outfits we all know are the ones that come out. Men would wear striped pants, velvet coats and use walking sticks. Women would wear the flapper dresses, and lots of black beads and makeup. After church on Sunday’s, some streets would have fashion shows, being compared to an Easter parade. Strolling in Harlem does mean the same as strolling during our times. Strolling in Harlem was stopping to talk to everyone on the street.

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Before the 1920’s, which is when the Harlem Renaissance took place, Broadway plays had an overall white audience. During this time, however, many famous African American play writers began publishing and performing their plays. These plays brought important attention to social problems, mostly dealing with African Americans and the bigotry surrounding them. Theater was shaped into new narratives during the Harlem Renaissance as well.

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One of the most popular plays in the Harlem Renaissance, called Rachel, was written by Angelina Weld Grimke. She was born in 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts. She became a teacher in 1907, and then began writing her plays. In her play, Rachel, Grimke brings light to the racial bigotry that takes place in the world and the negatives that go along with it. Rachel, the protagonist, refuses to be married and have children because  she doesn’t want to bring them up in such a racist world.

In the Invisible Man, there are many accounts of racism. ‘ “If It's Optic White, It's the Right White,” I repeated and suddenly had to repress a laugh as a childhood jingle rang through my mind: “If you're white, you're right,” I said.“ (Ch. 10 p. 201).

Clearly in this example, we see that I.M., a black man, takes a look at this ironic event and laughs. This displays how blacks were viewed as “wrong” and less intelligent than a whites, simply because of a skin color.

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Also wrote “Caroling Dusk” and “The Poetry of the Negros”

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The Sanvoy Ballroom was a very popular dance site but it also hosted many of the theatrical performances, as did the Apollo Theater.
#theplacetobe #harlemtheater

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Locke, an African American philosophy professor, was the first African American to receive the Rhodes scholarship. This pays for Americans to study at Oxford University in England. He put together a multitude of Survey articles into a book and called it “The New Negro.” The benefit of this book is it brought attention to how quickly African Americans had progressed throughout the Harlem Renaissance. Critics say, however, that the title of “New Negro” is a stereotype of how a white man would want a black man to be like. This title hides the fact that this is how African Americans have been all along. They are not “New”, instead they are letting themselves and their culture shine.

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In The Invisible Man, I.M. begins the book trying his best to always please the white folk, just as some critics say this title is doing. “Of course I knew he was the founder, but I knew also that it was advantageous to flatter rich white folks.”(Ch. 3 p. 38). As shown, I.M. is trying his best to let the white man he is driving around be pleased and happy.

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Langston Hughes: Leading Voice of the Harlem Renaissance | Biography

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Langston Hughes is one of the most influential people throughout Harlem Renaissance. His works include “The Negro Speaks to Rivers”, “Mother to Son”, “Dreams”, and “I, Too, Sing America.”
#blackpride

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Langston Hughes: Leading Voice of the Harlem Renaissance | Biography

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If We Must Die by Claude McKay | Poetry Foundation

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In this link is the poem Claude McKay published in 1919 that many say began the Harlem Renaissance. It is quite empowering and motivational for the black community and sets of a chain reactions of events that ultimately leads to the 1920’s being a prime time for the African Americans.
#primetime #empowered

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If We Must Die by Claude McKay | Poetry Foundation

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The Savory was known as the "dance palace". It was a place where the whole community of Harlem could come together, rich and poor, and local and tourists. The admission was only 50 cents for the weekdays, and 75 cents only on Sundays. Hiring two bands at once, so the "stompin' at the Savory" never stops.
The Cotton Club was the top dog of clubs. Hiring musicians like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. Not only were the singers and dancers top notch at the Cotton Club, but it was also a very elegant place on the inside. Menus on the inside featured "soul food", like Southern cuisine relating the history of Southern slavery.

