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How Did The Harlem Renaissance Influence Pop Culture

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The Harlem Renaissance heavily influences today’s pop culture in America, and without this movement, we wouldn’t be able to see some of our favorite artists today. This movement was known as the sudden outburst of creativity among the African-American culture that formed around 1920-1930 in Harlem, New York. Some of these artistic flavors were introduced in the form of jazz, poetry, and acting. The influence of people such as Marcus Garvey, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong gave this movement its heartbeat. But, no other person contributed more to the Harlem Renaissance than Langston Hughes. His poetry, with works such as “Cross” and “The Trumpet Player” clarifies how it was to live as an African-American in a time of racial segregation …show more content…

During the period of World War I, around 200,000 Black soldiers experienced impartiality from the nations of Europe, and many of them envisioned being treated with greater respect and a doctrine of egalitarianism, but that didn’t happen. There were an abundance of riots involving race during the Twenties; in the South and in the North. During this time, black nationalism began to grow, and Langston Hughes was at the forefront of one of the most influential movements that gripped America, the Harlem Renaissance.
Hughes portrayed the lives of everyday African-Americans with their jazz, dejections, delight, comedy, and regular clashes with racism in his poetry, and his actions in the political landscape. Some people did not like it, including some whites and blacks, but his creativity stood out in a time of …show more content…

He also wasn’t liked because of his political views. He favored communism, or the doctrine in which every single piece of property is owned publicly, and everyone is paid in connection to their needs and abilities. Considering how racial tensions were in the ‘20s and the lack of laws promoting desegregation at the time, you could see why Hughes praised the politics of the Communist Party. In 1953, during the cold war, Hughes was called for his communist views upon the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that was led by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Before they called him up to testify, the committee read his poem “Democracy”. It was about the ability for everyone to vote is automatically given inside a democracy, and a freedom that the poem focuses on. He testified that he wasn’t a communist but sympathized that his views were truly moral as he wanted equality within the African American community. No one will ever know the influence of his testimony towards the subcommittee, but considering the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, there had to be influence towards the

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The Harlem Renaissance was a period in American history, which occurred in the 1920s in Harlem, New York. The cultural movement was an opportunity for African Americans to celebrate their heritage through intellectual and artistic works. Langston Hughes, a famous poet, was a product of the Harlem Renaissance. One notable piece of literature by Hughes is “Dream Deferred”. However, the discussion of African American culture isn’t limited to the 1920s.

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1.Langston Hughes was an African-American author, poet, playwright and a social activist in the era of the Harlem Renaissance. Langston lived in New York's Harlem and went through various experiences in the artistic period which heavily influenced his vivid works. Hughes took after the intellectual, social, and artistic atmosphere of the Harlem Renaissance and incorporated it into many of his works like “The Weary Blues”. 2.Langston Hughes is regarded as one of the most notorious and influential figures in the Harlem Renaissance. His contributions to the lively era included him writing about the world around him which brought about a familiar and relatable feeling to his African American readers and a vivid imagery to his White readers.

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How Did Langston Hughes Contribute To The Harlem Renaissance

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In fact, his poem called “Dream Deferred” was a major influence on Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. His poetry was the voice of the Harlem Renaissance, he encouraged people to make themselves heard. He once said “An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.” (Langston Hughes), meaning that if you want to do something, do it, don’t let society bring you down. So the real question is, how did Langston Hughes get to a point of

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He spent most of his childhood with his grandmother in Kansas while his mother traveled the country looking for work while his father lived in Mexico where segregation laws did not exist. When his mother came to visit, they spent a majority of their time at the library where Hughes learned to love books. Hughes was confronted with the harsh reality of racism at a young age. When the time came for him to go to school, Hughes was told he could not attend the “white” school and must travel far across town to a different school because he was “black”. Hughes’ mother refused to do this and took the issue to the school board.

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Whenever a group of like-minded people are allowed to congregate, it tends to be that the result of their collective minds leaves the world forever changed. Examples of this widespread of ideas can be found in the renaissance, the age of enlightenment, and most recently, the Harlem Renaissance. This marvellous movement was a time of great appreciation for African-American culture and heritage, which began in the slums of Harlem, New York, around 1920. This specific change in cultural tempo came about as less of a re-birth, and more of a first light for the brilliance of black poets who had been, and to some extent still were being, buried under the immense cover of the white majority in America. Each poet of this time contributed something unique and incredible to the rising movement, starting with a man named Langston Hughes.

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The Harlem Renaissance was given its name because cultural, social, and artistic explosion took place in Harlem between 1918 and mid-1930’s. During this period Harlem was the go to place for black writers, artists, musicians, poets, and many others. A majority of people came from the South, because they were fleeing its caste system to find a place where they could freely express themselves and their talents. Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Walter White and James Weldon Johnson were amongst the many artists who became very well known. Du Bois, editor of THE CRISIS magazine, the journal of the NAACP, published the poems, stories, and visual works of many artists.

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