Essay On Harlem Renaissance

The American experience is the most unique and diverse of any country in the world. It is filled with the cultures and histories of every race, religion, and ethnicity, combined together to create a mural of what it means to be an American. While the experiences of all these groups intertwine in many instances, there are large segments of American history where one group’s experience is completely unlike that of any other. Such is the experience of African Americans during the late 1920s, in an era simply defined as The Harlem Renaissance. Occurring mainly in Harlem, New York, a middle-class African American suburb of New York City, the Harlem Renaissance was a period of cultural rebirth and growth for African Americans throughout the country.
This effect would later culminate in the quest for equality and Civil Rights Movement that swept the country during the 1950s and ‘60s. Harlem Renaissance poetry paints an image of the African American experience by promoting the common messages of continuing to fight and work for success and equal rights, as well as displaying pride in African American culture and history.

Langston Hughes' "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" provides a brief recollection of African American history and promotes the importance of African Americans in the events of the world, allowing others to better understand, accept, and take pride in African American culture. While African American history is diverse and intricate, during the 1920s few people outside of the African American community knew the full impact of African Americans in the history of the world. The famous African American poet, Langston Hughes, sought to change this by writing a short, yet captivating, poem, which summarizes the history of African Americans in just 13 lines. The poem
The 1920s were a period of great economic prosperity, especially for white middle and upper-class citizens, and thus few people knew of the simple and less-prosperous lifestyles of many African Americans. Langston Hughes sought to change this, and with this poem created awareness to the simple and impoverished lifestyles of many African Americans at the time. He writes, “In the Quarter of the Negroes / Where the doors are doors of paper / Dust of dingy atoms / Blows a scratchy sound,” (1-4). In these 4 lines Hughes paints a powerful picture of what many African Americans have to live with at the time. He describes a home so rundown and occupied by a family so poor that they cannot afford to put a new door in the house, and are forced to use paper to cover the doorway instead. Dust floats everywhere throughout the house, covering furniture and clothes, simply because the family cannot afford to buy cleaning supplies. The house is so beaten and run down that it has terrible sound protection, and thus the wind and movement of every piece of dust creates a bitter sound that echoes through the house.This powerful message allows the general public to finally see and understand the financial difficulties experienced by many African Americans, and consequently many more people become