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What Was the Harlem Renaissnace Anyway? 🤷🏾‍♂️

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What Was the Harlem Renaissnace Anyway? 🤷🏾‍♂️

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It is generally agreed that the Harlem Renaissance lasted from the late 1910s to the late 1930s.

The movement was born out of the Great Migration during WWI where thousands of African Americans from the south moved northward to fill in the need for jobs. #jetitandforgetit

But How Did Things Change?

As more and more African Americans migrated to the region, they began to form communities, most notably the one in Harlem.

Then, as the African American presence grew, their culture began to shine through and become widely visible; whereas before it had been viewed as degraded, their culture then found expression and gradual acceptance in the public eye. #blackculture

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Literature was a primary option in expressing African American culture and issues.

Information and key ideas of the Renaissance spread were found in novels, news articles, or poems.

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The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) represents a valuable organization established around the time of the Harlem Renaissance (1909).

The organization took action and began providing more options to U.S. citizens of African American novels or poems.

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The Harlem Renaissance and the Idea of a New Negro Reader by Shawn Anthony Christian is informative about the effect the Harlem Renaissance had on furthering the importance of literature and reading for African Americans.  Greater focus on literature led to understanding the ideas and issues expressed in the Harlem Renaissance.

Chapter 3’s main focuses:

1.  African American literature during the Harlem Renaissance.

2. Popularity of that genre and its influence on that time period.

3. Advancement of African American readership.

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Charles Spurgeon Johnson was born on July 24, 1893, in Bristol, VA.

Godfather of Harlem Renaissance literature.

Studied sociology at Virginia Union University and after at the University of Chicago.

Began as an editor for the Urban League’s Opportunity magazine which focused on race relations.

His most notable piece is The Negro in American Civilization; A Study of Negro Life and Race Relations in the Light of Social Research.

Book promoted change through his literature and enhanced the new African American Reader on Harlem Renaissance issues. #LitinLiterature

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Born on January 15th, 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama.

Found a love for literature when she began writing for her schools newspaper, The Hilltop.

Involved in literature and drama (worked with Langston Hughes)

Most well know pieces of literature are Their Eyes Were Watching God and Mules and Men.

Works were focused on African American women, fictional folklore, and ending biased stereotypes.

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Her fictional book Their Eyes Were Watching God, follows Janie Crawford, an African American female.

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Their Eyes Were Watching God: Crash Course Literature 301

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When the IM is writing and reflecting on his adventures he understands the true meaning of his literature.

“So why do I write, torturing myself to put it down? Because in spite of myself I've learned some things. Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled ‘file and forget,’ and I can neither file nor forget. Nor will certain ideas forget me; they keep filing away at my lethargy, my complacency” (Ellison 449).

This is representative of the literature written during the Harlem Renaissance because without writing nobody would be able to express their ideas or opinions. It also keeps a moment in history there forever, as the novels written during the Harlem Renaissance provide a deeper lesson into African American culture.

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Brought a light to African American culture which further pushed Renaissance ideas and African American culture into the public eye.

Increased  and improved African American readership.

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1. While the status in social equality and position may not have changed greatly, some change did occur and there were several who tried to make it happen.

2. Unfortunately, while the explosion of culture of the Renaissance may have changed the minds of a few, the stereotypes of the majority were only perpetuated.

3. However, the people who are discussed in the following sections are those who believed change for the better was possible.

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In Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the main character, Invisible Man (IM), is confronted with his all-too-recent heritage in Harlem one day. On stumbling across an eviction in progress, IM picks up a piece of the  evictee’s property, a slip of paper confirming the man’s freedom as a former slave:

“My fingers closed upon... a fragile paper, coming apart with age... I read: FREE PAPERS. Be it known to all men that my negro, Primus Provo, has been freed by me this sixth day of August, 1859...  It has been longer than that, further removed in time, I told myself, and yet I knew that it hadn’t been (272).

IM had to struggle to figure out where his identity lies, just like all the African American people who migrated north. He sought answers many seek today like “Who am I?” and “How do I define myself? By my past or future?”

