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"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes 

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"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes 

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"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" is a poem by Langston Hughes that talks about the deep historical and also cultural connection of African Americans to the great rivers of the world. Langston Hughes was born Feburary 1, 1902, in Mississippi. He came to Harlem in 1921 and wrote "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" in 1920.

This poem begins with the speaker saying, "I've known rivers," and continues by explaining the importance of rivers in different times of history. The artist mentions the Nile, Euphrates, Congo, and Mississippi rivers. This symbolizes the long history that African Americans have had that connects them to the world. He uses imagery of rivers as well as symbolism to touch on many themes such as pride of heritage and resilience. Hughs uses these rivers to show how the history of African Americans is not defined just by their slavery but also their deeper connection to there own cultural heritage.

In addition, this poem also comments on the current social and political climate at the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes was very inclined at the idea of having racial pride and asserting respect for African Americans in the form of humanity. This work shows how the Harlem Renaissance was not just an artistic movement, but it was also a cultural reclamation of black identity. African Americans being able to create their own narrative of who they were, as well as moving away from the stereotypes given to them by white society. Hughes was a leading figure in this very movement, and he used his poetry to reflect the importance of African heritage In doing so, he challenged how white Americans viewed Black Americans.

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Aaron Douglas (born 1899 in Topeka, Kansas; moved to Harlem in 1925) created Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction in 1934. This mural uses really obscure shapes and colors to tell the story of Black Americans moving from their position as slaves toward freedom and political empowerment (Becoming more political figures). People in the mural move from left to right, from fields of labor to a man reaching toward the Capitol, symbolizing hope and progress and making the mural an image representing the passage of time. Through his unique style, Douglas represents the Harlem Renaissance’s spirit of pride, resilience, and the push for a better future. I personally like this mural because it shows the power of culture and progression among the black community at that time.

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"Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday - Sophie Luong

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"Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday - Sophie Luong

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Billie Holiday(born Eleanora Fagan Gough) was a famous singer born in Philadelphia on April 7, 1915. Holiday's mother move to New York City in 1928 in search for better jobs and soon after in early 1929, Billie joined her as well. Eleanora showed up to Jazz clubs and debuted in Harlem nightclubs.

This was the first time that I listened to this song and based off of my first time I could tell that this piece was filled with pain and emotion. The way Holiday sang the song was powerful and she was able to convey a lot of emotion due to the slow and emphasis on certain words.

Strange Fruit is a protest song depicting the brutality and lynching of Black People. She uses the metaphor of "Strange Fruit" to show the violence and mistreatment towards Black people. As one of her lyrics say, "Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck". This is because the lynched bodies of Black people were often left in the open. This song helps us understand the black experience more because of how it exposes us to the brutality.

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Billie Holiday - "Strange Fruit" Live 1959 [Reelin' In The Years Archives]

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Aaron Douglas: Building More Stately Mansions

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Aaron Douglas: Building More Stately Mansions

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Aaron Douglas was born in Topeka kansas on May 26,1899. He arrived to Harlem in 1925 during the heights of the Harlem renaissance.

This painting shows several silhouettes of people working in the background doing physical labor with different tool. As well as buildings and a pharol head looking down. Along with that the added color of light pink,purple, and red which represents hard labor and the sense of struggle and working through the struggle by community helping each other. On top of that the painting also captures the intellectual, social, and artistic explosion centered in Harlem through the representation of the people in the background doing hard labor.

The most important details of this painting are the silhouettes of people which represents every single person who works hard and the pharol head at the top represents those who are in charge. The main themes of the painting are self-determination and cultural pride that was vital to the Renaissance.

This work will helps us better understand black life during this era by showing a depiction of how they were able to persevere through the struggles and hard work through community. On top of that it shows cultural pride in the work they are doing as well as self determination depicted through the silhouettes of the people doing hard labor.

