Harlem, New York, became an African American cultural mecca in the 1920s and the birth city of the most defining literary, art, and musical movement in African American history: the Harlem Renaissance. 

After World War I ended in 1918, racial tensions were at an all-time high. Soldiers returned to their homes weary of segregation, prejudice, and oppression led by white supremacists in the South. W.E.B. DuBois, a social reformer and writer, would become an important figure of the movement. In “Returning Soldiers” (1919) he called on African Americans to continue the fight for democracy at home:  

“We return from the slavery of uniform which the world’s madness demanded us to don to the freedom of civil garb. We stand again to look America squarely in the face and call a spade a spade. We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land.” 

Between 1916 and 1917, six million African Americans chose to make the North and Midwest their new home. They sought equality, better housing, and better work in what became known as the Great Migration. 

Harlem’s Influence on the Jazz Age 

By the 1920s, the economy was booming. American youth rebelled against pre-war cultural conventions and rigid traditions with the rise of speakeasies, short hairstyles, and of course, jazz—a new music style influenced by ragtime pieces and blues.  

Harlem, situated north of New York’s Central Park, was originally intended as an unassuming, upper-class white neighborhood. However, excess housing left many buildings empty, which appealed to black New Yorkers and those fleeing oppression in the South. Harlem quickly became a favorite destination for African American artists all over the country that sought freedom of expression. This infused a distinctively African style into Harlem’s culture, and by the mid-1920s the neighborhood became a symbol for African Americans’ struggle for equality and a center for black art and culture.   

Artists That Defined the Harlem Renaissance 

Although still segregated at the time, Harlem’s infamous Cotton Club was an epicenter for rising African American artists. It featured trendsetting black entertainers like Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, and Josephine Baker and helped cement them as American legends. Here the Harlem Renaissance was born.  

The flourishing new music, art, fashion, and theater scene quickly translated to the literary world. Alain Locke published his famous work “The New Negro” in Harlem in 1925, which featured a collection of stories by African Americans that detailed their lives and struggles after the Civil War. His work coined the term the “New Negro Movement,” which became synonymous with the Harlem Renaissance.  

In 1921, poet Langston Hughes arrived in Harlem and pioneered “jazz poetry”: an infusion of jazz beats into lyrical written works, seen in his poems “Dreams,” “The Weary Blues,” and “Words Like Freedom.” He would become one of the most defining poets of the movement. Hughes joined other Harlem Renaissance writers like Wallace Thurman and Zora Neale Hurston to create the controversial and influential journal Fire!! in 1926. Zora Neale Hurston would eventually publish the classic “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” which was greatly influenced by her time in New York. 

The End of the Harlem Renaissance 

In 1935, a race riot forced the closure of the bustling Cotton Club. That event, in addition to the looming Great Depression, marked the end of the Harlem Renaissance. However, its influence on American culture was indelible. African American life was brought to the forefront and acted as a challenge to the Jim Crow-era laws of the age, prompting a rising spirit, pride, and commitment to change and, eventually giving rise to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The literature and the arts born in the Harlem Renaissance inspired many other contemporaneous writers across the world, especially in France and the Caribbean, and served as a vessel to change the face of American culture.  

“The best of humanity’s recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance.” 

–Aberjhani, historian, columnist, novelist, poet 

Explore Historic Literary Movements with our BA in English 

If you’re interested to learn more about literary movements like the Harlem Renaissance, consider exploring our course “American Literature Since 1865” (ENGL 2328), part of our online BA in English program. As part of the General Requirements for the BA in English, students will also learn about the Jazz Age with our course “Jazz, Pop & Rock” (MUSI 1301).  

A BA in English can help you develop the key skills needed to become a better writer and researcher—and hone your critical thinking and problem-solving skills as well. Our BA in English is affordable, convenient, flexible and completely online, so you can study from anywhere in the world. BA in English graduates may go on to pursue professional and academic journeys in fields including:  

  • Communication 
  • Law 
  • Teaching 
  • Writing 
  • Graduate and post-graduate studies 

Ready to delve into history’s defining movements through the eyes of influential writers while developing your own writing skills? Join our online BA in English program today! 

Sources: 
https://www.aaihs.org/w-e-b-du-bois-world-war-i-and-the-question-of-failure/
https://www.harlemworldmagazine.com/harlem-history-the-cotton-club/
https://www.ipl.org/essay/Impact-On-The-Harlem-Renaissance-PKBEYCNNPC48R
https://www.britannica.com/event/Harlem-Renaissance-American-literature-and-art
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/145704/an-introduction-to-the-harlem-renaissance
https://www.learningforjustice.org/podcasts/teaching-hard-history/jim-crow-era/the-harlem-renaissance-restructuring-rebirth-and-reckoning