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Social Change In The Harlem Renaissance

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Imagine Harlem, New York in the mid 1920’s; the rising amount of free African Americans to find a new life with jobs in the North. Imagine the burst of African American culture, the new music, art, and literature. This image represents the Harlem Renaissance; the rebirth of African American culture. The Harlem Renaissance is the name given to the cultural and social movement which took place in Harlem, New York between the end of World War I and towards the middle of the 1930s. The Renaissance focused on the culture of African Americans and the new forms of music, art, and literature. Specifically, jazz and blues, poetry, dance, and musical theater became more apparent. After struggling for years for the abolishment of slavery, African Americans …show more content…

To begin, Billie Holiday’s song, “Strange Fruit”, includes chilling imagery to help the listener imagine the treatment of African Americans. As sang in the song, “Here is fruit for the crows to pluck / For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck / For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop / Here is a strange and bitter crop,” (Holiday, 1939). The “strange fruit” refers to African Americans who had been lynched, and were hanging from the trees. The truly chilling imagery helps listeners come to grips with the horrible injustices of the South even long after slavery was abolished. Furthermore, “Wade In The Water” by Beverly McLean includes information about the Underground Railroad which was mostly led by Harriet Tubman. As stated in the song, “Wade in the water/Wade in the water, children,/Wade in the water/God’s gonna trouble the water,” (McLean). This song explains the struggle that slaves had to go through to escape using the underground railroad without getting caught. Additionally, the lyric, “Wade in the Water” was used by Harriet Tubman to signal the slaves to get off of the trail and into the water so the dogs of the slave owners wouldn’t be able to sniff out their

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In Northup’s account of being denied the basic human right of water, lips parched, he could think of “nothing but water—of lakes and flowing rivers, of brooks where I [Northup] had stopped to drink, and of the dripping bucket, rising with its cool and overflowing nectar, from the bottom of the well” (Northup 36). He describes the agony of being deprived of any form of hydration and the intense craving his body develops as time passes. By painting such a romanticized image of thirst, Northup effectively conveys the desperation that overwhelmed him while being punished for defying his slavemaster. Northup builds up the figurative language describing water, and appeals to the readers’ visual, sensory, and gustatory senses. Through imagery of the flowing rivers and the cold, overflowing nectar of water, he effectively appeals to the emotional response of fellow black americans and sympathetic white citizens who can relate to the fundamental human need for water.

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Years before we started our constitution with “we the people…;” years before we distinguished society to be separated into colors -- black, white or somewhere in between; years before we pledged together to be “...one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all…,” we lived under the British rule. However, with the sacrifices of many men who made history come to life, we gained our freedom. Soon our America turned into my America -- my as in the “white” America. The cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance approached later on in the early twentieth century, where vibrancies of new perceptions emerged in the minds of many African Americans. However, this white America proved to be an obstacle, taking away the freedom and excitement that the African Americans felt after years of oppression.

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726 Words | 3 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance was an awakening of African American culture which began to spread and influence society in areas including music, art and poetry. The moment gained popularity and for the first time, African American culture was being celebrated in American society, which led to the concept of the “New Negro”. (Doc. 2 Harlem Renaissance) Jazz music and Louis Armstrong, a famous African American jazz artist, began gaining popularity across the United states and became a big part of the American culture (Doc 3. Lois Armstrong’s Trumpet).The Harlem Renaissance was also remembered for bringing powerful poetry to literacy, including the great work of Langston Hughes (Doc 4.

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287 Words | 2 Pages

Jean Toomer’s poem “Portrait in Georgia” and Billie Holiday’s song “Strange Fruit” are both similar because they discuss the inequalities African Americans had to endure. For instance, in Toomer’s poem, he talks about a woman being lynched. Each part of the woman is described in connection to the abuse that the African Americans had to experience. Toomer compares her hair to a rope that would be used to lynch slaves. The woman’s eyes are represented as the wood that would burn the African Americans.