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Like any other movement, the Harlem Renaissance was a mix between hope actualized and hope deferred.

Unfortunately the opposition grew steadily as well instead of diminishing in response.

Racist groups like the KKK and others like it grew in size as well as other acts of terrorism like race riots and lynch mobs.

An example of violence

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To be sure, some progress was made: an African American community was carved right out of the North in the center of a white majority and there were more jobs and businesses for African Americans in the area.

But the reality was that the path had hardly begun to be walked, with most of the challenges ahead and the movement did little to change racial stereotypes and harsh realities of the time.

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Music allowed people to embrace African American culture during the Harlem Renaissance.

Jazz was the new and vibrant form of music during the time. #YouLikeJazz

Music was based off of improvisation.

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born August 4, 1901, New Orleans, Louisiana, birth place of Jazz.

Was known as a trumpeter and for his singing ability when playing authentic Jazz.

Some of his most well known works are: “What a Wonderful World”, “We Have All the Time in the World”, and “When the Saints Go Marching In”.

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Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World

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Born April 29, 1899, Washington, D.C.

Recognized at one of the greatest jazz players and composers ever.

His music had everlasting effects as it brought African American music and culture to the stage during the Harlem Renaissance and inspired many after the era.

Some famous hits are “In A Sentimental Mood”, “Sophisticated Lady”, and “I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good”.

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Photo of Duke Ellington

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The IM is at a party and discovers a drunken man who is expressing how widespread the idea was during the Harlem Renaissance.

“‘The Brother does not sing!’ Brother Jack roared staccato.
‘Nonsense, all colored people sing”’ (Ellison 242).

This aspect of African American culture spread during the Harlem Renaissance and continued on after, thus creating an awareness of one aspect of African American influence that was sparked during the time period.

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Those in Harlem still faced de jure segregation, Jim Crow law, Plessy v. Ferguson, and other persecutions, eventually even the Great Depression. On top of that, even with government help, the race still faced segregation.

Read how discrimination affected African Americans in the 20s

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The place of African Americans and other people of color in the New Deal still haunts the legacy of President Franklin Roosevelt's administration. It is well known that FDR had to compromise with powerful Southern Democrats, especially key Committee Chairs and Senators, to get many of his programs through Congress. Moreover, while the New Deal brought about a dramatic increase in federal power, the reality of American federalism meant that control over the implementation of national programs was often in the hands of state and local officials.

As a result, New Deal programs were often infected and undermined by the prevailing racism of American society at the time--and even by white officials in the administration. For example, when FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1933, it was nominally open to all. Yet, in practice, black men were passed over by many recruiters and "African American Corpsmen faced segregation, discrimination and hostility within the CCC and from nearby white communities," as Olin Cole, Jr. wrote in The African American Experience in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

This was particularly true in the South, where African American Corpsmen in mostly white companies were relegated to cooking and cleaning duties and lived in segregated quarters. In 1935, the national office ordered all companies to be segregated. CCC Director Robert Fechner was a southerner from the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which was notoriously unfriendly to blacks; FDR had appointed him to mollify the AFL over complaints that the Corps was undercutting wages. Unfortunately, similar compromises marked other New Deal programs, like public housing, farm supports and labor legislation.

Yet, key New Dealers resisted the prevailing racism and were able to hire millions of black Americans in work relief programs, install hiring quotas for blacks in federal contracts, dramatically increase the number of black federal employees, and provide targeted housing and loan programs for African Americans. It is important to judge the New Deal in historical perspective and against the virulent racism of the time, and black citizens did so by converting en masse from the Republican to Democratic Party by 1940.

We should recall that the high tide of Jim Crow came in the 1920s, as racist and anti-foreign attitudes intensified following World War One. These were commonly backed up by violence from the Ku Klux Klan and white mobs. In recent news we have been offered a shocking reminder of how bad things were with the dramatic example of the Greenwood Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Called the Black Wall Street, Greenwood was a very successful African American section of the city. On May 31, 1921, a mob of whites terrorized Greenwood, burning and looting homes and businesses, injuring and killing its citizens. After 18 hours of destruction, 40 square blocks were destroyed, including the public library, hospital, a dozen churches, doctors' offices, hotels, restaurants and other businesses and more than 1,000 homes. Most of the district's 12,000 residents were left homeless. Investigations later put the number of dead above 300.

