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Did African American Culture Influence The Harlem Renaissance

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It is known to history that blacks have been deprived from education and have longed for opportunity since the moment they got the chance. They were deprived of reading, writing, or having any knowledge of their surroundings or history. The moment blacks knew what they lacked to succeed, they had the motivation to achieve anything that they were previously deprived from. As many fled towards the north, looking for a more intellectual and social life, this gave birth to the Harlem Renaissance in Harlem, New York. Zora Neale Hurston, an anthropologist and novelist, used her masterwork, Their Eyes Were Watching God to reflect the hardships of African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance.
The Harlem Renaissance was a period from the end of World War I through the middle of the Great Depression during which a group of talented African-American writers produced a body of poetry, fiction, drama, and essays. As it was once expressed by Laban Carrick Hill, author of Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance, “The Harlem Renaissance was a sort of flowery of African American culture. Before the renaissance black culture and its influence on the broad American culture wasn't consciously acknowledged in …show more content…

Zora was a very inferior women; she wanted all the black achievement she encountered in the Harlem Renaissance and through her own life, to be shared and understood by others. Like Wilfred Samuel described, “The Harlem Renaissance was not a male phenomenon. A substantial number of literary women played significant roles” (Samuel 2). Hurston indeed played a significant role in her career as a writer; she published four novels, two books of folklore, an autobiography, short stories, essays, articles, and plays. Not to mention only was she closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance and has influenced such writers as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Gayle Jones, Alice Walker, and Toni Cade

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