Harlem Renaissance began at the end of the Civil War as a consequence of changes in the [625426]

Harlem Renaissance began at the end of the Civil War as a consequence of changes in the
African -American society . Despite ongoing racism and discrimination in society, many African –
Americans improved their socio -economic condition, and gradually established an educated
middle class, especially in cities. The Great Migration1 has brought hundreds of thousands of
blacks in the towns of the United States, especially the Northern, more tolerant, states. Black
people became to be interest ed in arts, and literature, as forms of expressing their sentiments, and
depict their lives. In one of the most important publication of the time, the official magazine of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Crisis , W.E.B
Du Bois, the key figure of the Black cultural and political activism of the 1920s , called for a
Movement of Renaissance of American Negro Literature2, “for the strange, heart -rending race
tangle is rich beyond dream and only we can tell the tale and sing the song from the heart.”3
By 1925, New York Herald Tribune proclaimed that a "Black Renaissance" was well
defined4. Now best known as the Harlem Renaissance, it was a period of vigorous cultural
growth, which coalesced around a group of young creati ve writers, artists, musicians, and active
social thinkers established or activating in the New York’s Manhattan borough , Harlem, around
1920. Critics and historians have struggled to understand the movement and its impact over the
years: What were its his torical roots? How important is its art? How popular and enduring is its
legacy? Studying Harlem Renaissance and its role in American culture, how African Americans
contributed to the rapidly changing world of early twentieth century, helps scholars not on ly
understand the complexity of that era but also develop insights into the cultural and political
legacy, and attitudes that exist in American society today.
Harlem Renaissance is part of the cultural upheaval after World War I5 that found all of the
Ame rican society trying to reach an agreement with the transition from a rural lifestyle to that of
an urban and industrialized one. I n American history, politics and culture, it can illustrate
perfectly the period following the First World War, as a transiti on to the era of the Great
Depression and the New Deal. In the background of the Movement, we have Booker T.
Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois and the National Association for th e Advancement of Colored
People , the slowdown of agriculture in Southern United State s and migration of many African

1 Sabina G. Arora, The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance , Britannica Educational Publishing, New
York, 2016, pp. 5 -7.
2 Harold Bloom, W. E. B. Du Bois , Chelsea House Publishers , New York, 2009, p. 73.
3 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk , Oxford University Press , New York, 2008, p. 175.
4 Steven C. Tracy, Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance , University of Illinois Press , United States of
America, 2011 , pp. 1 – 14.
5 Jennifer D. Keene, The United States and the First World War , Routledge, Abingdon -on-Thames, 2014, pp. 85 -88.

American families to Northern cities, the segregationally “Jim Crow” laws, the resurgence of the
racist movement Ku Klux Klan (KKK)6 and the 1919s race riots.7
With much of the literature focusing on realistic representation of life, conservative critics
feared that the literary representations of the ghetto would inform people about racial
discrimination and this would animate reacti ons and have a political impact . The intention of the
movement was not political, however but creative. Nevertheless, the burgeoning black
contribution to literature questioned racial prejudice, and the cultural production and
effervescence of the Movement reflected in the social -political problems and problematizations
of the Black community. As Langston Hughes puts it: the expression of “our individual dark –
skinned selves without fear or shame”, represented not only an emancipatory act from the long
period of humiliation and sufferings, but also an anticipation for the ongoing struggles for equal
rights. Harlem Renaissance influenced future generations of black writers but mostly ignored by
the literary establishment after its fall starting with 1930. Nevertheless, with the Civil Rights
Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, Harlem won full recognition and began to be reappreciated
and studied as an important
I found this topic relevant because African -Americans are still lesser known and studied,
and this Movement, in my view, is the turning point in their evolution, the promotion of their
culture as it has never been before. Another reason is that it fits my interest in ethnic studies,
ethnic culture and racial politics within the field of American Studies.
The Movement was mostly investigated from the cultural and political points of view, but
less as evaluation of the impact that it had on the evolution of African -American cultural and
political life, or influences on other similar movements, such as the Chicano Movement.
The subject is worthy to be researched because its implications were so great that it totally
influenced the way in which African Americans evoloved or how they are seen in society till
today. Harlem Renaissance is the fountain of the African -American culture that we see today.
My major contribution in th is paper will be in the chap ter, where I discuss the Harlem
Renaissance’s legacy and impacts on the cultural and political movements throughout the 20th
Century. Here I will present African -American culture after the Second World War, African –
American political activism during the Ci vil Rights Movement and the case study about the
influence that Harlem Renaissance had on Chicano Movement.
My focus is to time travel back then and to reconstitute the facts that lead to the movement,
its effects, how it ended, the aftermath and the impac t on society later on. The three chapters that
compose the paper can be briefly summarized as follows:

6 David Mark Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan , Duke University Press , Durham,
North Carolina, 1981, pp. xi -xii.
7 Jan Voogd, Race Riots and Resistance: The Red Summer of 1919 , Peter Lang Inc., New Y ork, 2008, pp. 24 -36.

The First Chapter is an introduction to the period between The Amendments of the Civil
War and the Reconstruction Era, discussing the impact of the Firs t World War and how this was
a major point in starting the Great Migration. In the last part of the first chapter, namely: Harlem –
New York, I explain how this was one of the most favorable places for them to refugee.
In the Second Chapter I present the cul tural and political influence that Harlem Renaissance
had on American and European society, mentioning the concept of “New Negro” and the fruits
of this artistic period (such as representatives and cultural expressions).
In the Third Chapter , my main contr ibution to this paper, I present the legacy and impacts
that Harlem Renaissance had on other cultural and political movements throughout the 20th
Century where I present the African -American culture after the aftermath of World War II, black
activism durin g the Civil Rights Movement and a case study regarding the movements influence
on the Hispanic Chicano Movement.
In the Conclusion, I summarize some of the key aspects of the Movement’s impacts and
contributions and I discuss the major role that it had in the way in which African American
culture and African American political activism is perceived till today: as characteristics of
Black communities, but also as cultural -political examples that became influential in other
communities and appreciated by the entire American society till today.

1. Historical, political and geographical circumstances

Slave -owning in the United States was the legal institution of servitude that enslaved
Africans and African -Americans in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, after gaining
sovereignty and before the end of the American Civil War. Slavery exist ed from the beginning of
the British North America, and it was authorized in all 13 colonies at the point of the 1776
Declaration of Independence.
During the American Revolution (1775 -1783), the status of slaves institutionalized as a class
associated with African origin. When the United States ratified the Constitution (1789), a
relatively small number of black people existed among voters (male field owners). During the
Revolutionary War and immediately after, abolitionist laws were passed in the Nordic St ates and
developed the movement in the abolition of slavery. Utmost part of these states had a higher
proportion of the workforce than in the South and free economies based on different industries.
These countries gradual abolished slavery until the late 1 8th century. But the rapid expansion of
the cotton industry in the South after the discovery of the cotton gin greatly improved the need
for slave laborers and southern slave states extended as slave societies. Those states have tried to
expand slavery int o new territories to maintain their share of Western political power in the
nation; Southern leaders wanted to annex Cuba also to use it as a slave nation. The United States
became polarized over the matter of slavery, slave states and slave free states we re classified by
the Mason -Dixon Line,8 which divides free Pennsylvania from Delaware and Maryland.
As the 19th century drew to a close, nearly 8 million African -Americans s till lived in the
South. Just three decades after the closure of slave -owning, life for most African -Americans has
demonstrated to be increasingly severe. With separate but equal rights, the law of the land
enforcing segregation could be a brutal enterprise. Consequently, many blacks were beginning to
look for a way out of the South. Sta rting in the 1890s, African -Americans began to migrate
North and West. The Great Migration and would last for generations to come. By the time it
ended it with arguably the largest exodus of people in American history. But it began with the
slow stream of pioneers.
The late 19th century was a period when things were getting pretty desperate in the South
and anyone who had a political opinion to express had to leave. African Americans carried with

8 John Davenport, The Mason -Dixon Line , Chelsea House Publishers , New York, 2004, pp. ix -x.

them much more than their meager possessions; they brought t heir hopes, their dreams, and their
culture. Versatility is such an essential part of freedom, an opportunity for self -realization, to
find themselves. The trunk on the neck of Americans belongs to Jim Crow, the set of legal and
extra -legal measures; 9 They tried to keep blacks in their place. At the moment they woke up to
the time they went to sleep, every phase of their lives was regulated and restricted by an artificial
hierarchy that replicated aspects of enslavement. There were a black -and-white Bi bles to swear
and tell the truth out in Court. It was opposing the law for black and white people to indeed
perform checkers mutually, and that had an extend over every single thing they could do and
everything that they could imagine themselves being.
In Memphis 1892, at a place called The Curve, whites took the People`s Grocery, a food co –
op own by a well -respected African -American Thomas Moss. The success of Mosses store
threatened the white competitor. To put them out of business they organized a mob at tack. Moss
and its partners took up arms to defend. Moss and its associates took up arms to protect
themselves. At the time the smoke cleared, several of the attackers lay wounded while Moss and
its defenders were hauled off to jail Soon, a lynch mob came, pulled them from their cells and
drag them to the outskirts of the municipality. “There, before a group of local reporters, Thomas
Moss was asked if he had anything left to say, he answered: Tell my people to go West, there is
no justice for them here.”10 The Moss case drew the attention of many African -Americans in the
South, largely due to Mosses confidence with writer Ida B. Wells. A series of intriguing
editorials published in her newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech, Wells condemn the Moss
killings and t he practice of lynching. When Ida B. Wells decides to say that there`s only one
thing they can do, to save their nickels and leave Memphis. With that being said, Ida B. Wells
born into slavery became country`s heading anti -lynching campaigner. Her words i nfuriated her
white neighbors who ruined her newspaper buildings and threatened her with lynching if she
ever returned to Memphis. The truth about lynching according to Wells was that it was an
unforgivable act of commercial envy and sexual tension, an ins trument of terror and control. In
the weeks and months following thousands of black people from Memphis join the early
departure out of the South. Their emigration created a problem; the Southern economy was still
largely agrarian, dependent upon African -Americans to do the jobs no one else wanted. At a
wage, few others would accept. Black people are leaving the South, and indeed, curiously
enough, there is a push -back on the part of many whites in the South, and they had to calibrate
their bestiality becau se they were losing these people, why that`s not the game plan. Who would

9 Jerrold M. Packard, American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow , St. Martin's Press, New York, 21 June 2003,
pp. 16 -84.
10 Patricia Madoo Le ngermann, Gillian Niebrugge, The Women Founders: Sociology and Social Theory 1830 –
1930, A Text/Reader , Waveland Press, Illinois, reissued in 2007, pp. 150 -154.

cook, clean and care for the children till the fields harvest the crops? The interaction between the
previous slaveholders and those who were bound had not changed radically when it came to
personal intercommunications and the expectations of how one should behave.
The dawning of the 20th century brought brutal repression to the African -Americans, but the
strategies they applied to fight back led to profound changes in American socie ty as black people
reinvented themselves. The migrants were fleeing the South realign the racial composition of
virtually every city in the North and the Midwest of United States, and in the process, black
culture encountered a renaissance and unusual econ omic and political road.
Jim Crow was not just a set of laws excluding black people from public accommodations It
was a code of regulation that reduced African -Americans to second -class citizenship. To reach
your maturity at that time, as a male you were expected to step off sidewalks, your eyes were
never to gauge directly into those of a white person. The policing of a population, life was one of
saturated, oppression. Lynching was fast enhancing the weapon of choice for imposing Jim Crow
and strengtheni ng the concept of white domination.
By the turn of the century, at least three lynching occurred each week. Some were widely
advertised and drew large crowds, picnic baskets in tow. Figure if you found some population 50
miles away from an announced event of punishment, a lynching, they would pack suitcases and
get on the buggy to hurry there. Multiply and see how you have masses of people there to take
part and to leave home with souvenirs of the flesh and bone of the victim. That was a barbarism
that left the South beyond the light. These horrible events spared no one, man, woman or child
and they didn`t always involve a rope and a tree.
The Emancipation Proclamation has not kept its title. People had not been free. The Great
Migration is really about fre edom, identity; it`s about claiming one citizenship and ultimately
about action.11 While some Afr ican-American figures advocated "leaving the South behind,"12
other influential voices were urging African -Americans to counter the song of the North and stay
right where they were. Washington believed that former slaves of their masters shared a
traditional role in the creation of the new South to help transform it economically. The South was
ever going to leave that antebellum plantation mentality behind it will require the cooperation,
black people and white people alike. Booker T. Washington was a reasonable man13 because he
was a person that he could see the world as it is. He`s saying to the blacks that they don`t need
to leave, they don`t need to go North, t hey can stay. As a rational man, Washington argued that

11 Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America , Simon & Schuster , New
York, 2004, pp. 1 -11.
12 Henry Louis Gates, The Oxford Handbook of African American Citizenship, 1865 -Present , Oxford University
Press, New York, 2012, p. 230.
13 Jacqueline M. Moore, Book er T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift , Scholarly
Resources Inc., United States, 2003, pp. 34 -36.

federal rights for African -Americans could only be from a position of economic strength and
self-sufficiency. He thought that eventually, white people would come to realize the value of
black people. He saw himself as a mediating figure between the white South and the black
South. The result of a vocational education himself, Washington claimed that by learning a trade,
African -Americans would hold the key to their advancement. He proceeded on, foundin g the
Tuskegee Institute which trained African -Americans in vocational and technical skills and
advocated self -help. Tuskegee was not alone, The Negro Women`s Club Movement created far –
reaching social networks that promoted racial uplift. Black churches a nd benevolent societies let
money to entrepreneurs starting out in business. A washerwoman named Sarah Breedlove,
relying on just such a network after changing her name into Madam C. J. Walker`s,14 she
launched a hair product company and recognized as the f irst self -made feminine millionaire,
from both blacks or whites. Fueled in part by the difficulties of Jim Crow, these success stories
were a byproduct of a system of laws that force black people to live in their world.
The Harlem Renaissance was an Afric an American cultural movement of the 1920s and
1930s. Named after the Harlem community of the New York City, this period produced about
some of the most substantial African -American artists, musicians, writers, and dancers. It
brought so many changes in t he black community, not just that it was a time of expressing, but
helped many African -Americans to gain recognition such as Langston Hughes. On his full name,
James Mercer Langston Hughes, best known as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance was an
American lyricist, social activist, novelist, playwright and one of the earliest innovator of the
latest literary art form called jazz poetry. He famously addressed the period "when Harlem was
in vogue."15 He wrote The Big Sea 1940 book , The Weary Blues 1926 poem, The Ways of White
Folks 1934 novel, books for children etc. Hughes was just one of the significant contributors of
that period, Du Bois was another great intellectual, on his full name W.E.B. Du Bois was an
American sociologist, historian, civil rights act ivist, Pan -Africanist, author, and editor. Many
consider him the greatest black intellect of the early twentieth century. An explosion of written
and artistic creativity, a time of social awareness and enlightenment among black people that
took place in Ha rlem, New York, but other cities were also involved, like New York City and
Chicago. It was a movement in which African Americans explored what it means to be an artist,
to be black, to be an American, also what it's like to be all of those three at the sa me time.

14 A'Lelia Bundles, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker , Simon and Schuster , New
York, 2001, pp. 15-23.
15 Langston Hughes, The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 13 , University of Missouri Press , United
States of America, 2002, p 177.

Like the European Renaissance, it was a social and a political movement, but also an artistic
one. It inspired literature, poetry, music, drama, ethnography, publishing, dance and fashion. As
Langston Hughes wrote about this time: “The Negro was in vogue." Langston Hughes frequently
used the term “Negro" to refer to African -Americans. The Harlem Renaissance was a period of
artistic expression, and in Du Bois eyes he believed that artistic expression was essential to
political progress and relevant in the black community. Numerous personalities believe that it
started in the Spring of 1924 where there was a party where several artists, authors, other literati
that were invited to this special reception to introduce their works. There were poetry rea dings,
excerpts from books read, portraits and dancers, and different types of recitations. Du Bois was
one of the co -sponsors of this in the person of the editorship of The Crisis , which is the
NAACP`s magazine (see first cover issued, Photo 1), also Oppo rtunity , which is the Urban
League`s magazine. This two organizations started this reception. When people think about
Harlem, they often think of Zora Neale Hurston, a representative of the African -American
Renaissance. She was part of the Great Migration and the heartbeat of the movement. To
understand the roots of the movement what started later I will go through the historical
background.