On June 21, 2020, the New York Times published a recounting of the Greenwood Massacre along with arresting, tragic photographs. They resonate with similar images of the death of African Americans at the hands of law enforcement from Louisville to Minneapolis- and even my community of Georgetown, Texas.

In the midst of this, barely three weeks past the 99th anniversary of the Greenwood massacre, the "Make America Great Again" crowd chose Tulsa for a "campaign rally," not only mocking the memory of the Greenwood victims but endangering the lives of Tulsans today.

We who celebrate the New Deal must not make the mistake of forgetting the racism of the past. We must advocate for a new New Deal that challenges the racial order of today's America and develops truly inclusive programs that enhance and strengthen the lives of all our citizens.

Watch: "Tulsa race massacre: The painful past of "Black Wall Street", USA Today (9 minutes)

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The place of African Americans and other people of color in the New Deal still haunts the legacy of President Franklin Roosevelt's administration. It is well known that FDR had to compromise with powerful Southern Democrats, especially key Committee Chairs and Senators, to get many of his programs through Congress.

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Check out Harlem’s actual location on the map!

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The fact of the matter was, complacency was widespread in the North. As IM learned from his landlord, Mary, at one point in time, people would lose sight of the bigger picture of inequality while in Harlem:

“‘...it’s the ones from the South that’s got to do it, them what knows the fire and ain’t forgot how it burns. Up here too many forgits. They finds a place for theyselves and forgits the ones on the bottom. Oh, heap of them talks about doing things, but they done really forgot’”(255).

IM had expressed that he did not care much for the problems of the race outside of himself which is understandable. Even today, there are those who would rather drift through life without taking action to make right the wrongs in the world. But such work must be done and those who do will be remembered.

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While immediate change did not occur, it provided the foundation that allowed for the Civil Rights movement and even to this day with modern movements.

#wedidntstartthefire

#createchange

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African American man, born in the North in the late 1800s.

Greater focus on the philosophy and actions of individuals

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In November 2020, friends of the W. E. B. Du Bois Center shared a series of quotes by Du Bois that resonate in our own time.

The quotes below were chosen by the 2019 cohort of Du Bois Center graduate and post-doctoral fellows.

Group portrait of Du Bois and friends and family at his 70th birthday celebration at Atlanta University, 1938.

Du Bois Center Fellows Favorite Du Bois Quotes

Portrait taken by writer and photographer Carl Van Vechten.

Viewing anniversary parade from balcony of ancient Royal Palace in Peking, Oct. 1, 1962.

"I believe in pride of race and lineage and self; in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves."
W. E. B. Du Bois
Chosen by Samantha Davis, Doctoral student in Political Science at UMass Amherst and 2019 Du Bois Center Graduate Fellow

Portrait of W. E. B. Du Bois seated in study holding newspaper.

Rule-following, legal precedence, and political consistency are not more important than right, justice and plain common-sense.
W. E. B. Du Bois in Black Reconstruction (1935)

W. E. B. Du Bois in his office holding the first issue of The Crisis.

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The quotes below were chosen by the 2019 cohort of Du Bois Center graduate and post-doctoral fellows. Du Bois Center Fellows Favorite Du Bois Quotes "I believe in pride of race and lineage and self; in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves." W. E.

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For more information on Du Bois click Here to watch a video with a background and summary of his life.  #DuBoisLife

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Du Bois came to the conclusion that the only way to move the chains on racial inequality was through protesting and agitation.

His agenda of political protest was in stark opposition to Booker T. Washington’s theory of appeasement.

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Read through a couple of MLK’s comments about Du Bois and his investment in African American Equality! Again, influencing the future by acting in the present.

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Tonight we assemble here to pay tribute to one of the most remarkable men of our time.

Dr Du Bois was not only an intellectual giant exploring the frontiers of knowledge, he was in the first place a teacher. He would have wanted his life to teach us something about our tasks of emancipation.