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Duke Ellington was a jazz author, conductor, and entertainer amid the Harlem Renaissance. During the developmental Cotton Club years, he explored different avenues regarding and built up the style that would rapidly bring him overall achievement. Ellington would be among the first to concentrate on melodic shape and sythesis in jazz. Ellington composed more than 2000 pieces in his lifetime. The Duke Ellington Orchestra was the "house" symphony for various years at the Cotton Club.

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The 1920s paved the way for many developments in African American culture and resolutions to their challenges. Consequently, out of the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance was born. The Harlem Renaissance was a reawakening of African American culture throughout the decade. During this period, an explosion of art and music, particularly jazz, advanced the perception of African American culture and people (Document H). Additionally, the Great Migration made a better life possible for African Americans.

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The Impact of the Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an era of showcasing the cultural, social, and artistic views of the African American community of Harlem from 1918 to 1937. From literature to music, African Americans paved a new road for future generations of the world. The Harlem Renaissance had a dramatic influence on the world because of its development, the people involved, the advances in music, and through the societal changes.

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The Harlem Renaissance was an important event for the life of an African American. During this time, other people decided to give the African Americans a chance because they saw what talent the African American race had with music, art and sports. By giving them a voice, they finally had a chance to get the rights they deserved. After the Civil war, African Americans were free by law, but they still had to fight for almost everything they wanted.     The African American group got so popular by their abilities in art, sports and music.

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The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.” (Douglass,

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Soon after he was inspired to write this shady poem, he approached Billie Holiday a famous African American singer to voice his poem as a song. This song voiced by her brings a very emotional and horrifying event about the oppression against people of colors at the Southern of United States in the early twentieth century. Therefore, I will be covering this song in depth from top to bottom about the opening stanza that starts the background of injustice and inequality actions minorities of blacks had encounter in the Southern America, explain how this song really means to Billie Holiday, shows how some element poetry is broken down in this poem, and successfully point out how this poem to affect our lynching in the history of America. First, throughout the poem of “Strange

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‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’ was a Negro Spiritual that was sung by African-Americans during the period of slavery. Although the spiritual is very short, sweet, and straight to the point; there are many key factors inside that can help one analyze and break it down. ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ is thought to be a code melody or coded tune, and is one of many spirituals that connect specifically to the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was neither a railroad nor underground, however was rather a way for people and places serving the shared objective of helping those bound by slavery to get away. Those escaping bondage regularly moved northward from concealing spot to concealing spot under front of darkness and camouflage.

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African Americans lived in a world of racial injustices and cultural restrictions until the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a time where there is an African American literary and art movement in the uptown Manhattan neighborhood. It is the turning point in African American culture, as well as their place in America. The African Americans were starting to become equal in American society. While the Renaissance built on earlier traditions of African American culture, it was greatly affected by the trends of the Europeans and white Americans.

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1516 Words | 7 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that reflected the culture of African Americans in an artistic way during the 1920’s and the 30’s. Many African Americans who participated in this movement showed a different side of the “Negro Life,” and rejected the stereotypes that were forced on themselves. The Harlem Renaissance was full of artists, musicians, and writers who wrote about their thoughts, especially on discrimination towards blacks, such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Langston Hughes. The Harlem Renaissance was an influential and exciting movement, and influenced others to fight for what they want and believed in. The Harlem Renaissance was the start of the Civil Rights Movement.

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1409 Words | 6 Pages

The only source of symbolism in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” comes from the line saying, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers”(CITE STORY). This statement

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The 20th century can be fairly considered as the most important period in the history of African American people because it is just the time when racism discrimination was overcome. For many years before the beginning of the struggle for rights of African-American people, there was a legal system based on white supremacy. African Americans didn't have a real opportunity to vote. Segregation was spread everywhere: black people were not allowed to take seats in public transport which belonged to whites, they could not attend universities and schools for white people, it was even forbidden to drink from the same drinking fountains. Many shops and stores, cafes and restaurants refused service African Americans and treated them as inferior people.

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