1.1. After Slavery: The Amendments of the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era

The 1920s were interesting and unusual y ears in American history. First World War (1914 –
1918) ended, and the economy was strong. A republican government was in power and mass
society was dominated by conservatism (tendency to resist change, especially those that lead to
greater individual freedo m). Most Americans wanted to be known as clean -living upright
citizens and try to make as much money as they could. In 1918, what is called "Prohibition Era"
started a widely move to reduce human consumption of alcohol, which was seen as a destructive
force in society and led to the passage of Eighteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. This
amendment banned or prohibited "the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic
beverages"16 and the Volstead Act, passed a year later, banned liquids defined as t hose with
more than an alcohol content of 0.5 percent.17 Although most Americans initially supported the
ban, it finally repealed the inability of the government to implement (some ha ve called that the
amendment act can actually cause more crime and corrupt ion, not preventing them) changes to
the national attitude. At the same point, nonetheless, there was a mood of rebellion in the air.

16 Edward White, American Legal History: A Very Short Introduction , Oxford University Press, New York, 2014,
pp. 77 -78.
17 Ibidem , loc. cit.

The Civil War Amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments)18
defended equality for emancipated slaves by banning servitude, defining citizenship, and
ensuring voting rights, adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately after the
Civil War. Reforms have been crucial to implementing the Reconstruction in the Southern
United States after the war . Their supporters saw the transformation of the US from a country
that was "half slave and half free" to one where it would be guar anteed by the Constitution the
„blessings of liberty" and will extend to the entire population, including former slaves and their
offspring.
Thirteenth Amendment (suggested and approved in 1865) abolished slavery19. Amendment
XIV (proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868) relates to civil rights and equal protection of the
laws for all people. The Fifteenth Amendment (suggested in 1869 and approved in 1870)
prohibits discrimination in voting freedoms of residents by "race, color, or previous condition of
servitude." This change did not include a specific prohibition on discrimination based on gender;
It took another nineteenth amen dment, ratified in 1920 prohibiting such discrimination explicit.
Men and women of all races regardless of slavery prior could vote in some states of the United
States early, such as New Jersey, provided they meet other requirements, such as ownership.
The amendments were designed to guarantee freedom of former slaves and to prevent
discrimination in civil rights to former slaves and citizens of the United States. The promise of
these changes was consumed by the law of the state and the decisions of fede ral courts in the
19th century. Women were denied the right to vote by the state constitution and electoral law,
leading to Susan Anthony who tried to vote in the presidential election in 1872 as an act of civil
disobedience in New York. In 1876 and later, Jim Crow regulations made certain limited rights
for African -Americans.
The term "reconstruction," in the context of US history, has two meanings. First, it refers to
the complete history of the whole country 1865 -1877 after the American Civil War (1861 -1865),
and second, it focuses on the transformation of the Southern United States between 1863 -1877,
as Congress directed the rebuild of the state and society.
Three visions occurred during the Civil War Reconstruction: reconciliations vision, which
was roo ted in coping with death and destruction that the war brought; white supremacist vision
that included terror and violence; and emancipationist, who sought full constitutional freedom,
citize nship, and equality for African -Americans.

18 Ellen Gruber Garvey, Writing with Scissors, Oxford University Press , New York, 2012, pp. 4 -23.
19 Marie Patterson, Slavery in America , Teacher Created Materials , www.teachercreatedmaterials.com , 2005 , pp. 6 –
23.

1.2 World War I

World War I was a changing period in African -American history.20 What began as a
seemingly far away European conflict soon became an event with unprecedented implications
for the black people from a social, economic and political point of view. War had dire ctly
affected all African -Americans, male and female, northern and southern, soldier and civilian.
Migration, military service, racial violence, war and years of political protest combined make
one of t he most dynamic periods of the black experience. Peopl e of color have challenged the
limits of American democracy, demanded their rights as American citizens, and asserted their
very humanity in a way so subtle and dramatic. Recognizing the importance of the First World
War is essential for a complete underst anding of the history and development of modern
African -American struggle for freedom.
When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, the War Department
planners realized quickly that the standing army of 126,000 men would not be enough to w in
overseas. The standard voluntary system proved to be inadequate in increasing troops, so on 18
May 1917, Congress passed the Selective Service Act that requires all male citizens between the
ages between 21 -31 to register for the draft.21 It was just bef ore the last act, African -American
men from all over the country joined the war effort forward. They acted as it was their
opportunity to prove worthiness for equal treatment in the United States, loyalty, and patriotism.
When America enrolled into the World War I in 1917, The US Army was reluctant to enlist
first black soldiers. 400.000 black soldiers were engaged, 200.000 served in Europe and 50.000
served in front lines. 369th and 370th Infantries became known as the Fre nch war heroes, and
369th Infantry became known as the Hell Fighters. The US did not share the same admiration
with French and black soldiers’ optimism was faced with over 25 race riots in 1919, called The
Red Summer because of the bloodshed. Even with opp osition, African -American communities
were prepared to bring democracy to their people after they did the same thing in France. This
reasoning would come to help the Harlem Renaissance.
The war, however, had a significant impact on African Americans, espec ially to the mass
who prevailed in the South. The fighting years corresponded with the Great Migration, one of the
famous domestic displacements of people in American history.

20 James T. Controvich, African -Americans in Defense of the Nation: A Bibliography , Scarecrow Press , Maryland,
2011, pp. 6 -7.
21 Congress, Selective Service Act of 1948 , published in United States, 1948, pp. 4 -30.

1.3. The Great Migration

Even with changes in the Constitution African -Ameri cans still faced brutality in the South,22
some of the America`s extremely murderous race riots occurred during the early 1900s. Black
citizens were hanged, burned and bombed out of trying to exercise their fundamental rights.
From 1889 to 1918, over 2500 b lack Americans were lynched. In response to their hard
treatment in the South, between 1910 and 1930, African -American families started to migrate in
multitude in Norther cities.
Life in the South during the 20th century was tough for African Americans. M any had no
choice but to work with low paid jobs. The laws of segregation kept African -Americans in the
South, a separate and unequal world. For them, it was racial violence the constant threat.
Dissatisfied with discrimination and lack of opportunities in the South, many African -Americans
looked North hoping to find more economic opportunities and a better life. With thousands of
blacks from the south flowing North at destinations such as Detroit and Chicago, the black
population in these cities rose shar ply. This major relocation of African -Americans it is known
as the Great Migration.
Neighbors were not separated by laws like Jim Crow decisions of the South, but by design.
The general black neighborhood in New York was Harlem. There, black artists, scien tists,
writers, musicians, actors, political leaders and many others helped at bringing to life the new US
African spirit and culture. This African American art movement known as the Harlem
Renaissance helped for the first -time black artists and intellectu als to gain recognition for their
contribution to world culture. Fueled by racial pride and identity, feeling confident, African –
American artists stood defiantly in the face of harm.
Harlem Renaissance may have eased racial attitudes among young whites, bu t perhaps the
biggest impact has been to strengthen ethnic pride among people of color.
Blues, jazz, and ragtime made its entrance up the Mississippi River from Kansas City, St.
Louis, Chicago and finally New York. Performers like Louis Armstrong, Billie H oliday, Fats
Waller, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, and dozens of others performed in speakeasies, theaters,
dance halls and clubs of Harlem – where fantasy, ironically, often let only white patrons come in.
In Harlem, these artists will influence the time, musical styles, and tastes of the whole society,
black and white.

22U.S. Congress, Congressional Record , V. 153, PT. 12, Government Printing Office , Washington, pp. 16480 –
16482.

Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement with an unprecedented explosion of literature,
music and other art in forms created and inspired by African -Americans. Centered in the Harlem
neighborhood of New York City, Harlem Renaissance was part of a national Urban Revolution
triggered by World War I (1914 -1918), with a cultural outburst that followed a dramatic influx
of Southern blacks in Northern cities during and after the war (the so -called Great Migration). It
brought the debate over racial identity and future of black Americans at foreground the general
consciousness. For almost a century before the Harlem Renaissance, African American image in
popular culture was mainly in the form of minstrels show, an incredibly popular theater form,
which described blacks in a comical way. Indeed, when African Americans were depicted
warmly, they were nonetheless presented to seem vulnerable and docile. On the other part, for
African -American author s themselves, the goal was to stop the black oppression from the South
and find the freedom and opportunity of the North empowering self -determination, even risking
their lives.
During the Great Migration, millions of people of color in the Southerners of the United
States finally had a chance to escape oppression in real life. When World War I broke out in
Europe, the late European immigration to the U.S. in 1914 was interrupted, which created a labor
deficit in the Northern industrial centers of the Unite d States. Sensing a rare opportunity of
employment, Southern blacks from poor farmers flocked North to cities such as Chicago, New
York, and Detroit.

1.4. Harlem, New York

In the 1880s and 90s, Harlem was a white upper -class community that was undergoin g
intense development; this included a mass subway transportation.23 With so much investing and
development, the values become so high that hardly anyone could walk in. By 1902, whole
buildings were abandoned, and soon developers were starving for tenants. With the Great
Migration was in progress , a major destination for African -Americans became Harlem`s
affordable house s. Due to the housing boom in the early 1900s, which gave poor blacks access to
what was an attractive white neighborhood, Harlem became a s ymbol of African -American
optimism. And because a significant number of Renaissance artists and patrons was gay, it
removed more the cultural racism and judgment.
Black residents were present continuously in Harlem district since 1630 which modernized
in the late 19th century, with tens of thousands living in Harlem. At the beginning of the Great

23 Marcy S. Sacks, Before Harlem: The Black Experience in New York City Before World War I , University of
Pennsylvania Press , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2006, pp. 75 -87.

Migration, the Northern urban black industry in the 20th century was fed by their excitement to
leave behind Jim Crow in the South for better jobs and education fo r their children and escape
from a culture of lynching and violence. During World War I, expanding industries recruited
black workers to fill jobs with poor staff. So many blacks came as a threat to the very existence
of some of the most essential industri es in Georgia, Alabama , Tennessee and Florida . Numerous
established in Harlem. In 1910, Harlem district was nearly 10% made of African -Americans . By
1920, nuclear Harlem was made out of 32.43% African -American inhabitants . The 1930 census
showed 70.18% of the black inhabitants of Central Harlem lived there. The expansion was fueled
mainly by an influx of blacks in the Southern states of the US, particularly in Virginia, North and
South Carolina, and Georgia, who took trains on the East Coast. There were als o many
immigrants from the West Indies. Blacks moved in the neighborhood , white residents left it.
Between 1920 and 1930 118.792 white people have left the district and 87.417 blacks have
reached it.
Among 1907 and 1915 some white inhabitants of Harlem opposed changes in the
neighborhood, particularly once the inflammation of black population touched west of Lenox
Avenue, which served as an ordinary color line in early 1920. Some white citizens made pacts to
not sell or rent houses to African -Americans . Others have tried to buy property and evict black
tenants, but African -American Realty Company retaliated by buying other assets and expelling
white people. Few indeed attempted to convince banks to re ject mortgages to black buyers, but
shortly gave up those efforts.
Soon after blacks motivated to jump into Harlem, the neighborhood became recognized as
the house of spiritual black protest movement. NAACP24 became active in Harlem Universal
Negro Improvem ent in 1910 and Marcus Garvey Association 1916 NAACP chapter soon came
to be the largest in the country. Randolph Philip lived in Harlem and published in radical
Messenger magazine in 1917, he spent his life in the district and was the one of the activists that
organized the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters . W. E. B. Du Bois published in Harlem
in 1920, as made James Weldon Johnson and Marcus Garvey.
Harlem Renaissance cultural phenomenon composed by the arrival of jazz music nightlife,
and accompany ing black literary movement, was followed and held in Harlem for some reasons.
The large size of its African American population made of a variety of black artists, lead the
public to refer to Harlem as the "black capital of the world." Also, the location of Harlem in New
York City, the epicenter of American culture of most businesses, has allowed close interaction

24 Wilson Record, Clark Atlanta University , “Negro Intellectual Leadership in the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People: 1910 -1940”, Phylon 17, 4th quarter, 1956, pp. 375 -376.

between black artists, white performers, wealthy patrons and established professionals ties
between the three.

2. Harlem Renaissance as a cultur al and a political movement

The cultural renaissance had several sources in black culture, primarily in the United States
and the Caribbean, and was manifested far beyond Harlem.25 As a symbolic capital, Harlem has
been a ramp for artistic experimentation in the capital of communications of the North America
helped give the "New Negroes" visibility and opportunities for publication that were not evident
elsewhere. It was nevertheless a highly popular n ight destination. Located just North of Central
Park, H arlem was mainly a white residential neighborhood, which from the early 1920s has
become virtually a black town in the district of Manhattan. Other neighborhoods in New York
City were also home to people, but often intersected in Harlem or went to special events at
Branch Street 135th, at the New York Public Library. Black intellectuals from Baltimore,
Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and other municipalities (where they had their intelligent
groups, theaters, and reading groups) also met in Harlem or settled there. New York City had a
black social world with incredibly diverse and decentralized groups in which none could manage
cultural power. Since then, it was a particularly fertile place for artistic experimentation.
Harlem Renaissance was a cultura l, political movement which lasted from the 1920s and
1930s. A sunrise part of the campaign was "New Negro," a political initiative founded in 1917
and later named after the 1925 anthology of Alain Locke. Although the Renaissance centered in
a district of the New York City, many French -speaking, black writers from African and
Caribbean colonies lived in Paris and were influenced by the movement .
Harlem Renaissance, the new phase of the New Negro Movement, which appeared at the
beginning of the 20th century, escorted in some ways the Civil Rights Movement of the end of
the 1940s and beginning of 1950s. Some of the social support of the action involved sea
migration of African -Americans from the countryside to cities and from Southern to Northen
United States. It dramatically increased the levels of literacy, the creation of national
organizations dedicated to African -American civil rights pressing "uplifting" race and socio –
economic opportunities opening up, and developing pride race, including Pan -African awa reness

25 Sabina G. Arora, The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance , Britannica Educational Publishing, New
York, 2016, pp. 24 -26.

and performances. Black exiles and refugees from the Caribbean and Africa traversed in
metropolises such as New York City and Paris following World War I and were reinforcing
effect influences on each other, which gave wider "rebirth Negro" (as it w as known then) a
profoundly significant international distribution.