One idea he insistently taught was that black people have been kept in oppression and deprivation by a poisonous fog of lies that depicted them as inferior, born deficient, and deservedly doomed to servitude to the grave. So assiduously has this poison been injected into the mind of America that its disease has infected not only whites but many Negroes. So long as the lie was believed the brutality and criminality of conduct toward the Negro was easy for the conscience to bear. The twisted logic ran: if the black man was inferior he was not oppressed - his place in society was appropriate to his meager talent and intellect.

Dr Du Bois recognized that the keystone in the arch of oppression was the myth of inferiority and he dedicated his brilliant talents to demolish it.

There could scarcely be a more suitable person for such a monumental task. First of all he was himself unsurpassed as an intellect and he was a Negro. But beyond this he was passionately proud to be black and finally he had not only genius and pride but he had the indomitable fighting spirit of the valiant.

To pursue his mission, Dr Du Bois gave up the substantial privileges a highly educated Negro enjoyed living in the North. Though he held degrees from Harvard and the University of Berlin, though he had more academic credentials than most Americans, black or white, he moved South where a majority of Negroes then lived. He deliberately chose to share their daily abuse and humiliation. He could have offered himself to the white rulers and exacted substantial tribute for selling his genius. There were few like him, Negro or white. He could have amassed riches and honors and lived in material splendor and applause from the powerful and important men of his time. Instead, he lived part of his creative life in the South - most of it in modest means and some of it in poverty and he died in exile, praised sparingly and in many circles ignored.

But he was an exile only to the land of his birth. He died at home in Africa among his cherished ancestors and he was ignored by a pathetically ignorant America but not by history.

History cannot ignore W. E. B. Du Bois. Because history has to reflect truth and Dr Du Bois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people. There were very few scholars who concerned themselves with honest study of the black man and he sought to fill this immense void. The degree to which he succeeded discloses the great dimensions of the man.

Yet he had more than a void to fill. He had to deal with the army of white propagandists - the myth-makers of Negro history. Dr Du Bois took them all on in battle. It would be impossible to sketch the whole range of his intellectual contributions. Back in the nineteenth century he laid out a program of a hundred years of study of problems affecting American Negroes and worked tirelessly to implement it.

Long before sociology was a science he was pioneering in the field of social study of Negro life and completed works on health, education, employment, urban conditions, and religion. This was at a time when scientific inquiry of Negro life was so unbelievably neglected that only a single university in the entire nation had such a program and it was funded with $5,000 for a year's work.

Against such odds Dr Du Bois produced two enduring classics before the twentieth century. His Suppression of the African Slave Trade written in 1896 is Volume I in the Harvard Historical Studies. His study, The Philadelphia Negro, completed in 1899, is still used today. Illustrating the painstaking quality of his scientific method, to do this work Dr Du Bois personally visited and interviewed five thousand people.

He soon realized that studies would never adequately be pursued nor changes realized without the mass involvement of Negroes. The scholar then became an organizer and with others founded the NAACP. At the same time he became aware that the expansion of imperialism was a threat to the emergence of Africa.

He recognized the importance of the bonds between American Negroes and the land of their ancestors and he extended his activities to African affairs. After World War I he called Pan-African Congresses in 1919, 1921, and 1923, alarming imperialists in all countries and disconcerting Negro moderates in America who were afraid of this restless, militant, black genius.

Returning to the United States from abroad he found his pioneering agitation for Negro studies was bearing fruit and a beginning was made to broaden Negro higher education. He threw himself into the task of raising the intellectual level of this work. Much later in 1940 he participated in the establishment of the first Negro scholarly publication, Phylon. At the same time he stimulated Negro colleges to collaborate through annual conferences to increase their effectiveness and elevate the quality of their academic studies.

