New Negro Movement

It was a cultural movement that extend over the 1920’s and defined African American literature. It caused an outburst of creativity in black artist and writers. It was influenced by African Americans migrating from the south seeking better opportunities. This movement was created to give blacks a voice and a place in society. This movement started a revolution one which change the discourse of blacks and helped reshape their culture. This movement was known as the New Negro Movement. Before the new negro movement World War I, made blacks think about the nature of their citizenship. Although the war didn’t change how blacks were treated it did change the way many of them thought about their conditions, their duties and privileges of citizenship. Whites separated themselves from blacks because they thought they were better. This caused blacks to lose trust in whites and be disloyal, but they couldn’t. African American’s during this time didn’t have a choice because they felt like they had no voice or place in society based upon how they were being treated. Black people during this time wanted to be accepted by whites
but at the same time question what it meant to be black. Reality hit them when they fought the same war but received nothing in returned because they were black.
“The negro has not gained a single right in America without persistent pressure and agitation. However lamentable it may seem; the Negro is now convinced that white America will never admit him equal rights unless it is coerced into doing it.”
Martin Luther King Jr. After world war I blacks began to question western dominance and valued blacks who aspired leadership to think about their identity in more sophisticated terms than they had in the past, to think beyond the philosophies of Christian quality that had so governed their conception of themselves of what it meant to be civilized and what it meant to be successful. The war changed nothing. Meanwhile, the war changed everything about how the oppressed could imagine themselves in relation to a modern world of an increase of mass culture, radio, airplanes, and phonograph records. This changed for the oppressed of black people resulted in the New Negro movement.
“The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, —a world which yields him no self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”
―W. E. B. Du Bois The New Negro movement started in 1920’s.
this movement allowed blacks to express themselves in ways that they didn’t think they could. It created a new culture and spiritual movement all which was vital for creating a society that was equal for African American’s. According to Alain Locke book Enter the New Negro, he was suggesting that blacks had talents that could be used. However, they needed to find a way that they wouldn’t be exploited (). He wanted blacks to be on the same playing field of democracy. Meanwhile, this democracy wouldn’t be about capitalism but about making music, art, culture, and self-expression. This movement need to happen to reconstruct blackness. Basically, change the mindset of blacks and the way they view themselves. The new negro movement was an era that not only allowed them to express themselves but love their
blackness.
During the new negro movement blacks being to be influenced by music, literate, and arts.