2.1 NAACP and the concept of “New Negro”

In 1916 -1917, Hubert Harrison among Negro League baseball star Matthew Kotleski,
founded the "New Negro" movement, which energized the African -American race and class –
conscious demands for political equality and an end to segregation and lynching, as well as it
calls for armed self -defense when necessary.
In an anthology in 1925 , The New Negro , which came after the 1924 special issue of S urvey
Graphic on Harlem, editor Locke contrasted the "Old Negro" with "New Negro" emphasizing
assertive African -American and self -confidence during the proceedings years after the First
World War and the Great Migration.26 A part of the literary and politic al self -expression amid
African -Americans in the nineteenth century had been race pride. Nevertheless, it found a new
purpose and definition of journalism, fantasy, versification, music, sculpture and arts of many
characters connected with the Harlem Renai ssance.
"New Negro" was the term used in the speech of African -American beginning in 1895 and
extending for the first three decades, portraying the years of the advocacy of open dignity and
refusals to obey silently to the traditions of Jim Crow racial seg regation laws. Popularized by
writer and philosopher Alain LeRoy Locke, the New Negro concept received the most attention
around 1917 -1928, when it became better known as the "Harlem Renaissance."
For African Americans, the First World War highlighted the growing gap between US
rhetoric phrase: war to make the world safe for democracy, and in reality, it disenfranchised the
black farmers and exploited Southern and Northern poor slum residents. In France, the black
soldiers experienced a kind of freedom they had not known in the United States but returned to
find discrimination against blacks, who was as active as it was before the war. Many African –
American soldiers fought in separate units during World War I as Harlem Hellfighters and found
out that their h ome country citizens often did not respect and appreciate their achievements.
A change that was crucial for magazines such as the Opportunity , published by the National
Urban League; The Crisis , published by the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP); and The Messenger , a journal of socialist ultimately linked to the

26 Alain Locke, Harlem, Mecca of the New Negro , Black Classic Press , Baltimore, 1925, pp. 627 -632.

Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters , a union of black labor. Marcus Garvey's Negro World
newspaper of Universal Negro Improvement Association also played a role , but few of the
primary authors or artists identified with Garvey's "Back to Africa" movement, even if they have
contributed to the paper.
At the point of Martin Luther King, Jr. nativity “in 1929, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was already the largest and most influential civil
rights organization in the United States.27 King's father, Martin Luther King, Sr.,”28 led the
Atlanta branch of the NAACP; and in 1944 King, Jr., was a youth committee member of the
Atlanta NAACP Youth Council. Although Though Luther King assumed the power of non –
violent actions, he understood that it worked at its best when paired with litigation and lobbying
attempts of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
NAACP was formed in 1909 when teamed with progressive whites, W. E. B. DuBois and
other young blacks from Niagara Movement, a group dedicated to full political and civil rights
for African Americans. NAACP initially focused on cessation of the lynching practices , and
through lobbying efforts failed to convince Congress to enact anti -lynching laws, in the
publication of 1919 report that NAACP entitled
"Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States," made
the president of that time, Woodrow Wilson, and
politicians to condemn mob violence.
NAACP branch in 1940 founded the non -profit
Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), under the
leadership of Thurgood Marshall. The LDF went on to
win landmark in 1954 case Brown v. Board of
Education, which ruled that separate education was
unconstitutional. NAACP activists operated locally as
well. In 1955, NAACP partner Rosa Parks refused to
give up her seat on a Montgomery bus,29 helping
launch the Montgomery bus boycott, which brought
King into the national spotlight.

27 U.S. Congress, Congressional Record , V. 153, PT. 3, Government Printing Office , Washington, 2007, pp. 3715 –
3719.
28 Standford Encyclopedia, “National Association for the Advancement of Colored People”, Online Encyclopedia,
http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/
enc_national_association_for_the_advancement_of_colored_people_naacp1.1.html , Accessed on May 5, 2017.
29 Gary Jeffrey, Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott , Gareth Stevens Publishing, New York, 2013, pp. 6 –
21.

In 1957 , the King`s new organization Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
among NAACP, began to collaborate on campaigns for civil rights, starting with Prayer
Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, DC. Next year, King and NAACP Executive Secretary
Roy Wilkins met with President Dwight Eisenhower to advocate the civil rights legislation.
Although tensions arose between SCLC and NAACP, both King and Wilkins were quick to deny
to the public any disagreement between the two organizations.
In 1962 NAACP part nered with SCLC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), National Urban League and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to originate the
Voter Education Project, a campaign of voter enrollment and mobilization at the local level.
Associations j oined with “the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters next year to organize the
march on Washington for jobs and freedom. Throughout the mid -1960s, while King continued to
partner with SNCC and CORE young activists,”30 and NAACP attempted to length itself fro m
the more radical organizations, action -oriented. However, in 1966, the NAACP and SCLC were
so incompatible with the CORE and SNCC, because these groups have started to promote “Black
Power,” except of white members.
Despite the opposition of 1967,31 a pub lic statement against the war in Vietnam, Wilkins,
and King continued to work in close collaboration on civil rights issues. Pressure for immediate
action to address the needs of blacks in urban areas racially charged the protests in the summer
of 1967 for the lack of jobs. SCLC and the NAACP were both accused of being too moderate
during the 1960s and early 1970s, NAACP lost regular membership during this progressive
period, and under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, the climate continued to hurt the
organization. NAACP in 1986 moved its headquarters from New York to Baltimore, where it
began a slow recovery. Nearly a century old, NAACP continues to be the strongest political
multiracial voice for political, educational, social and economic equalit y.

2.1 Cultural expressions and major representatives of the movement

The devastation and bloodshed of World War I have led some people to return to their old
values and meanings, and also entertainment in different ways and places than they ever had
before. One of these places was Harlem, the vibrant center of African -American culture that
began to fascinate many whites in other parts of New York City and other US and European

30 Ibidem, loc. cit.
31 Adam Fairclough, Phylon, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the War in Vietnam, Clark Atlanta University , Atlanta,
1960 , pp. 19 -39.

cities.32 The old stereotypes about blacks were still there, but now people of color were seen in a
positive light. Previously, African -Americans were stereotyped as having lost original rules and
being violent animals; in 1920, they were seen as charming natural and uninhibited, free from the
limitations that kept white bodies i n line. (Meanwhile, blacks remained still subservient to racism
and widespread discrimination, and most African -Americans still lived in poverty.)
"Harlemania" take on flowering crops that occurred during the Renaissance Harlem happened,
notably because th e new industry of white intellectuals, publishers , and leaders of the arts had
orientation in the African -American culture. But their interest and many other white people more
accustomed extended even further: arrived in Harlem itself. Suddenly, it became fun and
fashionable for whites to venture into the heart of African -Americans, especially late at night,
perhaps after attending a musical show on Broadway – and frequent nightclubs where the best in
black music and dance seen and heard. Some of these visit ors were mixed, white and black
people, but most clubs remained "whites only" policy. It meant that the only black people that
saw the clubs were interpreters. Current Harlem residents were also enjoying its attractions of the
dark side, sensation clubs an d speakeasies (illegal bars or lounges) that catered black rent parties,
which were a popular form of entertainment for ordinary people. The most related characters of
the Harlem Renaissance were divided in their attitude towards Harlem blooming nightlife. Some
celebrated and embraced this period, as poet Langston Hughes (1902 -1967), referred to it often
in his works. Some despised, or at least avoided mentioning it. Members of Talented Tenth, for
example, rejected any plan that would make blacks look bad: bathtub gin (a cheap liquor, home
popular during Prohibition) and bodies gyrating on the dance floor was not their style.
The phenom perceived as the Harlem Renaissance embodied a flowering in writing and art,
the New Negro campaign. Exemplified in The New Negro (1925), an anthology edited by Alain
Locke, it marks the early work of some of the Harlem's most talented writers i ncluding poets like
Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and writers Rudolph Fisher, Zora Neale
Hurston, Jean Toomer. "New Negro," Locke announced that is different from the "Old Negro" in
assertiveness and self -confidence, which led in November A frican -American writers to question
the aesthetic standards of the traditional "white" to avoid parochialism and advertisement and to
promote individual self -expression, racial self -esteem, and literary experimentation. Spurred by a
receptivity of the blac k writers in the main American magazines, white literary book publishers

32 Richard J. Powell , David A. Bailey , Hayward Gallery , Institute of International Visual Arts , Corcoran Gallery of
Art, Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance , University of California Press , California, 1997, pp. 92 –
103.

and owners of Harlem Renaissance enjoyed rave reviews and financial rewards that lasted at
least till the Great Depression33 of the 1930s.
The Harlem Renaissance called for a mixed aud ience. Literature appealed to the African –
American middle class and whites. Magazines, such as The Crisis , a NAACP monthly journal,
and Opportunity , an official publication of the National Urban League, have used Harlem
famous writers in their editorial wo rk; They have published poems and stories by black writers;
and it has promoted African -American literature through articles, reviews, and annual literary
awards. Nevertheless , Renaissance relied much on white papers and on white publishing houses .
A major achievement of the Movement was to open the door to the main periodicals and
publishers, although the relationship between Renaissance w riters and white publishers created
disputes . WEB Du Bois did not oppose the relationship between black writers and whi te
publishers, but criticized works such as Claude McKay's best -selling novel, Home to Harlem
(1928), for appealing to the "prudent request" of white readers and editors for the black images
"licentiousness." [ Langston Hughes spoke to most writers and art ists when he wrote in his essay
The Negro Artist and the racial Race Mountain (1926) that black artists intended to express
themselves freely, no matter what the black audience or the white public thought. ] Hughes in his
writings also returned to the them e of race, but during the Harlem Renaissance, he turns his
attention and begun to explore the subject of homosexuality and homophobia. In his writings,
Hughes began to use disruptive language. He explored this topic because it was a theme that was
not disc ussed at this time and it was considered a hot topic.
African -American musicians and other performers also played for mixed audiences.
Harlem's cabarets and clubs attracted both the Harlem residents and the white New Yorkers who
were looking for Harlem's n ightlife. Harlem's famous Cotton Club, where Duke Ellington
played, led this to the extreme offering black entertainment for the exclusive white crowd.
Eventually, the most successful musicians and black artists who appealed to a mass audience
moved their performances to the city center.
Renaissance meant various things to many personages but is desirable described as a
cultural phenomenon in which a high level of artistic production and black cultural demand
received widespread recognition, where the race solidarity It equated with social progress, and
the idea of blackness has become a commodity itself. As a result, New Negro Renaissance is the
most widely discussed period of the literary history of African -Americans, not only because of
the scientific d ebate in progress on its origins, beginning, and end but also because of its
fundamental cultural importance in the mind of the twentieth century. Renaissance concurred

33 Cheryl Greenberg, "Or Does It Explode?": Black Harlem in the Great Depression , Oxford University Press, New
York, 1997, pp. 6 -8.

with the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age and with the era of the Lost Generation. The im pact has
been felt acutely individually and collectively in African American community and in America's
highest cultural industries, music, film, theater all who have received the full creativity and
contributions of African – Americans newly discovered.
Christianity played an important role in the Harlem Renaissance.34 Many critics and writers
had debated the role of Christianity in black lives . For example, a famous poem by Langston
Hughes, Madam and the Minister , reflects the temperature and mood of religi on in the Harlem
Renaissance. The cover story of The Crisis magazine in May 1936 explains the importance of
Christianity to the proposed union of the three great Methodist Churches in 1936. This section
emphasizes the dubious question about the establishme nt of a Union for these churches. The
article The Catholic Church and the Negro Priest , also published in The Crisis , January 1920,
demonstrates the obstacles of the African -American priests who face the Catholic Church.35 The
article is confronted with wha t they saw as race -based policies that exclude African -Americans
from superior positions in the church. There were other forms of spiritism met among blacks
during the period of the Renaissance. Some of these practices were inherited from African
parents. For example, the religion of Islam has been present in Africa since the eighth century
through Trans -Saharan trade. Islam came to Harlem, perhaps through the migration of members
of the Moorish Science Temple of Americ a, which was founded in New Jersey in 1913. Various
forms of Judaism, including Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism, have been practiced,
but Black Hebrew Israelites who founded their religious belief system at the beginning of the
twentieth century in the Harlem Renaissance. Traditional forms of religion were brought together
from different parts of Africa have been inherited and practiced during this period. Some
common examples were Voodoo and Santeria. The religious criticism of this age is found in
literature, art, and poetry. The Harlem Renaissance encouraged and also accepted an analytical
dialogue that included an open criticism view and the modeling of current religious ideas. One of
the most important contributors to the discussion of the cul ture of African -American revival was
Aaron Douglas, who, along with his works of art, reflected the revisions that African -Americans
made to Christian dogma. Douglas uses biblical visually descriptive or figurative language as a
source of revelation for va rious arts, but with an African stamp. Cullen Countee 's Heritage
expresses the inner fight of an African -American between its past African heritage and the new
Christian culture. A critical point of view towards the Christian doctrine can be found in
Langs ton Hughes's poem Merry Christmas, where he portrays the paradox of religion as a

34 ZORA: In Search of Zora Neale Hurston, WikiPedia Presents,
https://books.google.ro/books?id=WWDZBgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=ro#v=onepage&q&f=false ,
Accessed on May 5, 2017
35 Gerald D. Jaynes, Encyclopedia of African American Society , SAGE Publications , United States, 2005, pp. 170 –
171.

representative of the good, but still as a force for domination and injustice. It remains, during
development we assign, the birth of any major literary and artistic forms th at we now correlate
with African -American life and culture. During the Renaissance, African American visual art
about age and name list is the who's who in black modern painting, sculpture, engraving and
photography. Masters like Aaron Douglas, Archibald M otley, James VanDerZee, Lois Mailou
Jones, Meta Warrick Fuller, Palmer Hayden, Dox Thrash, William H. Johnson, Augusta Savage,
Sargent Claude Johnson, Hale Woodruff, Laura Wheeler Waring, Palmer Hayden, Beauford
Delaney, Richmond Barthe, all belong to that period. Blacks have appeared in movies and
Broadway successful musicals, frequently playing on the stereotype and exaggeration,36 as in the
Coontown, Shuffle Along, Blackbirds as well as in the Darktown Follies. The first black
filmmakers also gain recogni tion, people like Oscar Micheaux produced more than thirty films,
the majority of them between 1919 and 1935, during the height of the Renaissance.
Visibility and intensity during that period symbolized a significant change; black people
claim to speak aut hority and represent themselves and their experiences. Business leaders of
color, like Mrs. CJ Walker and others, owners of funeral homes, insurance companies and
newspapers helped create a new base of black business and organizations such as the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban League, Garveyism,
The Crisis magazine and the African Blood Brotherhood made the needs and concerns of
African Americans and black emigrants and migrants from other parts of the diaspor a known to
all.
The period between the two world wars, inspired by the economic boom, and surrounded by
artistic rebellion, blacks had become a cultural and critical mass whose collective spirit quickly
recognized for financial rewards. They were pretty mu ch not a blank slate; they brought active
cultural forms for those who have now found the full definition. Even t hough they had no choice
but to adapt during enslavement, there was a visible connection to the African heritage, one that
supported them to ge t through challenging times. Young artists have joined this magnitude
emigration of the Southern United States and were encouraged to develop the foundation of
cultural productions and expressiveness, which quickly gained access to the network of the
distribution table. Art was unique because it was extracted directly from a traditional lifestyle,
rituals, folk music and oral traditions of Africa, held in black memory and often reproduced as
the original. Also, it was unique because it took place mostly in isolation, apart from the
mainstream, transforming and adapting the culture itself .

36 Raymond Knapp, Mitchell Morris, Stacy Wolf, The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical , Oxford
University Press , New York, 2011, pp.198 -202.

With the rush of the Great Depression in 1929 came a drying up of funds for the arts. By
1933 the Harmon Foundation had stopped giving monetary awards. But throughout the d ecade, a
new breed of African -American artists flourished, among them Selma Burke, Romare Bearden,
Lois Mailou Jones, and Jacob Lawrence. Their works, like others supported by the Work
Projects Administration (WPA; a U.S. government Agency founded in 1935 to lower
Depression -era unemployment; called the Works Progress Administration until 1939), tended to
depict political and social themes. This was a time of high growth for African -American artists.
They were given space and an atmosphere of acceptance in which to develop their skills and try
new techniques and styles such as mixed media (in which elements of painting, sculpture and
other art forms are combined into one work), abstract art, and social realism. The WPA came to
an end in 1943, setting off an extended period of hardship and lack of recognition for black
artists. Not until the 1960s would their works be widely seen and appreciated in museums and
galleries. Some early artists and critics considered the visual art of the Harlem Renaissance to be
rather uninspired and unadventurous; they claimed that the black artists of the 1920s were too
eager for white approval to create original art. However, with the way of time, it has been
commonly agreed that the artists of the period faced a difficult task: they were trying to gain
acceptance in the white -dominated art world while exploring their own unique heritage,
identities, and artistic visions. Despite the obstacles, the painters, sculptors, and photographers of
the Harlem Renaissance still managed to create many arresting, unforgettable images of African –
American life in the 1920s.
The New Negro Renaissance innovative and experimental leaders,37 recognized by most
blacks, believed that production should enable people to transcend their artistic excellen ce and
the racial difference would ensure their acceptance in the race in clear terms, they would finally
receive the full benefits of democracy America promised. Art, like the vision that inspired it, it
would show the characteristic of double conscience, said W.E.B. DuBois in Souls of Black Folk.
He knew their hopes and dreams could not be fulfilled, they are forever "two unreconciled
strivings […]two warring souls in one body […] dark."