But these activities, enough to be the life work for ten men, were far from the sum of his achievements. In the six years between 1935 and 1941 he produced the monumental seven-hundred-page volume on Black Reconstruction in America, and at the same time writing many articles and essays. Black Reconstruction was six years in writing but was thirty-three years in preparation. On its publication, one critic said: "It crowns the long, unselfish, and brilliant career of Dr. Du Bois. It is comparable in clarity, originality, and importance to the Beards' Rise of American Civilization." The New York Times said, "It is beyond question the most painstaking and thorough study ever made of the Negroes' part in Reconstruction," and the New York Herald Tribune proclaimed it "a solid history of the period, an economic treatise, a philosophical discussion, a poem, a work of art all rolled into one."

To understand why his study of the Reconstruction was a monumental achievement it is necessary to see it in context. White historians had for a century crudely distorted the Negro's role in the Reconstruction years. It was a conscious and deliberate manipulation of history and the stakes were high. The Reconstruction was a period in which black men had a small measure of freedom of action. If, as white historians tell it, Negroes wallowed in corruption, opportunism, displayed spectacular stupidity, were wanton, evil, and ignorant, their case was made. They would have proved that freedom was dangerous in the hands of inferior beings. One generation after another of Americans were assiduously taught these falsehoods and the collective mind of America became poisoned with racism and stunted with myths.

Dr Du Bois confronted this powerful structure of historical distortion and dismantled it. He virtually, before anyone else and more than anyone else, demolished the lies about Negroes in their most important and creative period of history. The truths he revealed are not yet the property of all Americans but they have been recorded and arm us for our contemporary battles.

In Black Reconstruction Dr Du Bois dealt with the almost universally accepted concept that civilization virtually collapsed in the South during Reconstruction because Negroes had a measure of political power. Dr Du Bois marshaled irrefutable evidence that far from collapsing, the Southern economy was recovering in these years. Within five years the cotton crop had been restored and in the succeeding five years had exceeded prewar levels. At the same time other economic activity had ascended so rapidly the rebirth of the South was almost completed.

Beyond this he restored to light the most luminous achievement of the Reconstruction - it brought free public education into existence not only for the benefit of the Negro but it opened school doors to the poor whites. He documented the substantial body of legislation that was socially so useful it was retained into the twentieth century even though the Negroes who helped to write it were brutally disenfranchised and driven from political life. He revealed that far from being the tragic era white historians described, it was the only period in which democracy existed in the South. This stunning fact was the reason the history books had to lie because to tell the truth would have acknowledged the Negroes' capacity to govern and fitness to build a finer nation in a creative relationship with poor whites.

With the completion of his book Black Reconstruction, despite its towering contributions, despite his advanced age, Dr Du Bois was still not ready to accept a deserved rest in peaceful retirement. His dedication to freedom drove him on as relentlessly in his seventies as it did in his twenties. He had already encompassed three careers. Beginning as a pioneer sociologist he had become an activist to further mass organization. The activist had then transformed himself into a historian. By the middle of the twentieth century when imperialism and war arose once more to imperil humanity he became a peace leader. He served as chairman of the Peace Information Bureau and like the Rev. William Sloane Coffin and Dr Benjamin Spock of today he found himself indicted by the government and harried by reactionaries. Undaunted by obstacles and repression, with his characteristic fortitude he fought on. Finally in 1961, with Ghana's independence established, an opportunity opened to begin the writing of an African Encyclopedia and in his ninety-third year he emigrated to Ghana to begin new intellectual labors. In 1963 death finally came to this most remarkable man.

It is axiomatic that he will be remembered for his scholarly contributions and organizational attainments. These monuments are imperishable. But there were human qualities less immediately visible that are no less imperishable.

Dr Du Bois was a man possessed of priceless dedication to his people. The vast accumulation of achievement and public recognition were not for him pathways to personal affluence and a diffusion of identity. Whatever else he was, with his multitude of careers and professional titles, he was first and always a black man. He used his richness of talent as a trust for his people. He saw that Negroes were robbed of so many things decisive to their existence that the theft of their history seemed only a small part of their losses. But Dr Du Bois knew that to lose one's history is to lose one's self-understanding and with it the roots for pride. This drove him to become a historian of Negro life and the combination of his unique zeal and intellect rescued for all of us a heritage whose loss would have profoundly impoverished us.