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I, Too by Langston Hughes | Poetry Foundation

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Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1902. He moved to New York to attend Colombia University, although he ended up dropping out because the University showed itself to be racially unjust to himself and others.

Hughs was a very prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance, through publishing poems, novels, and essays to contribute to the Harlem Renaissance.

In this poem, Hughs draws a connection to the way that American Society treats Black people and the Black man who is shewed away when company arrives through poetic devices. He draws the connection by showing that it's a side of America that Society wants to hide, but that he too is America whether they hide it or not.

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I, Too by Langston Hughes | Poetry Foundation

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Sage - "If We Must Die" by Claude McKay 

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Sage - "If We Must Die" by Claude McKay 

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Claude McKay was a prominent novelist and poet in the Harlem Renaissance. Born in a parish in Jamaica, where he lived during his childhood, he moved to the U.S. in 1912 to attend the Tuskegee University.

Shocked by the racism and segregation he faced in the south, and inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois's book The Souls of Black Folk, he moved to Harlem in 1914 to become a poet.

He became a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance through his poetry reflecting on racial discrimination, hope, and the right for self-determination of all people, as well as the co-editor of the influential Harlem art and political magazine, The Liberator.

It was in The Liberator where he would publish one of his most famous poems, "If We Must Die," in reaction to the "Red Summer" of 1919, a period of extreme racial violence inflicted upon Black communities across the country.

In "If We Must Die," McKay encourages the Black community never to submit to the racial violence, to always fight back, to fearlessly assert their humanity in the face of death. "If we must die," he intones, "let it not be like hogs/Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot...O let us nobly die,/so that our noble may not be shed/in vain"(1-7). He also calls for a unified movement against racism and segregation. "O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!/Though far outnumbered let us show us brave/and for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!"(9-11).

At the time in which this poem was written, there were only the first seeds of a civil rights movements, and as the Black community was being overwhelmed with violence with the goal of splintering the communities resources and suppressing any organizing against segregation. Claude McKay urges his community to not give up out of fear or weariness - to unite in the face of death and even if the only outcome is death, to die as human beings, not give in to the animal image which white people try so hard to instill in the psyche of Black people.

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If We Must Die by Claude McKay | Poetry Foundation

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Langston Hughes, a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance due to his literature. He was born in 1901 in Joplin, Missouri and moved to Harlem in 1921.

This poem (Harlem By Langston Hughes) is a very short but deep and insightful piece that showcases the struggles of Black Americans specifically during the Harlem Renaissance and other events. He uses a lot of metaphors to describe the scenery and situation he is in with all the other Black Americans. I noticed that Hughes provides us with vivd imagery by comparing a deferred dream to a dried up raisin, a festering store, rotten meat, and more. Throughout the poem he also tends to ask questions instead of statements which creates tension because the answers weren't very easy to find during the Harlem Renaissance.

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Mamie Smith (Mamie Robinson) made history as the first Black artist to record a blues song. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 26th, 1883. and she arrived in Harlem (NYC) in the early 1910s. She's almost entirely known for her song Crazy Blues. This song is more than just a hit, its a cultural breakthrough. Her powerful voice with so much emotion helps tell the story of her "craziness" or "sadness" and later on her resilience. The songs success proved the power of Black music. Mamie Smith’s Crazy Blues helps us understand Black life in the 1920s by giving a voice to the black people struggling at the time. The song speaks about pain and resilience, reflecting the hardships many Black Americans faced. She was an incredible person to look up to and has so many other songs.

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Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1901. He came to Harlem around 1924 to pursue his career in Jazz.

In the song it shows off Armstrong's special sound by combining jazz with his warm singing, and the soft background music supports his trumpet and voice, making the song feel emotional. In this song, you can hear Trumpet, piano, strings, woodwinds, and percussion, these are all used to create a smooth and emotional feeling.