2.1.1. Literature
“The blind men gathered about the elephant. Each one felt the part of the elephant’s anatomy closest
to him, the trunk, tusk, eyes, ear, hoof, hide, and tail. Then each became an authority on the elephant. The

37 Miriam Thaggert, Images of Black Modernism: Verbal and Visual Strategies of the Harlem , University of
Massachusetts Press , Uni ted States of America, 2010, pp. 16 -17.

elephant was all trunk, or all hoof, or all hide, or all tail. So ran their separate truth s. The single truth was
that they were all blind.”38
As Harlem transformed into a hub for African -Americans in the early 1900s, African –
American writers began to develop a new atmosphere, intellectually charged. By the 1920s,
several works have received cri tical praise and appreciation from major literary circles, popular
among both black and white audiences. Originally called the New Negro Movement, this
overflow of literature evolved to be known as the Harlem Renaissance. While some black poets
proceeded t o write principally in English traditional literary forms, others have explored the
black vernacular speech and musical styles and created works which identified with the African –
American masses. Policies and ideas produced in this period would serve as mo tivation for black
artists for the next years and also contributed to set the cornerstone of the Civil Rights
Movement during the 1960s.
Although literary themes that emerged in this period were different, they focused on the
promotion of racial pride an d on African indigenous embracing feeling. Many documents dealt
with feelings of alienation faced by minorities in American society that seeks to raise those
burdened by continuing racism and stereotypes. The result was a rich union of progressive ideals
with traditional African -American beliefs and folklore.
McKay is commonly considered as the greatest poet of the Renaissance. His best of poetry,
including the self -portrait Outcast , to sonnets ranging from militant If We Must Die (1919), was
gathered in Harlem Shadows in 1922, which some judges have called it the literary first great
achievement of the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes also discovered ways to write in an
African -American street vernacular, which is a mood much broader and deeper than wa s able to
represent Dunbar's poetry. Hughes won the highest acclaim for his exploratory jazz and blues
poem in The Weary Blues (1926), plus Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927). Whereas McKay and
Hughes have embraced the rank and file of blacks in America and pr oudly identified themselves
as black poets, Cullen sought success by writing in traditional forms and used lyricism informed
by the work of John Keats. Its persistent ambivalence about racial identification as a man or a
poet is movingly evoking the most f amous poem, Heritage (1925). In contrast, in the James
Weldon Johnsons African American oral tradition, he embraced in God's Trombones (1927)
preach tribute lyrics to the folk tradition of blacks in the South.39

38 Sterling Brown, The Negro in American Fiction , Arno Press and The New York Times, New York ,
1937 , p. 1.
39 James Ciment, Encyclopedia of the Jazz Age: From the End of World War I to the Great Crash , Routledge,
2015, pp. 364 -365.

McKay and Hughes made names for themselves in prose as well.40 McKay`s Roman Home
to Harlem (1928) attracted a substantial readership, especially among those curious about
nightlife in lurid Harlem. A lasting achievement was Hughes`s autobiography The Big Sea
(1940), which contains a deeper and unsent imental account in Harlem Renaissance, ever
published. However, the most notable stories produced by Harlem Renaissance came from
Toomer (himself an accomplished poet), Fisher, Wallace Thurman, Hurston, and Nella Larsen.
Toomer's Cane (1923), a collection of poetry and drama, Avant -fiction sketches , set a standard
for experimentalism that few practitioners of either type could match the rest of the decade. Like
T.S. Eliot`s classic modernist The Waste Land (1922), Cane , although deliberately fragmented,
has been designed to achieve a combined effect using impressionistic language and attention to
problems recurring African -American identity. The Walls of Jericho (1928) by Fisher gain
recognition as the novel balanced the irony of class and color discriminati on among African –
American New Yorkers. In 1932 Fisher came out with The Conjure Man Dies often is attributed
as the first African -American detective novel. The Blacker the Berry (1929) of Thurman,
exposes the problem of the color among African -Americans an d is among the first African –
American novels to address the issue of homosexuality. Struggles and frustrations that Larsen
showed in black female protagonists in her novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929)
probably recorded problems with their creator f acing a sophisticated Negro woman, trying to
find her way into the atmosphere of racial and sexual requires in 1920, and, such as Toomer,
Larsen fell silent after the Harlem Renaissance. Leading writers of the Harlem Renaissance only,
Florida native Hursto n, whose short stories appeared in the early to late 1920s, but has not
published a novel until after the Harlem Renaissance ended, she published a work of art, which
ensured a reputation, standing among African -American novelists. In Their Eyes Were Watch ing
God (1937), Hurston embodied the ethos of supporting a vibrant community of working class in
a woman whose sassy language and heroic recovery are Janie Crawford, the largest literary
character created uniquely for the Negro generation.
Although achievi ng literary most memorable of the Harlem Renaissance was in narrative
prose and poetry, the movement inspired playwrights Willis Richardson, whose Chip Woman
Fortune (1923) produce was the first nonmusical piece an African -American generated on
Broadway. A frican American publishers such as Charles S. Johnson, whose regularly
Opportunity launched in 1923 under the auspices of the National Urban League, and Caribbean –
born writer Eric Walrond, short story writer, who published young black writers in Negro Worl d
of the Marcus Garvey`s Universal Negro Improvement Association, provided significant

40 Arnold Rampersad , The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902 -1941, I, Too, Sing America , Oxford
University Press, New York, 1988, pp. 73 -74.

visibility for writers. Anthologies, especially that of poetry overflowed during the movement.
James W. Johnson`s The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), the work of American Negro
Spirituals (1925,1926), Charles S. Johnson`s Ebony and Topaz (1927), and Cullen`s Caroling
Dusk (1927), just a few of the most notable.

2.1.2 Music
The perception of Africans and African Americans as key cultural partners has become the
significant social struggle facing black Americans in the twentieth century using the concept of
"New Negro" and the Harlem Renaissance artists sought to bring black culture beyond the status
of folk art in a position of sophistication and dignity.
William Gr ant Still can be defined as the most famous black writer of art music of that
period had as inspiration source the idea of "New Negro," a motif usually visible in his concert
compositions. Duke Ellington, a famous jazz artist, began to reflect the "New Neg ro" in his
music, especially in his jazz suite of Black, Brown, and Beige . Harlem Renaissance resulted in a
"renewed interest in black culture,"41 which has been reflected in the artwork of the whites, the
best-known example being George Gershwin Porgy and Bess. By applying the concept of "New
Negro" representation of African Americans in American music, art moved from a
misrepresentative stereotypical representation to important factors of African descent in
American cultural landscape.
The African -American and also Harlem Renaissance composer most associated with music
and art was William Grant Still, a prominent musician, social and political figure. A significant
determinant factor that had a major role to the birth of the movement was the development of an
educated African -American middle -class, where as well Still belonged. William Grant began to
study music at Wilberforce University in 1911 with the aim of producing music and opera. He
produced several instrumental works, choral works and operas during his career, often depicting
the black culture and sometimes decried American society (such as choral works in 1940 And
They Lynched Him on a Tree ).
The values inputted by the Harlem Renaissance are clearly perceptible in Still's Afro-
American Symphony , com posed in 1930, and mostly based on blues to prove that the language of
Also, Afro-American Symphony is a work program, or tone poem, intended to be an
emotional or psychological portrait of the African -American experience. In this depiction of
Black Ameri ca, to express the emotional desire, pain, and aspirations of the "Old Negro"
outdated themes of hope and prayer in his later tone poems. This series of tone poems is still a

41 Premilla Nadasen, Welfare Warriors: The Welfare Rights Movement in the United States , Routledge, New
York, 2005, p. 112.

contemporary conception of history, culture, and psychology of African -Americans;
representation of Black Americans rising from a history of slavery and pain in a position of self –
empowerment and triumph.
Troubled Island opera in 1939, a collaborative effort between William Grant Still and poet
Langston Hughes, is a closer representati on of cultural history, but as well of black tone poems.
Hughes libretto is based on the 1928 play Drums of Haiti . The libretto is about the growth and
collapse of the first Emperor of Haiti, Jean -Jacques Dessalines. Dessalines lead the Haitian
rebellion a gainst French colonists and installed in power, but as a king, he complains own
illiteracy and ignorance when asked to provide a teacher for one of the villages. The opera ends
with the death of Dessalines in the hands of a revolted population. Dessalines rise to power is the
share of African Americans, paralleling the growth of slavery. The themes of pain and ignorance
are again present in contrast to the educated and hopeful "New Negro." Troubled Island makes
the viewer to contemplate the importance of hi story, education and cultural contributions of
Black America in American culture in general.
William Grant Still incorporates in its music exemplifies the ideals of Harlem Renaissance
musical art, displaying Africa n-American fashion in his music . Afro-Amer ican Symphony was
the first ritornello written by an African -American and made a great band. He remained the first
black American to conduct an orchestra of white audience radio (Deep River Hour, 1932), lead a
major orchestra (Los PO Angeles 1936), or to r eceive a stream of commissions from major
American orchestras.
An effective contrast to his contemporary, William Grant Still, is provided by Duke
Ellington. While both are among the most well -known composers of the Harlem Renaissance
came from strikingly different environments. Ellington was never formally taught in music; he
began studying piano at the age of seven years, he taught himself piano harmony and
orchestration learned through experimentation with his band. Ellington is best known as a big
band leader and arranger, a composer, and as the voice of Jungle Music . In the 1920s and early
1930s, Ellington band was the house band for Cotton Club, Harlem. Not a modern one, Cotton
Club concerts often displayed jungle scenery and created outfits to accompa ny jungle vibration,
intended to involve the exotic music inspired by Africa. Despite early involvement of Ellington
with Cotton Club, he embraced the beliefs of Alain Locke finally, sought to reveal black music
in art, as high realized particularly when h is work Black, Brown and Beige debuted at Carnegie
Hall 1943. In 1930, Ellington communicated the desire to compose a product that would serve as
a musical history of the black experience; from South Africa, progressing through bondage, and
ultimately to H arlem (Tucker 2002: 69). The structure eventually became Black, Brown, and
Beige , although it was conceived over a decade after its conception. However, at that time,

Ellington composed several songs dealing with African -American topics, reaching Symphony in
Black (1934), Jump for Joy (1941), and the Boola unfinished work.
Black, Brown and Beige was a concept of Ellington "tone -parallel," which illustrates the
history of black Americans. The composition is supplemented by poetry written by Ellington,
depict ing music scenes meant to evoke. The general work is divided into three sections, which
are broken into songs. The first section, Black , first describes blacks in Africa and continues to
give a narrative of life as a slave of South. The Black part consists of Work Song , Come Sunday
and Light ; these songs and poems are ideas of slavery sorrow, the redemption of faith and hope
for a better future. “Brown deals with the sacrifices of black soldiers in the Revolutionary War
and connects black soldiers participa ting in World War II; marking clearly that African
Americans are loyal and dedicated as American citizens. ”42 Brown describes the black triumph
over the slavery oppression in Emancipation Proclamation song. The paper ends with Beige ,
celebrating Harlem, and portraying African Americans as a community characterized by pride
and knowledge. It consists of advancing Black, Brown, and Beige expressing racial pride and
history, the celebration of African -American identity and social advancement of black
Americans in the twentieth century. The structure stressed the continuity of black history from
slavery to the present. 43
Jazz signified the music of the Harlem Renaissance! “Jazz blossomed in the roaring
twenties, and there was no better environment to feed pure ja zz sound than in 1920 Harlem. ”44
Beside the Harlem Renaissance in full swing, jazz music became "popular," despite some
problems accepted by the black "cultural elite." Jazz remained very popular, with most people in
Harlem and growing popularity it was qui ckly national and global. “Night clubs such as Savoy
Ballroom, the Apollo Theater, and the Cotton Club were perfect places to display vibrant jazz
privacy. ”45 However, jazz is not held in the highest regard by all the inhabitants of Harlem.
Going to nightclubs and parties rent was very popular where jazz was the "intensity of the
inhabitants" but jazz is too often left out of the history of Harlem Renaissance. Ted Gioia, an
author of incredible jazz history, thinks that the black middle -class family and upper class were,
at best, ambivalent about embracing elements vernacular of African -American culture and often
explicitly unfriendly. Gioia and other jazz and i nfluential historians believed that there was a
sincere desire for rich blacks to absorb the business of white culture from the major cities, such
as the Northeastern U.S., where jazz was gaining in popularity: New York Chicago, Detroit, St.

42 Gregory Clark, Civic Jazz: American Music and Kenneth Burke on the Art of Getting Along , University of
Chicago Press , United States, 2015, pp. 92 -93.
43 Duke Ellington, The Duk e Ellington Reader , Oxford University Press, New York, 1993, pp. 153 -154.
44 ***, “Harlem Renaissance Music in the 1920s”, http://www.1920s -fashion -and-music.com/Harlem –
Renaissance -music.html , [f.a.], Accessed at 12 May 2017.
45 Ibidem .

Louis and othe rs. The appearance of Harlem stride style piano helped create a bridge between
the culture of "low life," which was perceived as jazz musicians and the black social elite. Piano
(for many was a symbol of prosperity), rather than the brass band (a symbol of the south) defined
the style of jazz. The riding style of jazz music in Harlem became more accessible, not only for
rich blacks but also for whites. Jazz's popularity was at an all -time high as the fervor increased
throughout the country.
“Harlem Renaissa nce music was defined by lively clubs and characters that have improved
and changed the sound of jazz. ”46 People like Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton and Willie "The
Lion" Smith were "gladiators" of jazz in the early years. “Perfectionists had little pati ence for
musicians with talent or skills to keep up. ”47 Competition and innovation in 1920 were fierce.
Harlem Renaissance jazz music was for many a way of life.48

2.1.3 Dance
“The black culture had a real influence on dance and other art forms in the 20th century. ”49
After the American Civil War, a wave of people from the Caribbean and Southern United States
migrated to Northern cities. “In New York, Harlem district became home to blacks from
different cultural traditions with their dance and music. ”50 Harle m became "instead of" to be
amid both black and white New Yorkers – its clubs brought commonly dance and music, which
were alive and entertaining. Dances such as Charleston and Jitterbug Lindyhop sprang from
these clubs have made jazz popular. “The influen ce of the Harlem Renaissance music and dance
in New York in the early 1920s spread to Europe. ”51 The first all -black Broadway musical called
Shuffle Along opened in 1921. It was a hit, creating an interest in black dance theater. The show
has also developed opportunities for individual black performers and dancers. 1923 Broadway
hit came running wild in England, and Charleston dance became the trend. Paris Revue Nègre
presented dancer Josephine Baker. “She became a star in Europe, but she has never been as
popular in America (where racial tension continued to marginalize the black dance and
dancers). ”52 In Broadway in 1920, white musicals began to hire black interpreters, with black

46 ***, “ History of Black Dance: 20th -Century Black American Dance,”
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/history -of-black -dance -20th-century -black -american -dance/ , [f.a.],
Accessed at 13 May 2017.
47 Ibidem .
48 Harold Bloom, The Harlem Renaissance , Chelsea House Publishers, United States of America, 2004, pp.
250-252.
49 Moon Star, “History of the Black Dance: 20th-Century,”
https://moonstar2016.wordp ress.com/2016/09/15/history -of-black -dance -20th-century/ , Accessed at 13th May 2017.
50 ***, “ History of Black Dance: 20th -Century Black American Dance,”
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/history -of-black -dance -20th-century -black -american -dance/ , [f.a.],
Accessed at 13 May 2017.
51 Ibidem .
52 Ibidem .