Dr Du Bois the man needs to be remembered today when despair is all too prevalent. In the years he lived and fought there was far more justification for frustration and hopelessness and yet his faith in his people never wavered. His love and faith in Negroes permeate every sentence of his writings and every act of his life. Without these deeply rooted emotions his work would have been arid and abstract. With them his deeds were a passionate storm that swept the filth of falsehood from the pages of established history.

He symbolized in his being his pride in the black man. He did not apologize for being black and because of it, handicapped. Instead he attacked the oppressor for the crime of stunting black men. He confronted the establishment as a model of militant manhood and integrity. He defied them and though they heaped venom and scorn on him his powerful voice was never stilled.

And yet, with all his pride and spirit he did not make a mystique out of blackness. He was proud of his people, not because their color endowed them with some vague greatness but because their concrete achievements in struggle had advanced humanity and he saw and loved progressive humanity in all its hues, black, white, yellow, red, and brown.

Above all he did not content himself with hurling invectives for emotional release and then to retire into smug passive satisfaction. History had taught him it is not enough for people to be angry - the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force. It was never possible to know where the scholar Du Bois ended and the organizer Du Bois began. The two qualities in him were a single unified force.

This lifestyle of Dr Du Bois is the most important quality this generation of Negroes needs to emulate. The educated Negro who is not really part of us, and the angry militant who fails to organize us, have nothing in common with Dr Du Bois. He exemplified black power in achievement and he organized black power in action. It was no abstract slogan to him.

We cannot talk of Dr Du Bois without recognizing that he was a radical all of his life. Some people would like to ignore the fact that he was a communist in his later years. It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely. In contemporary life the English-speaking world has no difficulty with the fact that Seán O'Casey was a literary giant of the twentieth century and a communist or that Pablo Neruda is generally considered the greatest living poet though he also served in the Chilean Senate as a communist. It is time to cease muting the fact that Dr Du Bois was a genius and chose to be a communist. Our irrational obsessive anti-communism has led us into too many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific thinking.

In closing it would be well to remind white America of its debt to Dr Du Bois. When they corrupted Negro history they distorted American history because Negroes are too big a part of the building of this nation to be written out of it without destroying scientific history. White America, drenched with lies about Negroes, has lived too long in a fog of ignorance. Dr Du Bois gave them a gift of truth for which they should eternally be indebted to him.

Negroes have heavy tasks today. We were partially liberated and then re-enslaved. We have to fight again on old battlefields but our confidence is greater, our vision is clearer, and our ultimate victory surer because of the contributions a militant, passionate black giant left behind him.

Dr Du Bois has left us but he has not died. The spirit of freedom is not buried in the grave of the valiant. He will be with us when we go to Washington in April to demand our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We have to go to Washington because they have declared an armistice in the war on poverty while squandering billions to expand a senseless, cruel, unjust war in Vietnam. We will go there, we will demand to be heard, and we will stay until the administration responds. If this means forcible repression of our movement, we will confront it, for we have done this before. If this means scorn or ridicule, we will embrace it for that is what America's poor now receive. If it means jail we accept it willingly, for the millions of poor already are imprisoned by exploitation and discrimination.

Dr Du Bois would be in the front ranks of the peace movement today. He would readily see the parallel between American support of the corrupt and despised Thieu-Ky regime and Northern support to the Southern Slavemasters in 1876. The CIA scarcely exaggerates, indeed it is surprisingly honest, when it calculates for Congress that the war in Vietnam can persist for a hundred years. People deprived of their freedom do not give up - Negroes have been fighting more than a hundred years and even if the date of full emancipation is uncertain, what is explicitly certain is that the struggle for it will endure.

In conclusion let me say that Dr Du Bois's greatest virtue was his committed empathy with all the oppressed and his divine dissatisfaction with all forms of injustice. Today we are still challenged to be dissatisfied. Let us be dissatisfied until every man can have food and material necessities for his body, culture and education for his mind, freedom and human dignity for his spirit. Let us be dissatisfied until rat-infested, vermin-filled slums will be a thing of a dark past and every family will have a decent sanitary house in which to live. Let us be dissatisfied until the empty stomachs of Mississippi are filled and the idle industries of Appalachia are revitalized. Let us be dissatisfied until brotherhood is no longer a meaningless word at the end of a prayer but the first order of business on every legislative agenda. Let us be dissatisfied until our brother of the Third World - Asia, Africa, and Latin America - will no longer be the victim of imperialist exploitation, but will be lifted from the long night of poverty, illiteracy, and disease. Let us be dissatisfied until this pending cosmic elegy will be transformed into a creative psalm of peace and "justice will roll down like waters from a mighty stream."