" 'How about the special?'
'What's the special?'
'Pork chops, grits, one egg, hot biscuits and coffee!' .... I looked silently at the back of his head as he sliced an orange, thinking, I should order the special and get up and walk out. Who does he think he is?" (Chapter 9, pg. 178)

Connie's Inn was a very high-class club. People were only allowed in if they had enough money, at night costing $15 per custom.  Customs were tightly packed into the club, because they wanted to squeeze the most money out of everyone. Musicians inside the Connie's Inn are still worldly famous. People like Fats Waller, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Earl "Snakehips" Tucker.
#Bojangles#Snakehips

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Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, better known as Jelly Roll” Morton is known for his jazz piano skills. Less known than Louis Armstrong, but still very popular.  He was another bandleader, with his amazing piano skills. One of his most famous songs being “Wolverine Blues”.

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Louis Armstrong is the most known musician and public figure during the Harlem Renaissance. Armstrong was known as the one who jazz music out there in the world. As a musician, he played the trumpet. He also sang and was a bandleader. Other musicians like Duke Ellington, played along with Armstrong in many clubs throughout Harlem. Clubs like the Savory Ballroom, Connie’s Inn, and the Cotton Club. In the Invisible Man, the narrator uses Louis Armstrong’s music to go into an escape of the real world.

"Sometimes now I listen to Louis while I have my favorite dessert of vanilla ice cream and sloe gin. ... Perhaps I like Louis Armstrong because he's made poetry out of being so invisible." (Prologue pg. 8)

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Louis Armstrong - When The Saints Go Marching In

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Cab Calloway is another bandleader and was a very good showman. As seen in the video above, you can listen to his most famous song Minne the Moocher, that kept him alive throughout the ages. Cab Calloway was a fun and charismatic character, who made all his shows at the Cotton Club very fun and inviting. His character was the way he got hired to the top at the Cotton Club to perform.
#gooddancer#minniethemoocher

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Aaron Douglas

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Douglas began his career teaching drawing classes at Lincoln High School in Kansas in 1922. He quickly realized he wanted to create art, not to teach it. Douglas met Alain Locke and was asked to make wood cutouts that would be used as illustrations in “The New Negro.”

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This image depicts some African Americans carrying their possessions, some with their head down, showing their exhaustion and sadness. This painting style is called dynamic cubism.

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In Chapter 10, page 202, it says, “ White! It’s the purest white that can be found. Nobody makes a paint ant whiter. This batch right here is heading for a national monument.”

In this quote, the paint made is “Optic White” and throughout the novel, this symbolizes the racist ideology that whites are better than blacks. Because the paint is going to cover a national monument, it indicates that white is more important  than black.
#socialequalityintheworks

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How does visual art of the Harlem Renaissance relate to current-day events and issues? How do migration and displacement influence cultural production?
"I believe that the [African American's] advantages and opportunities are greater in Harlem than in any other place in the country, and that Harlem will become the intellectual, the cultural and the financial center for Negroes of the United States and will exert a vital influence upon all Negro peoples." -James Weldon Johnson, "Harlem: The Culture Capital," 1925

The Harlem Renaissance was a period of rich cross-disciplinary artistic and cultural activity among African Americans between the end of World War I (1917) and the onset of the Great Depression and lead up to World War II (the 1930s). Artists associated with the movement asserted pride in black life and identity, a rising consciousness of inequality and discrimination, and interest in the rapidly changing modern world-many experiencing a freedom of expression through the arts for the first time.

While the Harlem Renaissance may be best known for its literary and performing arts-pioneering figures such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Duke Ellington, and Ma Rainey may be familiar-sculptors, painters, and printmakers were key contributors to the first modern Afrocentric cultural movement and formed a black avant-garde in the visual arts.

Aaron Douglas (1899-1979) is known as the "father of African American art." He defined a modern visual language that represented black Americans in a new light. Douglas began his artistic career as a landscape painter but was influenced by modern art movements such as cubism, in which subjects appear fragmented and fractured, and by the graphic arts, which typically use bold colors and stylized forms. He and other artists also looked toward West Africa for inspiration, making personal connections to the stylized masks and sculpture from Benin, Congo, and Senegal, which they viewed as a link to their African heritage. They also turned to the art of antiquity, such as Egyptian sculptural reliefs, of popular interest due to the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb. Printmakers James Lesesne Wells(1902-1993) and Hale Woodruff (1900-1980) also explored a streamlined approach that drew from African and European artistic influences.