dance incorporated into their program. In Britain, black performers appeared i n musicals and
magazines of the 20th century. In 1920 Florence Mills starred in the Broadway musical Shuffle
Along (which inspired the growing popularity of tap dance) and later Plantation Review , who
visited London in 1924. Blackbirds next musical opened in London in 1926 and her song I am a
little blackbird looking for a Bluebird became the theme song of Mills. “Her singing was
beautiful, and her dance had a streak of comedy that audiences loved. ”53 Florence Mills became
a star in New York and London. In B ritain, commentators proclaimed her talent, and she was
talking about London. “Florence died tragically at the age of 32, after an operation to remove her
appendix. Thousands of people attended her funeral in Harlem. ”54
In 1933 Charles B. Cochran invited Buddy Bradley to London to work at Evergreen
Rodgers and Hart musical. It happened the first time when a black dancer worked on a show all
white. Buddy Bradley was a major force in musicals and Revue in the United Kingdom in 1930
and 1940. Native from Har risburg, Pennsylvania, he was principally self -taught and made his
première as a dancer in 1926 in Florence Mills Revue in New York. Bradley staged during 1920s
dances in influential Revues for Ziegfeld , George White, Earl Carroll and Lew Leslie's popular
Blackbirds . He also staged routines for stars such as Eleanor Powell, Ruby Keeler, and Adèle
Astaire. In 1930, he left New York and danced in London in 1931 for Blackbirds Revue by C. B.
Cochran.55 There was a rumor that he was forced to leave New York beca use the owner Cotton
Club in Harlem Mafia Bradley dislikes teaching his girlfriend to dance.
Bradley continued to work with Jessie Matthews, and Jack Buchanan shows and their major
musical and movies during the 1930s. In 1932, he collaborated with Frederic k Ashton, at High
Yellow ballet. Bradley taught ballerina Alicia Markova how to step with snake sides. He said that
the most difficult thing to teach classical dance remained how to bend their knees. Till 1967
Bradley ran a dance studio in London. He also continued choreography in England, France,
Switzerland, Italy, and Spain. His choreography mixed classic and modern dance and also took
the movements of ice and jazz performances. When tap fell into disgrace in 1950, he focused on
jazz dance. He became the first African -American to run a British company. “It was formed to
appear in musicals and television in 1950 with the emergence of a black modern dance
movement inspired by the work of two black American women, Katherine Dunham and Pearl
Primus. ”56 Both we re academics and dancers and spent much time researching the origins of

53 Ibidem.
54 Ibidem.
55 Stephen Bourne, Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television ,
Continuum, London, 2001, pp. 49 -51.
56 ***, “ History of Black Dance: 20th -Century Black American Dance,”
http://ww w.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/history -of-black -dance -20th-century -black -american -dance/ , [f.a.],
Accessed at 13 May 2017.

black dance in the United States. In precise, their work inspired the young Berto Pasuk, who
went on to form the first black ballet company Ballets Nègres in the United Kingdom.
Kather ine Dunham made her name in 1934 on Broadway with musicals and Le Jazz Hot
Tropics where she introduced the dance called L'ag'ya . It was based on dance rhythms and dance
of slaves who used martial arts to develop their strength in preparation for uprisings against their
white masters. Dunham studied dance in Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Martinique for her
choreography. She thought that black dance shouldn't have equal status with traditional
European white dance and wanted to watch the roots of black dance. She developed the
technique which also drew on ballet and modern dance. She founded the dance school in 1944.
“At her school, students learn philosophy, anthropology, languages, ballet, and dance. “57
“Percussion primitive Pearl Primus was the first modern black dancer. ”58 Strange Fruit was
her first performance. There was no music, but the band sound of a poem about a black man
being lynched by a passionate and angry white racist. The black dance culture used black art
form to express social and political c onstraints on people of color in the United States. 59
Katherine was born in Trinidad before her
parents relocated to Harlem in 1919. She
operated at the New Dance Group Studios, the
few places where she was one of the dancers
able to train blacks with whi tes. She continued
to study for a doctorate and did research on
dance in Africa. Her most famous dance was
Fang , African welcome dance introduced in
African traditional dance on stage. In 1940,
Pearl Primus was one of the first dancers to
make thorough stu dy dance, embracing the
West Indian, African and primitive dance.
“Recitals and performances with her company
showed these authentic dances, both in a form
as a basis for a new choreography. ”60 It was
important to figure year conservation, and
study dance and ethnic dance that was
discussed on in many countries, including Libya. She spent three years in Africa to make a

57
58
59 Barbara O'Connor, Katherine Dunham: Pioneer of Black Dance , A division of Lerner Publishing Group,
Minneapolis United State s of America, 2000, pp. 49 -53.
60

survey of native dances, and when she returned in 1951, she presented severa l shows based on
Dances and Rituals study.
Arthur Mitchell challenged the myth that blacks were unfit for dancers. He started in Harlem
and turned 18 when he was a scholar at the School of American Ballet. “Upon graduation in
1956, he joined New York City Ballet and danced with there for 15 years. ”61 Choreographer
George Balanchine, founder of the company, created many roles for him, including
A Midsummer Night's Dream . Mitchell had great faith in the power of education to help children
develop their potent ial. “He wanted the children of the black community to have more
opportunities. ”62 In 1968, soon after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Mitchell founded
the school called Dance Theater of Harlem. The school was a great success, and in 1971 the
compa ny gave its first performances. He performed because of the great success all over the
world. “The repertoire includes works by great 20th century choreographers, including Fokine,
Nijinsky, Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Mitchell also crested works, some of which have
explored the origins of black dance. “63

2.1.4 Film
Entertainment options to the Black public during 1920 were viewing movies directed by
Oscar Micheaux, who is considered a pioneer of the black film industry.64 He was born in
Illinois (son of former slaves) and worked as a Pullman (Passenger train) before reaching a farm
in South Dakota. Micheaux began his artistic career not as a director but as a writer, penning
three novels that aimed to reach black public: " Conquest" (1913) "The Forged Note" (1915), and
"The Homesteader" (1917). He founded Film Micheaux Corporation and made a movie based on
"Homesteader" in 1919, after another company has expressed interest for the Roman, but would
not let him guide the film version. Micheaux made the movie, a sensational melodrama
involving interracial marriage, murder, and a happy ending – for fifteen thousand dollars, not
shooting retakes of any scene. In the next few years, Micheaux made more than two dozen films,
which wer e to present to the segregated black public, for both Northern and Southern states.
Despite much action sets than story continuity (including Harlem nightclub scene completed
with choral girls), movies were very popular. Micheaux was a brilliant character and a good self –
promoter who walked around with a stiff around in big hats and fur coats. He went bankrupt in

61
62
63
64 Jim Haskins, Eleanora E. Tate, Clinton Cox and Brenda Wilkinson, Black Stars of the Harlem Renaissance ,
John Wiley and Sons Inc., New York, Canada, 2002, pp. 34 -38.

1928, but he was able to reorganize in 1929, thanks to the support from investors. In recent
years, Micheaux was criticized for using only white s tarred in and create stereotypical portrayals
of people of color. He made several movies with some substance. These included "Within Our
Gates" (1920), a story of characters lynching from many different levels of black society.
"Birthright" (1924), about a black graduate of Harvard University, whose attempt to find a black
college in a town in the south is barred by both white and black opponents. "Body and Soul"
(1924), providing great African -American actor and singer Paul Robeson; "The House Behind
the C edars," based on the novel by Charles Waddell Chesnutt and the first movie transcription of
a book by an African -American author.

2.1.5 Theater
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868 –1963), a widely respected black leader, philosopher, and playwright,
greatly influenced Georgia Douglas Johnson’s career and the discussions about the plight of
Negro Theater, held at her house. As the editor of The Crisis, Du Bois sponsored playwriting
contests and helped several playwrights produce their work professionally. However, when t he
debate over the portrayal of the Negro onstage and in film intensified, and when both the Negro
masses and Du Bois’s “talented tenth” became hopeless about racial oppression, he decided that
further action was needed. In “Krigwa Players Little Negro The atre: The Story of a Little
Theatre Movement,” an essay that also appeared in The Crisis in June 1926, he argued that the
workings of a real Negro auditorium must be:
“1. About us. One, they must have plots which expose Negro life as it is. 2. By us. That is, they require to
be addressed by Negro artists who understand from birth and have a constant connection to what it means to be
a black person today. 3. For us. That is, the auditorium must address formerly to Negro audiences and be
supported and sustai ned by their entertainment and approval. 4. Ne ar us. The stage needs to be in a Negro
district near the mass of ordinary Negro people. ”65
Feeling overwhelmed by the numerous fictitious stories and plays published and produced
during the early 1900s that pe rpetuated negative racial stereotypes, W. E. B. Du Bois made a
public statement in an editorial in the February 1926 issue of "The Crisis," raising questions
about the liability and social responsibility of artists and authors.66 The acclaimed Negro actress
Hattie McDaniel, who was criticized by certain members of the Negro community for portraying
negative racial images (she is charged with creating the quintessential film representation of the
“mammy” caricature), once remarked that it was better to play a maid than to be a servant and
certainly more profitable. However, her critics —such as Jessie Redmon Fauset, the literary

65
66 ***, The Crisis , The Crisis Publishing Company, Inc., New York, 1995, pp. 18 -19.

editor of The Crisis —argued that the long -term damage done by artists like McDaniel would
preclude any hope of racial equality. In his editorial in The Crisis -The Negro in Art: How Shall
He Be Portrayed ? -Du Bois asked artists and writers to consider seven questions: (1) What is the
actor’s personal responsibility in portraying black characters? (2) Can an author be criticized for
depic ting positive or negative characteristics of a racial group? (3) Should publishers be
criticized for refusing to publish books with no stereotypical representations of black people? (4)
How can Negroes refute negative stereotypes that most Americans accept as cultural truths? (5)
Should educated black characters receive the same sympathetic treatment from artists and
audiences as Porgy received in the American opera Porgy and Bess? (6) How will white and
Negro artists find the courage to create multiple rep resentations of black characters when the
world has seen only negative depictions and believes that black people are incapable of behaving
differently? (7) Who will tell the truth about the actual character of the Negro people if their
young writers are te mpted to follow commercial trends?67 Du Bois was not the only activist
during the Harlem Renaissance to be concerned about the popular tendency, on most American
stages, to portray Negro characters as minstrel -type clowns. Several writers, artists, philosop hers,
politicians, ministers, and homemakers asked the same or similar questions and sometimes even
tried to answer them. Those whose attempts to answer Du Bois’s questions were the most
successful or caused the most controversy were probably the playwrigh ts. The writers of the
Harlem Renaissance were joined in their determination to solve the problem of “race” through
their work for the theater but were divided concerning strategy. Some of them advocated “folk
dramas”; others advocated history or pageant p lays; still others thought that propaganda plays,
such as plays about lynching, were the most effective. The merits of the various forms of Negro
theater were often debated not only in Harlem and elsewhere in New York state but also in
Washington, D.C., at the Saturday Nighters Club. The host for these passionate discussions in
Washington was the well -known playwright and poet Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880 –1966),
who wrote twenty -eight or more plays at her home on S Street in several genres, such as folk
plays, antilynching plays, and history plays.

2.1.6 Painting
Bearden Romare , among African American artists, is one of the most inventive, distinctive,
and famous and has received more critical acclaim and scholarly analysis than nearly anyone
else. His art evolved considerably during his career. Early on, he was committed to soc ial
realism and political illustration; after World War II, he was one of the several African -American

67 Cary D. Wintz and Paul Finkelman, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance: A -J, Routledge, New York,
2004, pp. 76 -77.

painters who adopted abstract expressionism. At the beginning of the 1960s, his art became more
representational but remained highly modernist in style a nd materials. At the time when the Civil
Rights Movement erupted during the 1960s, he began to explore the social, artistic, economic
and legislative issues of black life, through his many collages, which were made with found
images from newspapers, magazi nes, and photographs. Although college was hardly new at that
time, Bearden was radical in his use of brutally factual photographic images to visualize the
African American experience from his personal perspective. It is for these works that he is still
best known. Bearden was born around 1912 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was raised there
and in Pittsburgh and Harlem. He came to Harlem as a child and often visited his grandmother in
Pittsburgh, where he eventually lived for a few years during his child hood. In Pittsburgh, he had
a friend named Eugene whom he later credited with inspiring his desire to draw and therefore his
career as an artist. As a youth, Bearden came into contact with many artists and writers
associated with the Harlem Renaissance, be cause his mother worked for the New York office of
the Chicago Defender, an African -American newspaper. After college, Bearden studied at the
Art Students League with George Grosz, who was then one of the great political satirists in
graphic media. Bearden himself worked as a political cartoonist in the mid -1930s, first
publishing cartoons in Medley, a humor journal published by New York University, then having
illustrations and cartoons published in Collier’s, Fortune, the Baltimore Afro -American, and the
Saturday Evening Post. Thus, early in his artistic career, he was creating images weighted with
social commentary and observation, undoubtedly having learned this skill from Grosz. At about
this time he became associated with the 306 Group of African -Ameri can artists based in Harlem;
this group included Charles Alston, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, and Augusta Savage and
was named for a salon that developed at 306 141st Street. By the mid -1940s —after the period of
the Harlem Renaissance —Bearden began to re ceive recognition for his social realist paintings.
His work was exhibited in 1945 in the Whitney Museum Annual, and in the next three years, he
had exhibits at the Kootz Gallery. Ironically, though, his social realist works from these years are
little kno wn today, especially compared with his later collages, and social realism was not a long
phase in his development as an artist. It seems that he felt some displeasure with how African
American artists were publicly received at the time and with his identit y, and this discontent led
him to take new stylistic directions. Still, social realist paintings such as Two Women in a
Landscape (1941) reveal his keen observation of the problems of ordinary people, particularly
poor African -Americans, during the Great D epression; and his painting Factory Workers (1942)
was used to illustrate “Negro’s War,” an article in Fortune magazine. In his paintings of the mid –
1940s, many of biblical subjects, his style was becoming much more abstract. In the late 1940s,
Bearden was deeply involved in studying the paintings and drawings of the old masters,

European artists of the Renaissance and later. He did not care to sketch in public at museums;
instead, he made photocopies of masterworks and hung them in his studio so that he co uld study
them conveniently and carefully. However, during the late 1940s and early 1950s, he was not
very productive as a visual artist.