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Tonight we assemble here to pay tribute to one of the most remarkable men of our time. Dr Du Bois was not only an intellectual giant exploring the frontiers of knowledge, he was in the first place a teacher. He would have wanted his life to teach us something about our tasks of emancipation.

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In short, Washington was a former slave who was accustomed to hard labor.

A short clip on Washington’s life. His autobiography, “Up from Slavery”, describes his life pretty well!

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Born a slave, Booker T. Washington became one of the most celebrated educators and orators in the world. Find out more about his life and work in this video.

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His belief was that African Americans should strive to be hard working citizens who get ahead by the sweat of their brow, even if it meant existing in segregation.

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Washington is referred to in Ellison’s work as “The Founder”, as IM attends the university founded by Washington, Tuskegee University. The university educated African Americans but they were never to be equal- they had to grovel before the white benefactors (38).

IM would realize eventually that the system established by Washington would keep African Americans under the white man’s thumb for all time.

However, Washington did play his part in history, and without him, an opposition like Du Bois may never have formed to start the modern equality movement.

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A lesser known figure, but he was an important and well known individual during the Renaissance when he was at his peak of influence.

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Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association

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Garvey’s Philosophy: Independence or Bust!

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Garvey’s Philosophy: Independence or Bust!

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Garvey’s idea was to establish an independent state in Africa that was run entirely by those he deemed “black”. He strongly promoted “black pride”. He even started a shipping company to transport some back to Africa.

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“We organize— organization is good— but we organize black. BLACK” (373)!

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“We organize— organization is good— but we organize black. BLACK” (373)!

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In Invisible Man, Garvey can easily be seen at least partially in the figure of Raz the Exhorter, a character who represented a more violent voice of African American separatism.

Even today, some advocate for a separate independent state for African Americans; however, coexistence in some regard is necessary and racism must be dealt with and eliminated .

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The long term effects of the Harlem Renaissance on popular culture and literature are undeniable.

African American culture became accepted, opening opportunities to individuals who had long been waiting for them.

Those of the race who had moved to the North gained a sense of ability and a better understanding of themselves as a people.

#straightoutofharlem

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A Different World Without the Renaissance 🌎

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A Different World Without the Renaissance 🌎

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Without the Renaissance, folk culture would not have been popularized and many beloved works like To Kill a Mockingbird, Invisible Man, jazz, and even southern music would not exist!

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Check this video out for some of the popular names who would not be recognized today without the Renaissance!

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The Great Migration and the power of a single decision | Isabel Wilkerson

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While the needle may not have been moved on equality, the Renaissance was a time for the African American people to grow.

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There may still have been Jim Crow laws and harsh treatment in the South; as Ellison’s IM said as well, Harlem may have done little more than cover up realities and keep them invisible:

“Below [IM] lay South Ferry, and a ship and two barges were passing out into the river, and far out to the right I could make out the Statue of Liberty, her torch almost lost in the fog” (165).

The fog represents how distracted one could become in Harlem and could forget the treatment of others nationwide, just like how easy it can be to become self-absorbed.

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The work of those like Du Bois and even Garvey had set the groundwork for the work that was accomplished in the Civil Rights Movement, even in the modern Black Lives Matter movement. #BLM

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Express yourself!

Remember, the Renaissance all began with individuals making the decision to express their differences and be free about themselves and now it is talked about in history books. Do not be afraid to go out and express your individuality and grow into yourself!

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Nothing Exciting, Mosey on

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Without literature the Harlem Renaissance would not be nearly as effective because people wouldn’t be able to spread opinions or thoughts, or even promote change and current events.