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The Harlem Renaissance

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In the 1920’s, creative and intellectual life flourished within African American communities in the North and Midwest regions of the United States, but nowhere more so than in Harlem. The small New York City neighborhood was filled with black artists, poets, intellectuals, writers, and musicians. Black-owned businesses, from newspapers, publishing houses, and music companies to nightclubs, cabarets, and theaters, helped fuel the neighborhood’s thriving scene.During the Harlem renaissance era many poets used their poems as a platform to bring about African American voices into the conventional American society. These poems touched people and encouraged them to read more.Some of the era’s most important literary and artistic figures migrated …show more content…

It integrated black and white cultures, and marked the beginning of a black urban society. A group of people who once held no power and position in a community were now thriving as they spread their culture and ideas. The writing of literature, the composing and performing of music and the production of visual arts was no longer seen simply as an act of creativity; it was a means of “rehabilitating the race in world esteem from that loss of prestige for which the fate and conditions of slavery have been so largely responsible.” Black Americans had entered a new state of racial confidence and felt they had to find alternative ways to disprove the ancient prejudices that prevailed in America. The educated part of the African American community was convinced that they could oppose the stereotype by proving their intellectual ability. They hoped that an increased cultural output would work against the American notion of white supremacy and show that Blacks were no longer willing to accept their alleged status of an uncivilized people without culture. Many held the opinion that white Americans would not treat them as equals unless and until the former slaves proved themselves to be equal, so the importance of culture experienced a huge increase during the early 1920s. The topics that prevailed during the Harlem Renaissance reflected that feeling of marginality and alienation that African Americans were facing. These themes occurred in literature of that period as well as in arts and music. Still, the Harlem Renaissance was as diverse as a movement as the people that created

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The cultural impact of the Harlem Renaissance was paramount in creating a collective shift of consciousness in America. This shift was the byproduct of the Great Migration forcing a environment for art, philosophy and religion to proliferate. Furthermore, these driving factors provided an abundance of exposure of African American culture to the rest of America particularly white America. Moreover, this environment was teeming with creativity producing great music, poetry and actors. In addition, the environment also was intellectually driven from philosophers, writers and bloomed progressive sects of religion.

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This paper is all about how the Renaissance shaped African American culture. In this paper you will read about famous black people of that time, special events that occurred and more. The 1920’s period was known as the Harlem Renaissance. This was a time where black people and white people discovered the uniqueness of art, culture, society. From 1918 to the mid 1930s talent began to expand with the new culture of the blacks in the Harlem community.

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The Harlem Renaissance is a term that encompasses an intellectual and literary movement of the 1920s and 1930s. A renowned scholar, Alain Locke, argued that “Negro life is seizing its first chances for group expression and self determination” (1926). Moreover, The Harlem Renaissance refers to the re-birth of African Americans who needed “an affirmation of their dignity and humanity in the face of poverty and racism” (Gates, 1997: 929). In their research, Shukla and Banerji state the the Harlem Renaissance “can be considered as the spring of Afro-American voice” that previously remained unheard and unnoticed (2012). For the first time black musicians and artists came to the fore of attention and started to be praised for their work.

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The Harlem Renaissance was such a significant moment for African Americans in particular and also for Americans in general, because it allowed them to express themselves through their own unique culture. For example, the text remarks, “The “New Negro” was a way contemporary writers, critics, social activists, and intellectuals used to define an African American population less concerned with the artistic standards of white and European culture, and more interested in self-expression and a distinctive African American culture” (Paragraph 3). In addition, American culture changed unquestionably as a result of the Harlem Renaissance due to political upheaval, economic transformation, and a huge increase in diversity. One reason for cultural change

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My next and final topic that I chose is The Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was rooted in the struggle for black civil rights. During and about right after WWI, in a phase of the Great Migration, some half a million African Americans moved from the rural South to the cities of the North. Most people moved in hopes of escaping the poverty and the oppression of Jim Crow Laws. They encountered racist hostility nearly as bitter as they experienced in the South.

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If they did not want to take part in the racial typecast, they did musical comedies. The artists of the Harlem Renaissance impacted on all American culture. For some reason, White Americans could not look away. The Harlem Renaissance art often used bold colors arranged in a new type of fashion. Many of these pieces showed African Americans as educated, dancing, making music, dining or doing other activities.

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The Harlem Renaissance took place in the 1920s , the African-Americans developed a new culture and they could freely express themselves / ideas . Before this , they experienced the Jim Crow laws from the south . The African-Americans escaped it by moving to harlem . The Harlem Renaissance helped the Africans shine with their culture and arts . The whites came to harlem to enjoy the blacks music and shows .

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The Harlem Renaissance was a black literary and art movement that began in Harlem, New York. Migrants from the South came to Harlem with new ideas and a new type of music called Jazz. Harlem welcomed many African Americans who were talented. Writers in the Harlem Renaissance had separated themselves from the isolated white writers which made up the “lost generation” The formation of a new African American cultural identity is what made the Harlem Renaissance and the Lost Generation unique in American culture because it influenced white literacy and it was a sense of freedom for African Americans.

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American culture today is extremely diverse, reflecting the creative explosion of African American arts in the 1920s. This expressive transformation of culture was called The Harlem Renaissance, which America could not cast away or ignore. This social, cultural, and artistic outburst impacted the lives of many African Americans like Louis Armstrong and Langston Hughes and their culture with revolutionary art, literature, and music, and this movement made blacks more acceptable to America, as they embraced their own culture and heritage. During the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance flourished because of the achievements and culture of African Americans’ literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts.

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The Harlem Renaissance was a period of great cultural growth in the black community. It is accepted that it started in 1918 and lasted throughout the 1930s. Though named the ‘Harlem’ Renaissance, it was a country-wide phenomenon of pride and development among black Americans, the likes of which had never existed in such grand scale. Among the varying political actions and movements for equality, a surge of new art appeared: musical, visual, and even theatre. With said surge, many of the most well-known black authors, poets, musicians and actors rose to prevalence including Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Louis Armstrong, and Eulalie Spence.

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Everyone was happy and living life the way they wanted to. Most people in Harlem spent their nights in cabarets dancing and singing along to the jazz music being played. The burgeoning of African American culture grew even more when poets merged into the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem, for many people, “evoked images of ‘hot, throbbing jazz’ of ‘happy go-lucky negroes’ rubbing shoulders with ‘angry black poets’”

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The shame wasn’t a cause for them to turn away from the love for their culture, it just made the proud of their deep black beautiful roots. The black artists of the Harlem Renaissance put a visual scene to the joy, pain, laughter, tears, and the ugly truth within this endearing culture. The literature of the Harlem Renaissance gave an intellectual opinion in American during in the turn of the 20th century. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance have had a profound impact on the American society today.

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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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There were many events throughout American history that have shaped our nation into what it is today. Though some of them were a rough patch at the time it only brought us to a brighter future. Many stride have been made for American citizens. A few of these events are the Gospel of Wealth, Women 's suffrage, White man 's burden, Espionage and Sedition Acts, and the Harlem Renaissance. These are just a few example of how hardship leads to better times.

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Racism is a prominent issue or a serious problem in the American society since the beginning and the Americans are still struggling to eradicate this problem from their land. American soil has witnessed civil rights movements concerning this issue in the past. However in 1920, a movement got initiated to promote black identity known as Harlem Renaissance. It was also a fine arts movement that led to an increase in black confidence, literacy rate, and black culture. Writers wrote about their roots and the current society.

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