Langston Hughes: The Harlem Renaissance

Over the course of history, America has struggled with adversity and soared with prosperity. From the Great Depression to the first man on the moon, the United States has experienced it all. A crucial event in America’s history that does not receive the recognition that it should is the Harlem Renaissance. Prominent from the “Roaring Twenties” until the Great Depression, the Harlem Renaissance was an explosion of African American cultural pride, particularly in the creative arts (Hutchinson 2015). Not only was African American culture reborn, but American culture as a whole (“The Harlem Renaissance” 2015). The Harlem Renaissance is considered the most influential literary movement in African American history (Hutchinson 2015). Through the use

Langston Hughes was one of the most prominent figures of the Renaissance. He reflected his roots in African American culture in his poetry using the rhythm of blues and jazz (“The Harlem Renaissance” 2015).Claude McKay wrote poems that raised awareness, such as "The Lynching." He displayed the anger and opposition African Americans felt during World War I (Lawson 2003). Jessie Redmon Fauset, one of the best fiction writers of the era, was an educated woman who hoped to prove blacks’ value to American society. She displayed African Americans as mainstream Americans in her novels (Lawson 2003). She was interested in cultural mainstream Americans in her novels. She was interested in cultural problems like social status and econmonic welfare, but she incorporated race issues in her works as well (Lawson 2003). E. Franklin Frazier and Alain Lock exposed the problems faced by black Americans in an atttempt to induce change, similarly to how journalists and novelists due the Progressive era had done (Lawson

African Americans were hit especially hard by the Great Depression because Jim Crow segregation and racial violence was prevalent. African Americans didn’t gain legal equality until the modern civil rights era of the late 1950s and early 1960s (Bodenner 2006). Even though the Harlem Renaissance had essentially ended, Renaissance writers continued producing works. Renaissance writers transitioned to black writers of the civil rights era. The Black Arts Movement of the 1960s looked to avoid any influence from white culture (Bodenner 2006). The movement was not incorporated into mainstream society like the Harlem Renaissance, but it influenced future generations of black writers all the same. Black literature was considered its own genre and black authors appeared on best-seller lists (Bodenner 2006).

The growth of the African American middle class has caused black writers to decreasingly rely on white audiences for support. Black writers have been inrtoduced to the white mainstream through cultural forces like the “Oprah Winfrey Show” (Bodenner 2006). Just as they began the legacy of jazz and blues, African Americans helped create rock and roll, the musical phenomenon of the second half of the 20th century. Soul, R&B, funk, hip hop, and rap music all orginate from African American culture. Hip hop has become one of the U.S.’s foremost culural export (Bodenner