2.3 Major political characteristics of the Movement

The 1920s in American history witnessed a political movement thr ough the Harlem
Renaissance. This literary movement has given the task of promoting the black cultural values
that have been underestimated in American culture. In search of civil rights for African
Americans under the intellectual leadership of WEB Du B ois and other members of NAACP,
Harlem Renaissance succeeded in fighting the black community's trust in Booker T. Washington,
who believed that the solution to black issues should be absolute integrationist. Because
integration meant limited education and discrimination, Du Bois supported the right of African –
Americans to higher education to fulfill the political attributions prescribed by the Constitution.
“Starting from a theoretical approach to racial problems in his early books, Du Bois intervened
practically in the incarnation of P an-Africanism. ”68 Therefore, the term "politics," as a process
by which groups make decisions or consists of social relationships involving authority or power,
fits best with Harlem's Renaissance literary movement not only for its focus on the interaction
with whites but also for treating with American political leaders. Since the 1920s, blacks were
underestimated intellectually, poetics – the study of poetic products – was the most important
instrument that Harlem's movement st rengthens the intellectual power of its members.
What characterized the Harlem Renaissance was a racist pride and the idea of developing a
new black status that, through intelligence and production of literature, art, and music, that could
diminish racis m and promote tolerant politics. Due to the history of African American in the US,
besides the natural color and media coverage of blacks, this ethnic group receives most of the
racism. The political construction of ethnic identities and racial conflicts c annot be omitted by an
American scholar who needs concrete action to change the American cultural landscape. For
example, the interference of Blacks, Hispanics, and Anglos for political, economic and limited
social resources in contemporary Miami is not at the fingertips of local political authorities.
Sheila L. Croucher points out that “Various politicians in Miami seized the opportunity to
manipulate the immigrant presence and the threat of a takeover for their own personal political
gain of ethnic identi ty being a soc ial and political construction."69 Our attention is drawn by this

68
69 Sheila L. Croucher, Imagining Miami: Ethnic Policy in a Postmodern World.From Virginia, 19 97), 94

writer to the ethnic conflicts fed by the authorities in order to point out that politics manipulate
the American race, with the command of politicians for plans of hegemonic a nd economic
boundaries. However, African Americans still suffer more than the rest of ethnic groups in
Miami and across the nation. The role played by the Miami authorities is illustrative, and it is
one reason of what motivated the Harlem Renaissance move ment to denounce racial
discrimination and expose the disguised use of culture for sovereign reasons at a national level.
The unfortunate intellectual ignorance and wrong generalizations of the blacks in the white
America in the years that followed the Civ il War made it impossible to recognize that the blacks
were human and that they were socially and politically equal with their white neighbors. Thus,
the social reforms were undertaken by Reconstruction, especially the problem of a non -slave
society, justi fied from a federal and democratic point of view, became biased and reinterpreted.
Because the assumptions of these reforms were dominated by blacks, Southern farmers and
political leaders found a threat to the socio -economic environment of their states th at relied
heavily on slavery to boost their economy.
Among the common denominators of the protest strategies advocated by black leaders over
time are racial pride, self -confidence, and reference to Africa and the Diaspora. Although what
makes the differenc e between a leader and the other is how to address the fulfillment of those
goals set for the identity of blacks and their mental and moral improvement, individual efforts
are relevant representations in today's cultural debates in America. For example, Bo oker T.
Washington, to achieve his self -confidence goal, considered that locating in the American racist
atmosphere and individually industrial training was not only compatible but also inevitable for
black people who were segregated in education among man y other things. Thus, the importance
of economic independence cannot be equal to classical or liberal artistic education (leading to
social equality with whites) in Washington's vision and to the American constraints of life at that
time. In Wint's observa tion:

“Industrial education enjoyed widespread popularity not only because it addressed the real needs
of many black colleges and their students, but also because it met the needs of dominant elements in both
the black and the white communities. Among blacks it was compatible with the concepts of self -help and
racial solidarity. Industrial education had as its goal the creation of a race of thrifty, hard -working,
industrious men and women focusing their energies on economic advancement rather t han on po litical
equality. In addition, industrial education appeased whites who had criticized classical or liberal arts
curricula at black colleges as either not addressing the educational needs of blacks or, even worse, creating
black college graduates who refus ed to work as manual laborers.”70

70 Wintz, Cary, Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance , Rice University Press, Houston, Texas, 1968, 34 –
35.

Because the president will not directly discuss civil rights, blacks have used their significant
economic weight to force reform. Virginia Union University's economics teacher Gordon
Hancock suggested a "buy black" plan wh ere blacks would spend "black dollars" on black –
owned enterprises to recirculate the same dollar several times in the black society. Traders,
clergy, and professors have cooperated in this "double -tax" campaign. The side of this strategy
was to strike whit e shops in black neighborhoods that had denied to hire black employees or only
used them in humble jobs. Chicago Whip , a militant newspaper, promoted a "Do not buy where
you can`t work" campaign against the Windy City retail outlets. The firm idea of "Jobs for the
Blacks" spread rapidly in thirty -five cities. In Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the minister of
the Abyssinian Baptist Church, has boarded and boycotted the hospital, universal stores, utility
companies, colleges, theaters, and mass transit so that black workers are hired as something more
than goalkeepers, and lift operators. Some white businesses have overturned, especially the bus
company, which has established the first plan to engage in affirmative actions of the nation for
blacks. After th e outbreak of World War II, the forces of industrialization and urbanization
created conditions in which the climate of civil rights movement reached its climax. Philip
Randolph, America's top leader of the Black Union, pleaded with Washington officials to
desegregate the army and engage blacks in defense plants. When his plea d was unanswered,
Randolph threatened an embarrassing March over the nation's capital. Franklin D. Roosevelt was
angry, but in return for canceling the march, issued Executive Order 8802, which established the
Fair Employment Practice Committee to stop unfairness in warfare mobilization. “It was the
most beneficial presidential directive for blacks since the Ema ncipation Proclamation. ”71 Two
million black laborers have found jobs in ammunition plants, giving them more economic
independence and the opportunity to be politically organized. A million more serviced the army,
although it remained segregated. The all -black March on Washington Movement has shown that
pressure on the president with a dramatic event could pay big dividends. At the same time, a
small group of young people living in Chicago was determined to confront racism directly but
peacefully. As a part of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an inter -racial pacifist group, James
Farmer, George Houser, Homer Jack, and Bernice Fisher, were inspired by Indian nationalist
leader Mohandas Gandhi, a Hindu struggling with the British colonial government with non –
violent resistance, from unions that launched strike stays to win company concessions. Farmer, a
black graduate of Howard University, has asked Franklin D. Roosevelt to approve an unremitting
campaign of civil disobedience against racism, but his white offi cers deviate, leading students to
the 1942 Congress of Racial Equality. With the South ern US still too dangerous to reform,
CORE used sit -in tactics in segregated restaurants and cinemas in the main Northern cities. In

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the midst of the war, few have notice d this new organization. With the deepening of the Second
World War, most blacks subscribed to the Double V campaign, which was the victory over
fascism abroad and home discrimination. In his 1944 influential book, "An American Dilemma,"
Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal underlined the idea that racism fled the values the nation
defended with its blood. Home earnings were unpleasant. While blacks broke through the work
ghetto, white attackers closed factories and shipyards. When blacks moved to white district s,
racial violence broke out in 47 cities in a year. Such racism has not prevented black veterans who
have returned to the south with a new spirit. A former Alabama army captain said: "I spent four
years in the army to free a bunch of Dutchmen and Frenchme n, and I’m hanged if I’m going to
let the Alabama version of the Germans kick me around when I get home. No -sirree -bob! I went
into the Army a nigger; I’m comin’ out a man".72 Some Southern reformers, writers, and judges
of white color have taken the courag e for civil rights. After the race riots that broke out after the
First World War, Will Alexander, a Methodist minister, founded the Commission on Interracial
Cooperation, the first reform group in Southern US. Although Alexander did not directly
provoke J im Crow, he claimed voting rights for blacks, fair housing and equal chances of
employment. A CIC subsidiary called Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of
Lynching launched petitions, letter writing campaigns, and conferences against racist cr ime.
In 1944, the CIC was replaced by the Southern Regional Council, an organization that
worked for the gradual elimination of segregation, formed of clergy and professionals. Similarly,
the Southern Conference on Human Welfare, a group of liberals of the New Deal, attacked
poverty and promoted voter registration. Southern writers who attacked racism included
sociologist Howard Odum, journalist Wilbur Cash, and Ralph McGill, editor of the Atlanta
Constitution. Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman, has made unprecedented steps for racial
equality. In 1947, the Truman Committee on Civil Rights published a report entitled "To Secure
These Rights," which recommended fast federal action to end segregation, lynching, and
restrictions to voting. Although most Ameri cans opposed the report, Truman banned segregation
in the army, ordered more blacks to be promoted, and banned discrimination in the workplace
through the federal government. His Justice Department supported the NAACP in court cases
against housing and seg regated education. After the election, Truman's Fair Deal was blocked by
a Republican Congress, and the president focused not on civil rights but on communism in th e
country and abroad. In 1950, Philip Randolph contributed to the organization of the Leader ship
Conference on Civil Rights to implement the report that Truman dismissed. Since the federal
government has begun to address racial inequality, several areas of society, especially the
entertainment industry, have made more rapid progress after World W ar II. The whole nation

72 Bruce J Dierenfield, The Civil Rights Movement: Revised Edition , Routledge, New York, 2013, p.18.

followed Jackie Robinson's wonderful achievements; he has opened the door for blacks to enter
soccer and professional basketball. At the same time, black musicians have become very
popular, especially jazz performers such as Theloni us Monk pianist, Dizzy Gillespie trumpeter,
and saxophonist Charlie Parker. Such a "race" music appealed to white teenagers through Elvis
Presley and other rock 'n' roll singers. Black artists Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Little Richard,
have developed thei r own records on white radio stations. As African -Americans became more
noticeable to whites, they began to seem more meritorious of their constitutional rights.
Until the middle of the century, blacks were to get racial justice. To make America respect
its promises of equality and justice for all, the Civil Rights Movement developed black
awareness, mobilize churches and black colleges, capture the National Democrat Party and win
over the Supreme Court, the White House, and the Congress. As the NAACP Execu tive Director
of Florida, Moore launched anti -discrimination lawsuits, had a staggering 116,000 black voters,
and has called for state investigations into police violence. This second Reconstruction was made
possible by a remarkably changed black community . The racial pride received an incentive from
Carter G. Woodson, whose Journal of Negro History and Negro History Week exceeded the
unrecognized contributions of blacks in American history.

3. Harlem Renaissance legacy and impacts on cultural and
political movements throughout the 20th century

In the second half of the 20th Century, there were successive waves of other marginalized
citizens – Native -Americans, women, Chicanos / Chicanas, gays, and lesbians – who
involuntarily fol lowed the pioneering path of the New Negro. It was a time for self -conscious
minorities who wanted a more spiritual notion of citizenship that America promised but didn`t
offer.
The Harlem Renaissance created an African -American identity that later support ed the Civil
Rights Movement. “The neighborhood has been hit hard by job losses in the Great
Depression. ”73 In the early 1930s, 25% of Harlem people were out of work, and the employment
chances for Harlemites remained unchanged for decades. New York employment has fallen since
some traditional black businesses, including domestic and some manual work, and have been
taken over by other ethnic groups. Major industries left the city of New York, especially after
1950. Depression job losses have exacerbated by the end of the 1933 Prohibition and Harlem
Rebellion of 1935, which scared the richest white people who have long supported Harlem's
entertainment industry. The white public fell almost entirely after the second round of riots in
1943. Many Harlem blacks found work in the army or shipyards in Brooklyn during the Second
World War, but the neighborhood declined rapidly with the end of the war. Some middle -class
blacks moved North or West into the suburbs, and a trend that has grown since the 1 960 Civil
Rights Movement has reduced discrimination in housing.
The district benefited from few advantages from the massive public works projects in New
York made by Robert Moses in the 1930s, and therefore had fewer parks and recreational public
places than other New York neighborhoods. Of the 255 playgrounds that Moses built in NYC, he
placed only one in Harlem. The early work of blacks to change the situation in Harlem itself has
grown from the Great Depression with the "Do not buy where you cannot wor k" movement. This
was the last successful campaign to force 125th Street stores to hire black employees . “The
Boycotts were initially organized by the Citizens League for Fair Play in June 1934 against the
Blumstein Store on 125th Street. ”74 Soon the store agreed to integrate more employees. This
success encouraged Harlem residents, and the protests continued under another leadership,

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including the priest and congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who tried to change hiring
practices in other stores, to emplo y black workers or hire Protestants.
ROSA PARKS has been detained because she refused to give her seat to a white man on a
public bus in 1955. Under the city code of Montgomery, Alabama, bus drivers would separate
black and white passengers on the bus and were given the strict authority to apply the rule. If the
bus became too crowded, passengers in the rear half of the bus, blacks, could be required to give
up their place to provide white passengers. ”If they refused, the bus driver had the authority to
call the police to force the black customer to withdraw from the bus. On 1st December 1951,
Rosa Parks left the workplace for the day. ”75 As she boarded, the bus was filling, and the white
half of the bus was full, leaving the white passengers standing up. “The chauffeur stopped the
bus and told the first row of black passengers to get up; The other three passengers did, but Rosa
refused. ”76 Rosa was arrested for her refusal to give up her place. “Following her arrest, NAACP
organized a bus boycott in support of Rosa and racial equality. ”77
THE ANTI -WAR PROTESTS (1960 -1970) was a social movement in which people oppose
any war that the United States was facing at the time, and Protestants hoped of influencing
government powers to stop the war and bring the soldie rs home.
THE DISABILITY RIGHTS MOVEMENT (1 January 1960 – 1 January 1990).
People have been struggling for centuries for the rights of individuals with disabilities, but
in the United States, the greatest movement began in the 1960s with the Civil Rights M ovement,
including the civil rights of people with disabilities. The ADA law of 1990, Americans with
Disabilities Act, forbids disability -based discrimination by employers, public housing, state and
local governments, public and private transport, and tele coms.
THE MODERN AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT (1962). Rachel Carson
has published the book "Silent Spring," which has brought American people real concerns about
the environment, especially the danger of using pesticides. With the publication of his boo k, the
Modern American Environmental Movement began.
THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT (1963).
Even a century following the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans
still did not have equal rights in the United States. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous
speech "I Have a Dream" on August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. is not the only one who
fought for civil rights. There have been so many amazing people over the years, but Martin
Luther King was certainly one of the best -viewed and resp ected civil rights leaders.
THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965.

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Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which provided that a person
could not be blocked from voting because of the race. This happened at a time when the Civil
Rights Movement was also adamant.
THE HIPPIE MOVEMENT (1967 -1977).
When people talk about the '60s and' 70s, often what has correlated with it is the Hippie
Movement. Around 1967, its primary intentions were: balance with nature, society life, musical
and artistic express ion, etc. These ideas spread throughout the world in the 1960s. Hippies had
some way of acting and dressing, which was a major part of their culture. They often had a
worrying attitude.
ANTI -WAR PROTEST AT KENT STATE UNIVERSITY (1970).
President Richard M. Nixon, on April 30, 1970, arrived on national television to declare the
invasion of Cambodia by the U.S. and the need to develop 150,000 more soldiers to expand the
Vietnam war effort. “This has prompted massive protests in campuses across the country. ”78 At
Kent State University in Ohio, militants originated a demonstration that included the incineration
of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) building, causing the governor of Ohio to send
900 national guards to the campus. During a May 4th struggle, twenty -eight guards opened fire
on a crowd, killing four students and wounding others. As a result of the murders, the
disturbances across the country have grown even more. “Almost five hundred colleges have been
closed or interrupted by protests. ”79

3.1 African American culture after the Second World War

There is no form of union that characterizes the art that nevertheless appeared. It included a
wide range of styles, including Pan -African perspectives; high culture and low culture;
Traditional music in blues and jazz; Traditional and experimental forms in literature, such as
modernism; and the new kind of jazz poetry.
Some common themes during the Harlem Renaissance were the influence of slavery, black
identity, the effects of institutional racism, the d ilemmas of making and writing for the white
elite public, and of conducting the struggle of modern black life in the northern urban area.
Racial pride. In all political writings, theater, art, music, and literature created during this
period, there is a ge neral feeling of pride in the African -American existence and the "New
Negro." Politicians and artists on the move were assigned with producing challenging pieces
designed to provoke and raise the African -American race.

