The Harlem Renaissance

Do Now: If a group of people is struggling socially, politically, educationally and financially, is it likely for that group to produce high quality literature, music, and art? Write at least one paragraph and back up your opinion.

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• First Great Migration

• The Hell Fighters

The Red Summer of 1919

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The Renaissance Begins…

• Jean Toomer writes “Cane.”

• The first literary masterpiece of Harlem Renaissance.

Themes of the Harlem Renaissance

• “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay

• Themes:– Lynching– Bravery & honor

Themes of the Harlem Renaissance

• Passing.

Themes of the Harlem Renaissance

• “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston.

• Hurston wrote about the difficult conditions of African Americans in the deep South.

• She wrote in a Southern, African American dialect.

Marcus Garvey

• Not a part of the Harlem Renaissance.

• The first to say “black is beautiful.”

• Proud to be dark-skinned.

• He wanted blacks to return to Africa.

Duke Ellington

Louis Armstrong

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Art of the Renaissance

Art of the Renaissance

Art of the Renaissance

Homework

• Given the many obstacles that African Americans faced leading up to the 1920’s, should the Harlem Renaissance have even taken place?

• Write at least one paragraph and back up your opinion.

The Renaissance Remembered

• In spite of being faced with segregation, disenfranchisement, unequal education, lynching, and sharecropping, in the 1920’s, African Americans produced magnificent literature, music, and art in the face of the most oppressive times.