Essay On The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, artistic, and social period of creation and new modes of thought. Jazz, a new type of music swept the streets of New York City in the 1920’s. Every jazz artist has taken the style and made it their own over the years and added onto the legacy of what jazz is. Today, jazz is not only still its own popular entity, but nearly all modern music can trace some part of itself back to jazz. Ninety percent of the African-American Population lived in the south after the Civil War. Continuing to be subverted and controlled by whites as sharecropping became prevalent, many blacks were quickly prompted to move north to large urban areas. One urban area in particular was Harlem, New York. Over time, African-Americans were able to find new opportunities for financial freedom never before experienced. As World War One ended and the roaring twenties came around, African-Americans became more liberal in the expression of their beliefs and
Armstrong and many other artists like Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and Bessie Smith used Jazz as a means to exemplify the severe hardships faced by African Americans in the rural South and the urban North. It took the environment of the new American city to bring in close proximity some of the greatest minds of the day. Harlem was able to provide a spotlight for the phenomenal and unique works that may have otherwise gone unnoticed if the Great Migration had never taken place. The artists of the Harlem Renaissance unified and expanded African American culture simultaneously. But the impact on all American culture was equally strong. Due to its International Popularity, the Harlem Renaissance became the forerunner of the Civil Rights movement. For the first time since the Abolitionist movements, white America could not ignore the creativity and freedom of expression of