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Creative expression. “During the Harl em Renaissance, there was an overflow of artistic
creation in all fields, including visual arts, literature, and poetry, music, and dance, which
represented and expressed African -American thought. ”80 The artists, writers, painters, and
musicians associated with the movement include Langston Hughes, Jacob Lawrence, Zora Neale
Hurston, Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington.
Intellectualism. “Alain Locke, the first African -American scholar from Rhodes and a professor at Harvard
University, remarked Harlem Renaissance as a "spiritual emancipation" for the African -American community and
the opportunity to reshape the African -American heritage as intellectual, equal to whites. ”81 Intellectual
thinking has been prepared tow ards challenging African -American stereotypes, developing a
greater appreciation of the folk origins, culture and past spiritualism.
The pressures between art that refer to the social conditions of black people and the art that
transcends race and class po litics are probably the primary types of African American art in the
twentieth century. Once the hope of emancipation and political privilege has surrender during
and after Reconstruction to the reality of despair, division, and political disappearance, ma ny
black artists left the United States to continue their art in Europe, especially in France and Italy.
With the arrival of the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration of the Negroes to the
Northen cities, the themes of racial enlightenment and the her oic images of the African –
Americans have become more and more widespread. The political/apolitical debate has begun to
focus on the issue of racially figurative art, especially in response to Alain Locke's famous
appeal, according to which black artists s hould use African art as an aesthetic pattern. However,
in the years after World War II, the debate moved from racial and artistic representations to
discussions on the social responsibility of black artists. Some artists, however, chose to break out
of th e debate, converting themselves into abstract art and expressionism – although even these
artists remained "standing," continuing to use and rely in particular on African -American themes
and motifs. The Black Arts and Black Power Movements of the 1960s ind uced racial politics and
rationality to the lead. Since the 1980s, black art has been overlooked by the postmodernist
principles of cultural relativity, art -like performance, critical investigations of art and society
through one's work, identity queries, geography, and history.
Like so many epochs, the adjective "forgotten" to describe this unusual, tumultuous time
between the canonized periods of the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights and Black Arts
Movements – is inadequate or even inappropriate. By any measure, the 1940s marked a fertile
decade in American African literary production of novels, with a series of fiction, essays, poems,
plays, travel records, etc. In 1940, both Langston Hughes and WEB. Du Bois published

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autobiographies, The Big Sea and Dusk of Dawn , respectively. In the same year, Jamaican –
American writer Claude McKay published Harlem: Negro Metropolis . Many novels, including
Richard Wright's Native Son (1940) and his autobiography Black Boy (1945), Chester Himes's If
Hollers Let Him G o (1945) and Ann Petry's The Street (1946) remain the canonical black
narratives for migration and modern life. With her 1945 collection of poetry, A Street in
Bronzeville , Gwendolyn Brooks gained instant recognition and fellowship from Guggenheim. In
the famous poem For My People (1942), Margaret Walker writes "a bloody peace … written in
the sky" for a "second generation full of courage."
Despite the winning recognition in their time, other novels, such as William Attaway's
Blood on the Forge (1941), Willard Motley`s Knock on Any Door (1947), Petry's A Country
Place (1947), Himes's Lonely Crusade (1947) and William Gardner Smith's Last of the
Conquerors (1948) withdrew from historical memory. Maybe this negligence It results from a
failure to see these writers as what Lawrence Jackson calls the "cohort." Because of the
"aesthetic, institutional and commercial surprise" of several individual authors, Jackson writes,
critics have hidden the meaning of this generation among the authors, "operating as a coh ort,"
although one varied in its geographical locations and dislocations, political and racial visions,
and artistic tendencies. However, the risk of renewed interest in the 1940s promises to reexamine
these neglected writers.

3.2 African American politic al activism during the Civil Rights Movement

In the late 1950s and beginning of 1960s, Harlem was the picture of a series of tenant rent
strikes by local activist Jesse Gray, along with the Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited
(HARYOU), Congress of Racial Equality and other groups. These groups wanted the city to
force owners to improve the quality of their homes, entering them into standards, taking
measures against rats and cockroaches, providing heat in winter and keeping prices in line with
existing re nt control regulations. “According to the Metropolitan Council for Housing, in the
mid-1960s, about 25% of the city's owners perceived more rent than the law allowed. ”82
“Many organizations mobilized in Harlem in the 1960s, struggling for better schools, j obs,
and housing. ”83 Some have been peaceful, and others have claimed violence. “At the beginning
of the 1960s, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) had offices on 125 Street and acted as a
community negotiator with the city, especially during times of ge netic disorder. ”84 They have
asked civilian councils to hear complaints about police abuses, a request that was finally met.

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“As Chairman of the Chamber of Education and Labor Committee of the early 1960s, Adam
Clayton Powell Jr. used this function to channel federal funds into various development projects
in Harlem. ”85
After the end of the Second World War, in 1945, the United States entered a new era,
showing a strong population growth, a prosperous economy and a higher standard of living.
Until the la te 1950s, a sense of uniformity spread through American society, which led to the
emergence of several progressive moves that seek to break free from this conformity.
Following the American Civil War and the eradication of servitude, the United States
entered a period known as Reconstruction, during which American blacks continued to suffer
dissolution, racial segregation and economic oppression. Since the early 1950s, African –
Americans have launched a series of major civil resistance campaigns, highlig hting the need for
non-violent protests and civil disobedience. More successful efforts have emerged, such as
Boycott on the Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955 -1956, a campaign begun by Rosa Parks against
the racial segregation policy of the Alabama public transp ort system. "Sit -ins" become famous
across the Southern United States, especially in Greensboro, North Carolina, increasing national
sensibility. There have also been marches, such as the Selma to Montgomery march, during
which the activists walked along t he 54 -mile highway in Alabama, in an attempt to show blacks'
request to exercise the constitutional right to vote. Heading civil rights leaders involved Martin
Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Andrew Young, James Farmer, and many others.
Counterculture began to grow in the United States as a result of increasing American culture
in the 1950s. Until 1963, young people, especially those in the middle white class, began to
reject the cultural norms and regularity of their parents, opting for progressive attitudes. The
campaign gained impulse as the Civil Rights Movement has become increasingly successful and
as the United States Army started to have an adverse effect in Vietnam intervention . “The
counterculture movement has opened doors for social acceptance of alte rnative lifestyles and
progressive ideals among the middle white class. ”86 Hippie counterculture moved further into
folk culture after the Summer of Love in 1967, when thousands crowded in the Haight -Ashbury
district of San Francisco. Together with New York 's Greenwich Village, Haight -Ashbury has
become a center for the counterculture campaign.
“The Chicano Movement, also known as the Mexican -American Civil Rights Movement, is
probably one of the least studied social movements in the 1960s. ”87 The movement ha s
embedded several different issues that have plagued the large Mexican -American community:
agricultural workers' claims, enhanced education, political and voting rights, restoration of land

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concessions and much more. Starting in the South -Western states, most of this activism arose in
the youth community, which expressed concern over university campuses around the world. In
just a few years, the movement spread across the country, influencing other Latin communities
to join the struggle to create a new tra nsnational identity. Motion leader Cesar Chavez, an
American farmer and head of the labor force, has become one of the most popular Latino civil
rights activist who co -founded the National Farm Workers Association. The participants in the
movement remained active in the 1970s, but lost the speed in the next decade.
The Gay Liberation Movement was originated in the summer of 1969 pursuing the
Stonewall riots, a series of violent demonstrations of LGBTQ members in response to a police
assault on June 28 at th e Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village pub in New York City. Within
months, groups such as the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activist Alliance were created in an
attempt to bring the battle for LGBTQ rights to the forefront of American politics, setting out
three newspapers that were widely circulated. Soon, LGBTQ organizations began to appear
throughout the nation and the world. The first Gay Pride marches took place by 1970 in Chicago,
Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City, in an aim to remember the h oliday of the
Stonewall riots, a tradition that continues today around the world. By June 2015, Stonewall Inn
was unanimously granted landmark status by NYC's Landmark Commission Conservation.
The influence of the Southern non -violent protest movement was unleashed in Harlem.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was the most respected black leader in Harlem. But on September 20,
1958, Izola Curry, deceived into believing that NAACP was controlled by Communists,
addressed King at a Blumstein's book singing and asked if he was Martin Luther King, Jr. When
King replied affirmatively, she said: "I've been looking for you for five years," then she hurt him
with a letter opener in his chest. NYPD officers took King to Harlem Hospital, to remove the
blade.
“At least two dozen black nationalists also worked in New York, many of them in
Harlem. ”88The most important of these was the Islamic Nation, whose Temple Number Seven
was led by Malcolm X from 1952 to 1963. In 1965 Malcolm X was killed in the Audubon
Ballroom in Washington Heights. The region remains an important center of the Nation of Islam.
Inspector Lloyd Sealy became the first NYPD African -American officer to have
commissioned a police station, the 28th district, in 1963, Harlem. Community relations between
residents o f Harlem and NYPD have extended because civil rights activists have asked the
NYPD to hire more African -American police officers, particularly in Harlem. In 1964, in
Harlem, the report was a black police officer for every six white officers. A rebellion br oke out
in the summer of 1964 as a result of the fatal firing of a 15 -year-old unarmed black teenager, by

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an off -duty white police lieutenant. One person was killed, over 100 were injured, and hundreds
were arrested. Material damages and robberies have ext ended. The revolt would have spread
later from Manhattan and Brooklyn to Bedford -Stuyvesant, the heart of the African -American
community in Brooklyn. “Following the uprising, the federal government funded a pilot project
named Project Uplift, where thousan ds of young people from Harlem got jobs in the summer of
1965. The project was inspired by a report by HARYOU called Youth in the Ghetto. ”89
HARYOU received a significant role in organizing the project, along with the Urban National
League and nearly 100 sm aller community organizations.
“In 1966, the Black Panther organized a group in Harlem, agitating for violence in search of
reform. ”90 Discoursing at a rally of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),
Max Stanford, a member of Black Panther, said that the United States "could be kneed with a
cloth, gasoline and a bottle."
In 1968, Harlemites rebelled after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., as black
people did in other US cities. Two people died – one stabbed to death in a crowd, and another
caught in a burning building. However, the riots in New York were minor compared to those in
other American cities. Mayor John Lindsay helped resolve the revolts by marching on Lenox
Avenue in a "hail of bricks" to face the angry mobs.

3.3. Case Study: Influence on Chicano Movement

In the 1960s, groups of people sought equality. The most recognized movement during this
period was the African -American Civil Rights Movement. However, there was another move
that had great success. This is called the Civil Rights Movement of Chicano. Both movements
sought to achieve equality between them and the majority. The Chicago Civil Rights Movement
and the African -American Civil Rights Movement had similarities and differences. The Hispanic
Movement was, in my opinion, inspired of the success that Harlem Renaissance had as a
minority group and determined the “Chicanos” to fight for recognition.
The Chicano Movement began in the 1940s with the declared purpose of gaining Mexican –
American power. The rights of a gricultural workers were the main issue they expressed in the
mission. The government passed laws on the legal import of migrant farm operators. Migrant
agricultural workers were introduced into harsh conditions, and they've earned $ 2 a day.
Because they have suffered low wages and terrible labor conditions, agricultural workers have
fought against California grapes. “Even if there were inequalities between people, the oppressed

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and oppressors went to the same churches. Farmers believed that this was the f ault of workers
because they wanted jobs. ”91 The strike of agricultural workers was a financial disaster. “No one
could buy Californian grapes because of the protests. ”92 The transport of these grapes declined
dramatically in the 1970s. After the strikes had been over, the agricultural workers earned $ 180
per hour.
On the other hand, the African -American Civil Rights Movement includes US social
movements which aims were to end racial division and discrimination upon African Americans
and to ensure the legal recognition and federal protection of the citizen rights listed in the
Constitution. This movement arose from the laws established by Jim Crow. These activists
opposed the government (the laws) and have its roots in Alabama. The police were more violent
than they were with the Chicano movement.
These actions were very similar, both took place in the 1960s, and both tried to achieve
equality and change through peaceful tactics. Their main leaders, Cesar Chavez and Martin
Luther King Jr., were inspired by Gan dhi's nonviolent tactics. Both movements used the media
alert strategy and protested to make their points to help people understand their battles.
Nevertheless, Mexican -Americans and African -Americans were oppressed by the majority.
These two groups of peo ple have sought equality. The most recognized movement in the 1960s
was the African -American Civil Rights Movement. However, the Chicano Civil Rig hts
Movement was efficient too.
The Chicago's goal was to get an equal education and to make better schools f or Hispanics.
They thought they were treated like those who needed low education and decided to reform the
thinking. It began in the 1940s. It was not just about education, but about the jobs they receive,
how much money they made, about voting and politic al rights. A youth group decided they
wanted to let a school council know that they were not minorities in the state. Police and LAPD
(Los Angeles Police Department) have determined to use force to stop the steps and protests
through their violent arrests and beating. The cops
did not want anyone to know what happened, so
they said they first attacked by the children and had
no choice but to use force. On the other hand,
African -American Civil Rights Movement began in
the 1950s when blacks returned from Wor ld War II,
demanding equal rights. They saw the growth of
Martin Luther King Jr. and the nonviolent protest

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campaign. Martin Luther King wanted everyone to be treated as equal and not only that the
whites were better than the others. Martin Luther King's s peech, "I Have a Dream," inspired
everyone and made a difference in the African -American Civil Rights Movement. He also ran
the Rosa Parks stand in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955.
The Chicano Movement(1960s), also called “El Movimiento,” was a movement that
extended the American -Mexican Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, with the stated goal of
gaining the Mexican -American power. It covered a wide range of issues – from restoring land
grants to agricultural workers' rights, increased education, voting and po litical rights, as well as
the emerging consciousness of collective history. From a social point of view, the Chicano
movement approached the negative ethnic stereotypes of Mexicans in the media and American
awareness. Edward J. Escobar, in an article in The Journal of American History , describes part
of the negative ness of the time:

“The conflict between Chicanos and the LAPD thus helped Mexican Americans develop a new
political consciousness that included a greater sense of ethnic solidarity, an acknowl edgment of their
subordinated status in American society, and a greater determination to act politically, and perhaps even
violently, to end that subordination. While most people of Mexican descent still refused to call themselves
Chicanos, many had come t o adopt many of the principles intrinsic in the concept of chicanismo .”93

Chicanos did so by creating literary and visual works of art that have validated the practices
of American M exican ethnicity and culture.
The term Chicanos was first used as a denigrating label for Mexican migrant sons and
daughters. Some prefer to say the word "Chicano" as "Xicano." This new generation of Mexican
Americans was designated by the people on both s ides of the border, in their opinion, these
Mexican Americans were not "American," but they were not even "Mexicans." In the 1960s,
Chicano was taken as a symbol of self -determination and ethnic dignity.
The Chicano movement also addressed discrimination in public and private institutions. At
the opening of the twentieth century, Mexican -Americans formed organizations to protect
themselves from discrimination. One of these agencies, the League of United Latin American
Citizens, was founded in 1929 and rema ins active today.94
The Chicano movement had risen since the end of the war between the United States and
Mexico in 1848 when the current Mexican border -formation took shape. Since then, many
Chicanos and Chicanas have fought against prejudice, intolerance, and exploitation. “The

93 Edward J. Escobar (March 1993 ). The Dialectics of Repression: The Los Angeles Police Department and the
Chicano Movement, 1968 -1971, The Journal of American History , Vol. 79, Oxford University Press, New York,
1993, pp. 1483 –1514.
94***, LULAC: LULAC History – All for One and One for All , http://lulac.org/about/history/ , Acessed on May 5
2017.

