Harlem Renaissance- Literature and Art
The Harlem or Negro Renaissance marked the 20s and 30s as a period where the spirituality and potential of the African-American community was expressed in the most explosive way possible. Black art had been relatively unknown to the American public until then, at least to the urban communities. Centered in the Southern states and with a freedom of expression generally trampled with, black art expression was simply censored or manifested itself in its raw forms. The migration to the Northern metropolis after the First World War was similar and implied the development, in all its forms, of Black culture. This included literature (poetry and prose), music (jazz played in the notorious Cotton Club and elsewhere), visual arts (painting) and acting in musicals.
Langston Hughes, one of the most representative creators of the Harlem Renaissance, best resumed this period as being a period when "Negro was in vogue." This brief statement meant not only that the Harlem Renaissance was a period of awakening for the African-American community, but also the fact that the white population enjoyed Black forms of creation. The rebel period after the First World War, with the Jazz Age and the prohibition, involved openness from the American towards the exotic and what they saw as unusual. In this sense, the African-American culture was, for them, something different, as many of the White communities in Northern states had but minor contacts with it in history. They were interested in its forms of manifestation and the numerous patronages of black artists during this time created ripe premises for Black culture to develop and evolve.
One of them, centered on the
cultural heritage, implied a
definition of the African-American community as a profoundly philosophical and psychological entity. On the other hand, spirituality certainly had a protest component in it as well. Magazines such as The Crisis, where W.E.B DuBois, one of the preeminent figures of the Harlem Renaissance, wrote and The Messenger politically sustained the black intellectual and had an impact in the fight for African-American rights. Other magazines, like Opportunity, turned to patronage and organized contexts where young black writers could make their debut and publish their work.
Perhaps the manifesto of the Harlem Renaissance can be considered The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke, which appeared in 1925. The book featured literary works by several rising black intellectuals that were to make a name in the following decade. The book contained fiction by Jean Toomer or Zela Neale Hurston,
poetry by Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes, as well as a
play by Willis Richardson.
I have named this collection a manifesto and it was so from more than one point-of-view. First of all, it was the first collection of works by African-Americans in history. However, even more important, it was a way of gaining the world's attention towards what Black culture is all about and promoting it to the public. It may be considered a manifesto because it presented something new, new ideas, new ways of presenting them. Finally, the book also contained a series of essays, defining for what the Harlem Renaissance culture was all about. These were the
theoretical foundation of the movement, explaining the premises: "a new interest in
sociology (particularly concerning the Migration), an increased interest in the Negro past, and, most especially, intense affirmation and discovery of the
validity of Afro-American folk culture."
The movement continued the subsequent year with the Fire
magazine, the first magazine containing the works produced by the African-American community. The idea came from Langston Hughes, who had written previously that year an essay entitled "The Negro Artist and the Racial…