Sculptor Richmond Barthé (1901-1989) worked in a realistic style, representing his subjects in a nuanced and sympathetic light in which black Americans had seldom been depicted before. Painter Archibald John Motley Jr. (1891-1981) began his career during the 1920s as one of the first African American graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In the early part of his career, he created intimate and direct portraits, such as Portrait of My Grandmother of 1922.

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How do visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance explore black identity and political empowerment? How does visual art of the Harlem Renaissance relate to current-day events and issues? How do migration and displacement influence cultural production?

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Churches in Harlem's were very packed and popular. There were very many churches in Harlem, more in Harlem then all of New York. Mother AME Zion Church was an “Underground Railroad” helper. Slaves ran from the south and the “Mother Zion” helped feed and clothe them. Church going can be an all-day and all-night activity for the people of Harlem. Hot meals were also served at churches so that people did not have to leave during the long church hours.

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Most famous neighborhood Washington Heights has apartment bellhops' outfits, matched the canopies outside the buildings. Another neighborhood in the Harlem area was The Valley. It was said that they were looked down upon socially and economically. The most crimes in the Harlem area were committed in The Valley. The area in Harlem to be most careful around is called "Coke Village". This is because of all of the prostitutes and cocaine in the area. Named the "hottest sector for vice in Harlem". The most dramatic building in Harlem was on Sugar Hill, the Colonial Parkway Apartments. These apartments had all the new, more comfortable living styles like, electric refrigerators and gas stoves. The place where all the successful people like doctors and lawyers lived is called Kings Court Houses. The row of red houses was filled with Harlem's most talented.
#successful#imbetterthanyou

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Teddy's Place is one of the many places in Harlem you can go to eat and listen to music at the same time. Teddy's place had the slower music of the 1920's, like the phonograph. The Barbecue, located upstairs from the Connie's Inn, had more uplifting jazz music to listen to. Also being considered the "best rib in Harlem", the Barbecue was very popular. Even more entertainment comes from "The Jungle", where they sell seafood, and Gladys Bently, who sits and plays the piano and sings all night long. Author Lanston Hughes, even gives a good review to "The Jungle". Chinese cuisine was also quite popular in Harlem. Places like the Bamboo Inn were on the higher end of places to eat in Harlem. The food was pricey, and the people were well dressed.

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Speakeasies were widely popular through the world, a very popular in Harlem. Speakeasies became popular after the Prohibition Act of 1919, later repealed in 1933. In the Jungle Alley, there were estimated around 10 cheap speakeasies. These speakeasies were used for the working class, for both black people and tan people. These places can easily become dangerous, with illegal activities and the high stealing rate. These speakeasies also being called "lap joints", because of the amounts of prostitutes. To enter these speakeasies, you must convince the doorman you are not a police officer, then the bouncer gets the ok from the doorman, unlocking the inner door. A popular drink created in Harlem is called the "shorty".  An example of a "legal" speakeasies is The Sugar Cane, where the higher-class people would go. As the night goes on, the sounds get louder and louder. Depending on the night crowd, due to New York's curfew, some would have to go to the illegal speakeasies. Some people would smoke marijuana that is easily sold in the streets of "The Jungle".

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Another illegal activity that was taken part in, in Harlem, was gambling. Around $30 million was spent ANNUALLY, by neighborhood members by gambling. One of the gambling games was called "the numbers", where a bettor picks a 3-digit number between 000-999. The winning number is linked to a financial figure generated by the New York Stock Exchange each day. Those who play "the numbers" search for special numbers, using birthdays, addresses, and even laundry tickets. Gambling usually takes place in the same bars and restaurants that get their liquor from the same mobsters running the gambling. Pamphlets on how to play "the numbers" can be found pretty much anywhere in Harlem. Find the guy in the nice suit, walking around smiling at the crowds to get your pitch in "the numbers" for the night.
#333#666#999#doIwinyet?