Louis Armstrong was an important jazz musician who showed the strength and creativity of African Americans during a hard time with social problems and racism. While "Moon River" isn't a protest song, it talks about hope and dreams, which are important for the African American experience. The song shows how black artists use music to share their stories in a beautiful way and express who they are. Armstrong became famous during the Great Migration when many African Americans moved from the rural South to cities like Harlem to find better lives. "Moon River" reflects the hopes and dreams of these people and their search for a place to belong during that time.

This song is more than just a nice song, it shows the bigger story of African Americans, including their dreams, struggles, and important contributions during a key time in American history.

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Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1st, 1901 to a politically conscious family. He was raised in Kansas. But lived all over the world, including England, Mexico and went to high school in Cleveland. His first introduction to Harlem was attending Columbia in 1919. However, he did not truly move to Harlem until 1929.

Hughes wrote Harlem in 1951 as part of a book length sequence that was intended to be read as a single poem. It was written in the aftermath of the 1935 and 1943 Harlem riots that were a direct response to the problems the black community was facing at the time.

It explores the lives of the black community in Harlem. And how the dreams of racial equality that Harlem residents had are being postponed and asks the question for what the future for African American residents will be. "What happens to a dream deferred?"

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How it feels to be colored  me- Zora Neale Hurston (Ruah Kurien) 

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How it feels to be colored  me- Zora Neale Hurston (Ruah Kurien) 

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Author Zora Neal Hurston (January 7 1891 - January 28 1960) was born in Alabama and moved to New York city's Harlem neighborhood in 1925 after her play "Color Struck" and short story "Spunk" won second place in a popular magazine. Over the span of her life, she continued to write many novels and stories while studying anthropology. In her book "How it Feels to Be Colored Me", she entails the struggle of being a black woman and evolution of her identity through her life. She describes her childhood where she primarily lived in an all-black town in Florida, and vividly detailed her first experiences with white people, and how she felt an immense change in how she was perceived through different places. Once she moves away, she is no longer known as "Zora" but "little colored girl", and feels as though her personality is pushed away from her identity. She then goes on to detail that the black identity is only present in times of segregation, that she oftentimes has no race but "Zora" which belongs to no specific place or time. Hurston uses this essay to connect to the lives of many in the era of the Harlem Renaissance as she clearly defines the struggles of identity and belonging for black people, particularly women. Hurston states her definition of "color" as a shifting perspective, how it can be heavily impacted to her as a person, and how it can be ignored and forgotten. Because of her immense influence as a writer in this time, she helped inspire many new works of art, and continues to be an important figure to this day.

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Let My People Go by Aaron Douglas - EXAMPLE

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Let My People Go by Aaron Douglas - EXAMPLE

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Aaron Douglas was an artist born in Topeka Kansas on May 26, 1899. He moved to New York as a part of the great migration in 1925. Upon arriving in New York, Douglas entered the up and coming art scene known today as the Harlem Renaissance. His painting "Let My People Go" is one piece in a set of eight based on a collaboration done in 1927 with author James Weldon Johnson. The painting offers a scene with stylized shapes and figures, typical to his other paintings. Along with this, the shadows and the well balanced color pallet of the work create a strong visual. The war in this painting is representative of the violence endured by the African American community at that time, ultimately leading to their own exodus north. The phrase "let my people go" is a biblical reference to Exodus in which Moses commands the pharaoh to free the Israelites. The story of Exodus carries overall theme of liberation. Liberation was an ever-present concept across the 1920s and 30s. It was showcased by the freedom of the roaring nightlife in Harlem and across America. Along with this, the civil rights work being done in the 1920s and 30s (although not what people consider the official Civil Rights era, there was still work being done to protest lynchings and other forms of racism across the United States) was a very explicit fight for liberation. This piece helps us better understand the desire for liberation as present across the Harlem Renaissance and Douglas' other works.

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Written by Billy Strayhorn, performed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

Strayhorn was born in 1915 in Dayton, Ohio. He moved to Harlem in 1939.

