How Did African Americans Influence The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that had prospered during the World War I from 1918 until the 30’s America had been involved the evolution of the culture, social connections, and the artistic boom that started in the town of Harlem. Throughout this paper I will discuss the influence artists had on the Harlem Renaissance, how they have influenced, motivated, and excelled in the culture, and what their accomplishments in this era. During this time, Harlem was the center of culture where it had brought in African American artists, musicians, poets, photographers, and scholars. At this time, it was also noticed as the “New Negro Movement” after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke. The majority of the artists involved had lived in the South, absconding from the despotic class system in search for a place where they were free to reveal their talents. One perspective estimates that roughly half a million Blacks had migrated to the Northern Cities in 1915 and 1920, between 750,000 and one million had left the South in the 1920’s. The Great
Migration was the massive relocation of African Americans that left the South to move the North to take advantage of the labor shortage in the wake of World War I.
Many important individuals, such as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong, Eubie Blake, James P.
Johnson, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Ma Rainey, Billy Strayhorn, Bessie Smith, Nat King Cole and his Trio, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Adelaide Hall, and Ivie Anderson, had strong influences towards this African American movement. W.E.B. Dubois was a major influence for many of the artists, voicing his opinion of encouragement to artists who had fled the South to prosper a new land towards freedom, equality, and acknowledgement. Many of these artists had played in jazz clubs in order for recognition and substantial pay, some of these being the Cotton Club and Minton’s Playhouse. For the first time the impact of African American culture could not keep white America from looking away; possibly due to the strong percussion and the strong vocals bringing forth such great energy through the
music.
This movement is one of the most iconic eras within the African-American history of the arts and culture, dating in the twentieth century. It had invigorated the visual arts as well as the music and theatre. The aspect of the “New Negro” was the redefinition of development through the fresh outlook on the racial politics and the pride that had followed the Great Movement. The discrimination they had faced made it a struggle for equality and their civil rights, but with the N.A.A.C.P. and W.E.B. Dubois and his ideologies had been more for the equality and their recognition within these founding’s. The African American artists had started to be acknowledged by the white folk, where they had started to coalesce into the culture. This was the first recognized aspect of the African American urbanization that was acknowledged by the attention of the public in the 1920’s. This particular ‘New Negro’ movement references to the revitalization of the African American intellectual artist culture. Hubert Harrison established the New Negro Movement in 1916, through the organization Liberty League and the Voice, both of which were firsts in these times. He was also viewed as the father of Harlem Radicalism. Alain Locke had reviewed many essays throughout these times and had coined this term due to the evaluation of the identities within the culture, where the prime objective was to reform the distorted social perspective, along with refurbishing the damage that has been caused psychology of African American’s. Also, it was going against the views of Jim Crow and his racial segregation, where his main motivation was to completely separate due their race. This had humiliating anyone with a color to their luster. There had been significant goals of revaluation, through incorporation of the true identity of an African American, where they are to be recognized as equal in comparison to the white folk. Through all of the cultural contributions, from the past and the current, accountability of artistic benefaction was starting to become a theme of the society, where both folks started to intermingle. The African American perspective was essential to the cultural contributions, which had become very significant within the social struggles they had faced within the twentieth century. The term ‘New Negro’, instead of participating within the folk aspect, artists in Harlem and further surroundings had brought complexity, poise, and pride to the African American music and all over culture. The main goal was to bring about social consciousness on beyond race and class, but more towards political equality. There had been many artists, whom can be recognized as icons not only within these times but throughout history.