Chicano action that culminated in the early 1970s was inspired by heroes and heroines from their
native past, Mexican and American. ”95
The movement gained force after the Second World War, when groups such as the
American GI Forum (A GIF), consisting of the return of Mexican veterans, joined the efforts of
other civil rights organizations. AGIF received its first national exposure when it took over the
cause of Felix Longoria, a Mexican American servant who was refused a funeral servic e in his
hometown in Three Rivers, Texas, after being killed during the Second World War. After the
Longoria incident, AGIF expanded rapidly into Texas, and in the 1950s it was established in the
US.
“Mexican -American civil rights activists also obtained several major legal victories,
including the Mendez v. Westminster judgment of 1947 ,”96 which stated that the segregation of
children of "Mexican and Latin descendants" was unconstitutional, and the Hernandez v. Texas
ruling of 1954, judged that Mexican -Ame ricans and other
historically subordinate groups in the United States were
qualified to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment
to the United States Constitution.
There have been more heads during the Chicano
Movement, for instance, in New Mexico, it was Reies López
Tijerina, who contributed to the land relief movement . “He
struggles to regain control of what he regards as ancestral
land. ”97 He was involved in civil rights cases within six years
and also became co -sponsor of the Poor People's rally in 1967,
Washington. In Texas, Dr. Hector Garcia, a war veteran
founded the American Forum GI and afterward appointed to
the Civil Rights Committe e of the United States. In Denver,
Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzáles contributed to defining the
meaning of being Chicano with his poem Yo Soy Joaquin (I
Am Joaquin). “In California, and the agricultural workers turned to the struggle of urban youth in California,
created political consciousness and participated in the La Raza Unida Party. ”98
“The most prominent organization of civil rights in the Mexican -American community is the Mexican
American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, founded in 1968. Although formed a fter the NAACP Legal Defense

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and Education Fund, MALDEF also took over functions over organizations, including political support and training
of local leaders. ”99
Some women who worked for the Chicano movement felt that members were too concerned
about the social problems that affected the Chicano community, rather than addressing the issues
that affected Chicana women. This motivated Chicana females to form the Comisión Femenil
Mexicana Nacional. In 1975, it was involved in Madrigal v. Quilligan, “obtaining an end on the
compulsory sterilization of women and the adoption of bilingual approval forms. These steps were essential because
many Hispanic women who did not understand English well were sterilized in the United States at that time without
the proper c onsent. ”100
With the immigration movements that spread in the US in the spring of 2006, the Chicano
Movement continued to expand the focus and number of people who are actively involved in the
Mexican American community. Since the 21st century, a major focus of the Chicano Movement
has been to enhance intelligent Chicanos' representations in American communications and
entertainment. There are also numerous neighborhood education projects to educate the Latins
about their voice and power, such as South Texas Voter Registration Project. The mission of
SVREP is to help Latins and other groups by improving their participation in the democratic
process in America. ”Members from the beginning of the Chicano movement, such as Faustino
Erebia Jr., have talked about t heir attempts and the changes they have seen over the years. ”101
African -Americans and Chicanos share a history of discrimination. After the abolition of
slavery African Americans were still forced to use separate public transportation and schools,
and to li ve in separate accommodation. They also faced racial animosity, from treatment as
second -class citizens to violence and murder at the hands of white supremacist organizations,
such as Ku Klux Klan. While Chicanos never faced the same level of discriminatio n as African
Americans, they too endured racism and exploitation by white Americans by their supposed
racial and cultural inferiority.
A distinction exists between the type of discrimination experienced by African Americans
and that suffered by Chicanos. Discrimination by race was not enforced by laws against blacks.
However, in practice Chicanos experienced similar treatment to African Americans in
restaurants, cinema, schools, and housing. In a 1949 case of housing discrimination, a real estate
agent ref used to sell a house in Upland, California, to a Chicano man on the grounds that Anglo –
American neighbors would leave the area if he moved in. A local newspaper published a letter
referring to the case. It stated that Afro -Americans and Chicanos “will be h appier if they stayed
among their own and did not try to integrate with whites who did not want them.”

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This shared experience of discrimination led to the rise of the Black Civil Rights Movement
in the 1950s and the Chicano Movement in the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement its famously
remembered as beginning in 1955, when the African -American Rosa Parks denied providing her
bus place to a white American. The following campaign to end segregation led by Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., (1929 -1968), who advocated non-violent means of protests. By the mid -1960s,
however, more militant African -American voices begun to emerge, including Malcolm X,
formerly associated with the Nation of Islam, and Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver of the
Black Panther organization. The Civil Rights Movement was a powerful influence on Chicano to
campaign for their rights and increase status as an ethnic group in the United States.
Both, the non -violent and militant aspects of the Civil Rights Movement influenced its
Chicano counterpart. During 1960s` protests for better pay and conditions for Mexican
fieldworkers, the union leader Cesar Chavez advocated non -violent tactics, such as hunger
strikes. The Chicano Brown Berets, on the other hand, were influenced by the Black Panthers`
use of a rmed protests.
Differences between African -Americans and Chicanos have often attracted attention. A
long-standing perception of mainstream American society has been that relations between the
two communities are marked by economic competition. This argumen t dates back to the
migration of freed African -American slaves to the South -West from the mid -19th century
onward when they competed for agriculture jobs with migrant Mexican workers.
Some observers see modern examples of competition occurring in cities re latively close to
the Mexican -U.S. border, such as Los Angeles, California, where Mexican immigrants have
caused tension with African -Americans by moving into traditionally African -American
neighborhoods and, some claim, taking over their jobs. Others argu e that the perception of
“competition” between the communities is an Anglo -American one, resulting from prejudice, a
fear of ethnic violence, and a desire to increase migration restrictions on Mexicans wishing to
enter the United States. In 2000 the academ ic Ramon Eduardo Ruiz wrote that “African –
Americans are rarely hurt by migrant competition… on the whole, it is other Mexicans who are
adversely affected.”
However, relations between African -Americans and Chicanos have often been far from
harmonious. A 19 66 study of Chicanos living in Los Angeles and San Antonio, Texas,
discovered a considerable prejudice among Chicanos toward African -Americans. In the survey,
18 percent of Los Angeles Chicanos and 34 percent of San Antonio Chicanos said they would
find it “distasteful to eat at the same table” as an African -American. In comparison, in a slightly
earlier survey taken in Bakersfield, California, only 7% of African -Americans questioned had
described the possibility of eating with a Chicano as “distasteful.”

In the 1970s attempts by leaders such as the African -American Jesse Jackson to build a
“rainbow coalition: between Chicanos and African -Americans fell apart because of mistrust and
a lack of knowledge of the struggle of each community. Since then, violence between African
American and Chicano gangs has become a feature of life in cities such as Los Angeles.
The California state government enacted the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) in
1975 to provide a procedure for farmworkers unions and agricultura l employers to resolve
grievances. Among the farmworkers affected are the many Chicanos and Mexicans who work in
California`s agriculture. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), passed in 1935, gave most
private sector employees the right to engage in or ganized union activity. It also gave organized
workers the right to select their representatives to bargain with employers and prohibited
employers from interfering with these rights. Farmworkers, however, were excluded from the
NLRA. The ALRA aimed to ext end these rights to farmworkers in California. The ALRA
created the Agriculture Relations Board (ALRB) to administer the provisions of the act. The
board`s staff were charged with two core responsibilities. First, they had to establish whether
agriculture employees wanted to be represented by a labor organization. The wishes of the
workers were to be determined by secret ballot. Second, ALRB strove to prevent unfair labor
practices, defined as those that went against the principle of collective bargaining, whether
implemented by employers or labor organizations. California politicians hoped that by passing
the Agriculture Labor Relations Act, they would defuse a battle that was raging between
unionized farmworkers on the one hand and growers on the other. In the mid -1970s the battle
seriously threatened California`s economy. Central to the dispute was the use of the secondary
boycott by the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). A secondary boycott is one in which a
union takes action against an employer who i s not directly involved in a dispute, in order to
influence an employer with whom it is in dispute. The UFW was led by the celebrated Mexican –
American Union Cesar Chavez (1927 -1993), who dedicated much of his life to increasing the
working conditions of fa rmworkers. In a mid -20th century, agriculture workers were among the
most exploited and underpaid employees in the United States. Due to lack of coverage under the
NLRA, the UFW, could not compel growers to agree to improved working conditions and better
pay. The lack of negotiation rights forced the UFW to use boycotts to reinforce its argument.
In order to understand how and why the ALRA was established, it is important to look at the
history of the struggle between the UFW and California agriculturalist . Chavez began his
organizing efforts in the 1960s. The process intensified in the 1970s when many farmers decided
to recognize the rival Teamster Union in order to reduce the power of the UFW. The Teamsters
were the biggest union in the United States, as well as one of the most corrupt. The union was far
more sympathetic to the employer's wishes than the goals of UFW.

As a consequence, an internecine union conflict emerged, drawing in the giant American
Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organi zations (AFL -CIO). The AFL -CLO
recognized the UFW as an affiliate but did not recognize the Teamsters, which it had expelled
for corruption in 1957. At the same time, the UFW was pursuing a massive strike against lettuce
growers in California. However, wil dcat walkouts by unions affiliated with the UFW in Arizona
and Florida drew union resources away from the state.
The agriculturalists attempt to exploit the vulnerability of the UFW in California by
launching a campaign to get a secondary boycott outlawed. The issue was put before the people
of California as an electoral initiative known as Proposition 22. The secondary boycott was
Chavez`s most potent weapon. Despite its meager resources, the union had no choice but to fight
this well – financed assault, wh ich employed extensive television advertisements and other mass
media publicity. The union resorted to inexpensive techniques such as door -to-door
campaigning. Its strategy worked; the initiative was defeated by 4.3 votes to 3 million.
After the electoral victory, the UFW returned to the lettuce boycott with renewed vigor. The
boycott threatened the Teamsters` agriculture -related unions in California, which represented
people such as cannery workers and truck drivers. The AFL -CIO leadership managed to
persu ade the Teamsters to make a compromise offer, but Chavez was determined not to give an
inch either to the rival union or the farmers.
To this end, the UFW continued its struggle, focusing on the Julio Gallo Wineries, the
biggest business to sign a Teamster s contract. It initiated a national boycott of Gallo products. In
February 1975 Chavez organized a march to Gallo`s headquarters in Modesto to highlight the
campaign.
By this time the liberal politician Jerry Brown had replaced the conservative Ronald Reag an
as governor of California, making the state house in Sacramento a friendlier political climate for
the UFW. The conflict within the agricultural industry had taken a tremendous toll on everyone
involved, threatening the vast amount of revenue that Calif ornia`s agricultural exports brought to
the state. Enlisting the support of California legislators who wanted an end to the turmoil, Brown
introduced the Agriculture Relations Act to extend to California`s farm workers the protection
from which they had be en excluded when the U.S. Congress passed the NLRA.
As the act stated, the ALRA “was intended to ensure peace in the agricultural fields by
guaranteeing justice for all agriculture workers and stability in labor relations.”102 Inevitably,
however, there wer e problems in the Act implementation. For example, there were many
instances of ballot -rigging. When elections were held to determine which of the two principal
unions would represent the workers, employers made efforts to ensure that Teamster candidates

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were victorious. Many agriculturalists also refused to allow union representatives onto their land,
using trespass laws to prevent them from talking to the workers.
The Agricultural Labor Relations Board was intended to prevent such abuses of power, but
the board`s effectiveness in dealing with such issues was hampered by the split in its personal
between pro -union and pro -employer factions. The board became more favorable to employer
interests in 1983 when Jerry Brown was replaced as governor by the Republ ican George
Deukmejian. The new governor installed David Stirling as the ALRB`s general counsel. Stirling
was a former Republican legislator with a conservative, anti -labor voting record, and no
experience working with labor or agricultural representatives . Pro -employer officials were
appointed to the board, and as a result, the UFW lost confidence in the ALRB. In the late 1980s,
the number of incidents brought to the board declined considerably. Although the ALRB became
more politicized in the 1990s, the r elationship between it and the UFW remains uneasy.
The movement that began in Colorado spreads over states, becoming a global move for
equality. While numerous writers have helped the move, Corky Gonzales has managed to
increase awareness on Chicano issues around the world through The Plan Espiritual de Aztlán.
This manifesto supported Chicano nationalism and self -determination of Mexican -Americans,
and in Colorado, March 1969, it was assumed by the first National Chicano Liberation Youth
Conference. Chica no Movement proved to be a battle for economic, social and political
equality. It was a simple message that every ordinary person could relate to and exercise in
everyday life. “While most of the group was made up of Mexican Americans, many people of
diffe rent nationalities wanted to help the movement. ”103 This has helped move the action from
the margins to the most important political unit. Political Establishment usually consists of the
dominant or elite group that holds power or authority in a nation. Many successful organizations
have been formed, such as the Mexican -American Youth Organization (MAYO), that was set up
to fight for the civil rights of Hispanics. In the early 1960s, in Texas, many Mexican Americans
were treated as second -class citizens and d iscriminated against, and even today immigrant s are
still a target of misunderstanding and fear. Chicano Poetry was a safe way of spreading political
messages without the fear of being targeted by talking. From a political point of view, the
movement has b een broken into sections like "Chicanismo," and it meant dignity, self -esteem,
pride, uniqueness and a sense of cultural rebirth. “Mexican Americans wanted to embrace the
color of their skin instead of being shameful. ”104 For many Mexican Americans, unfortun ately,
was imprinted on their mind that was socially and economically better to act "white" or
"normal." The movement wanted to break that mentality and embrace who they were and be

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proud and loud about it. A lot of people on the move thought it was accept able to speak Spanish
to each other and not to be ashamed of not speaking fluent English. America was an immigrant
country not only for socially and economically pleasant people. “The movement made one point
not to exclude others from other cultures but to bring them around to make everyone understand
each other. ”105 While America was new to many people of Latin origin, it was important to
celebrate what they did as a culture. Entertainment was a powerful tool to spread its political
message inside and outsid e of its social circles in America. Chicanismo may not frequently be
considered in the media, but the main points of the movement are self -esteem, pride and cultural
rebirth.

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Conclusion

The Harlem Renaissance was successful in bringing clear black experience to the body of
American cultural history. Not simply through an outburst of culture, but at a sociological level,
the Harlem Renaissance legacy redefined how America and the world loo ked at African
Americans. Migration of the Southern blacks to the North has changed the image of African –
Americans from rural peasants, underestimated, to an urban and sophisticated one. This new
identity has led to greater social consciousness, and Africa n Americans have become players on
the world platform, increasing intellectual and social contacts at international level . It was much
more than history and culture. It gave rise to uniqueness and self -confidence. It has redefined the
way people in America (and the world) have looked at African Americans.
I would say that Harlem Renaissance can be summed up with the concept of voice. The
Harlem Renaissance was one of the first moments in American history, where the voices that
were dismissed tried to be he ard and asked to be brought to the center. People like Hughes or
Hurston did not offer to wait or embrace the idea of being pushed away; they have brought Black
America's voice into dialogue, forcing the problems to be heard. The idea of living a story that
might have been different from that of most cultures began to gain prominence with the Harlem
Renaissance. Rather than being a source of shame and individual suffering, the Renaissance
asked for rights and recognition. For those participating in the Movement with different forms of
expression such as writings, paintings, music or believing in ideals, Harlem was the birthplace of
continuous response to fanaticism and to the "separate but equal laws" of the Southern United
States. It was a concentration of people who desired to learn and reveal themselves. Throughout
this time, theater, music, and culture blossomed. The genre of Jazz came out of the Harlem
Renaissance as well as a new way to play the pi ano called Harlem Stride Style.
Progress – both symb olic and real – at this time has become a point of reference from which
the African -American community has gained a spirit of self -determination that has given a
growing sense to both black urbanism and militancy. As well as a basis for the Community to
rely on the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s.
Harlem's growing urban setting provided a place for African Americans in all frameworks to
appreciate the diversity of black life and culture. The Harlem Renaissance supported the new
recognition of the roots and folk culture through this expression. For example, folkloric materials
and spirits have provided a rich source for artistic and intellectual imagination, which has freed
blacks from establishing past conditions. By sharing these cultural expe riences, a consciousness
emerged as a united racial identity.

Many critics point out that Harlem Renaissance has not been able to emerge from its history
and culture in an attempt to create a new or sufficiently separate from the fundamental elements
of th e white European experience. Frequently, Harlem scholars, while declaring a new racial
consciousness, have resorted to an imitation of their white counterparts by adopting clothing,
refined manners, and labels. This "mimic" can also be called assimilation, as it is typically what
minority members of any social construction have to do to fit the social norms created by the
majority of the constructor. This could be seen as a reason why the artistic and cultural products
of the Harlem Renaissance did not exce ed the presence of White -American values and did not
reject these values. In this sense, the creation of the "new black," which the intellectuals of
Harlem were looking for, was considered a success.
Some features of the Harlem Renaissance were admitted wi thout debate and consideration.
One of these was the future of the "New Black." The thinkers and artists of the Black Movement
continued American progressivism in their belief in democratic reform, in their faith in art and
literature as agents of change, and in their near -critical trust in themselves and their future. This
progressive vision made the black intellectuals – like their white counterparts – unprepared for
the injury of the Great Depression, and the Harlem Renaissance suddenly ended because of the
naive assumptions about the centralization of culture, unrelated to economic and social realities.