The piece was composed by Strayhorn when Ellington hired him and had him move to Harlem. He mailed Strayhorn directions and the first thing it said was to take the "A" train, referring to the New York City subway line.

This piece is full of energy and excitement, hope and opportunity, about not only working with Duke Ellington, but also moving to Harlem. As was common during this period, the song was written for a full jazz orchestra. The trumpets are light and staccato, while the saxophones are woody, full, and legato. The trumpets and sax trade the melody with the low register wind instruments such as the trombones creating a piece with movement, direction, and excitement.

Strayhorn was of the generation after the first wave of the Great Migration and thus was moving to the big city not to flee the lynch mob, but to chase the cultural explosion of the Harlem Renaissance.

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Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra - Take the "A" Train (Audio)

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The 1926 poem I, too: by Langston Hughes. Max

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The 1926 poem I, too: by Langston Hughes. Max

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Langston Hughes was a poet born in February 1901 in Joplin, Missouri. He moved to Harlem during the great migration in 1922. Almost instantly becoming a pillar of black art community in Harlem.

This poem that was written by Langston Hughes he decided on the name I,Too, because he was tired of being discriminated against. So his title is referring to being the same as every else and how he could represent America just like anyone else. he still holds hope in that they will do the right thing and not make him have to be ashamed about being a different skin color. he wants all the people who shamed him for being different to be ashamed of there actions as he is just lie them.

Langston Hughes wrote I, Too as a response to Walt Whitman’s poem I Hear America Singing, which talks about America as one big, happy nation. Hughes points out that Black people have been left out of that picture and says, "We are part of America too!" His poem is a strong reminder that Black voices and experiences matter and that the fight for equality is important.

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Langston Hughes was born on February 1st, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri, and arrived in Harlem in 1922. I, Too was published in Hughe's first volume of poetry, The Weary Blues. This poem revolves around a cry for equality in the United States, regardless of race. The poem's speaker identifies himself as "the darker brother", who is shooed away when company comes. Hughes's choice to identify the speaker as the "brother" further demonstrates that African Americans are just as American as white people. He affirms that patriotism is not racial and that Black people contribute to and love America just as much as anyone else. Langston Hughes' poem was inspired by Walt Whitman's poem titled I Hear America Singing. While this poem also demonstrates how various groups of people collaborate and make America a better place in different ways, there are never Black people mentioned in this poem. While both poems have similar themes, I Too critiques and demonstrates the uncomfortable truths about America, and how it is not yet an equal or fair place. However, throughout this hardship, there is a clear, underlying message of hope lingering throughout the poem. This is a reflection of the hopes and tribulations of the time. Yes, the Urban, Northern Cities were a big step in comparison to the Jim Crow South, however, it was far from fair, just, or free of discrimination. Still, Black art, literature, music, and culture began to thrive, and big strides were being made to integrate Black individuals into American culture and Society. This isn't a poem of despair, rather, a poem about the dream of a kinder, more diverse America. We can see this in the poem's final lines:

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

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I, Too by Langston Hughes | Poetry Foundation

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Duke Ellington was born in Washington D.C on April 29, 1899. He began assembling groups to play dances and parties, eventually joining several himself. He was encouraged to move to Harlem after his drummer moved there, and their band joined the Harlem renaissance. The band rose to fame with their many performances at the Cotton Club in Harlem.

This piece is in 4/4, in the key of C, and has a characteristic swing, becoming one of the main examples of this technique. It is a fun, energetic song, greatly driven by the Ellington Orchestra's playing and the swing.

It was written by Billy Strayhorn for Ellington, after raised radio broadcast licensing fees made it so that the Ellington Orchestra wasn't able to play its signature song (at that time it was "Sepia Panorama")

The A train is one of the main subway lines running through New York City, and is an important transportation method for Harlem.

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Duke Ellington and his Orchestra - Take The A Train (1962) [Official Video]