From poetry and prose to music , painting , carving and more , the ethnical cause known as the Harlem Renaissance produced an unprecedented regalia of artistry and societal change among the United States ' newly liberated black population . The end of the Civil War in 1865 ushered in the emancipation of hundred of grand of African Americans who had been enslaved , andby 1920 , about 300,000 African Americansfrom the South had move north in search of economical , societal and political freedoms they ’d been deny ; Harlem , a 3 - square - air mile ( 777 - hectare ) neighbourhood in New York ’s northern Manhattan , became a destination foraround 175,000 African Americansseeking a fresh start .
New York was n’t the only destination for African Americans from the South , but it was an important one . " peradventure the most important piece is the demographic factor , " saysWilliam J. Maxwell , prof of English and African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis . " There was a mass relocation of black Americans from the South to the North , known as the Great Migration . Particularly after World War I , northerly city were becoming discernibly blacker . Harlem became the symbolic capital for this , but bootleg people were also moving to cities like Chicago , St. Louis , Cleveland and others . "
But New York ( and particularly Harlem , which offer African Americans lower genuine the three estates and rental prices than many other localization ) was a significant city for a number of rationality as black Americans began reestablishing and redefine what it think of to be black in a post - slavery mankind . " To cogitate about it in a concrete and pragmatic way , New York was where the be artistic base was , " Maxwell says . " full-grown publication fellowship were now in New York and no longer in Boston , modernistic artwork was centered in New York , and Harlem was becoming an attractive finish for blackened artists . Harlem was also so important because it was the most international dark metropolis in the United States — that ’s the place Carribean migrants came , and you had multitude from Barbados and Haiti stream in . Jamaicans likepolitical activist Marcus Garveyand the poetClaude McKaywere profoundly involved in the movement and were coming to New York , along with a lot of Africans . Outside of Africa or Paris , New York was probably the most external fatal city in the mankind at that point . "
While changes were thrive in other role of the state as well , " the movement " — an burst of literary , artistic , noetic and social change among African Americans — quick became known as the Harlem Renaissance . " It was a self - witting drift in the sense that the masses who organized it live they were holding a renaissance , " Maxwell says . " It was called dissimilar thing at the time , let in the New Negro Movement and the New Negro Renaissance , but it was n’t the kind of aesthetic or cultural event that was only label from a distance of years — it was labeled at the time it was actually happen . "
While many regard the Harlem Renaissance as a primarily literary campaign that included the birth of works from lead poet and authorLangston Hughes , thegolden epoch that lasted from about the 1910s through the mid-1930salso saw the proliferation of visual arts , euphony , theater and more . But at its core , the Harlem Renaissance was more than an artistic move — it was an authoritative old age dedicated to reclaiming and redefining blackness in a wholly new room .
" A ' renaissance ' is about the thought of rebirth , " Maxwell says . " There are examples of that in Western culture , like with the Italian Renaissance . The Harlem Renaissance had a alike idea in the metempsychosis of African culture as it was before slavery , but it was also about reinvent a connection all over the black world for ethnic possibility and power . What ’s paradoxical about the Harlem Renaissance is that calamitous creative person were defining what it mean to be a modern black people — in other row , for black people to be ' urban ' or to have constitute various human body of economical freedom , which is one reason it was centered in New York — after the Great Migration , there was a resurgence of African acculturation as it was before bondage , but the more important composition was defining what it have in mind to be a black American in relation to modernity . "
fit in to Maxwell , the significance of the Harlem Renaissance unfold beyond the humanistic discipline and permeated finish as a whole . " There were a lot of unlike styles and all these mass were trying to redefine blackness as advanced , " Maxwell say . " One of the basic elements of 19th and 20th century racialism was the estimate that black people were primitive or behind the curve of history — the Harlem Renaissance really drive against that and suggested that black people may be themostmodern people who have the capability for change . "
One vital elbow room African Americans pushed back against historic racism was to effectively metamorphose the country ’s musical landscape painting . While malarkey medicine had tooth root in southern towns and metropolis , like New Orleans and Memphis , it found renown on the East Coast . " Classical 1920s wind or ' Dixieland ' was n’t formulate in New York City , but that ’s where malarky music first became marketable and a home commodity , " Maxwell says . " artist likeBessie SmithandDuke Ellingtonweren’t from New York , but they played clubs there and established an audience there . New York is where former jazz join the national entertainment industries . "
According to Maxwell , a specific trend ofjazzwas actually invented in New York , but the immense legal age of what we consider " Greco-Roman " jazz was imported from elsewhere . " New York was where jazz became nationally popular and set about to be played on the radio and in movie theaters , " he says . " It travel up the Mississippi river in the former 1920s , and Louis Armstrong played in Chicago before go to New York City . Some jazz did get invented in New York — a specific elan called stride piano , from artist likeFats WallerandJames P. Johnson , who wrote the euphony for ' The Charleston . ' Those guys showed the power of New York City as an entertainment capital in that they became professional songwriters inTin Pan Alley . "
While the Harlem Renaissance extend to be celebrate for the contributions of famed figures like dancerJosephine Bakerand artistAaron Douglas , Maxwell says there ’s still a lot to be discovered and discover from the era . " The Holy Writ I just edit with Gary Holcomb , a lost novel by Claude McKay call ' Romance in Marseille ' is just one example of all the stuff out there that has n’t been published yet , " Maxwell says . " Another McKay novel was pick up about 10 years ago as well call ' Amiable with Big Teeth . '
" There was a great salmagundi of employment created during the Harlem Renaissance that we do n’t understand yet . citizenry know the body of work of Langston Hughes , the big poet who produce classic poetry soak in disgraceful folklore and speech communication style , andZora Neale Hurston , one of the slap-up storytellers and anthropologist who is also known for bringing black unwritten forms into prose . But beyond that , there ’s a lot of other work , like that from a untried novelist namedRudolph Fisher , who was also a serious physician and wrote witty novels , like " Walls of Jericho . " Also , there were youthful poet like Helene Johnson who wrote witty , almost Dorothy Parker - similar pieces . "
The Harlem Renaissance effectivelyendedin the thirties after the economical force of the Great Depression set in , have patronage , nightclubs and publish houses to shutter and writers and artists to dot in the search for employ . Although the historic full stop of the Harlem Renaissance hit its height a century ago , its influence has continuously touch on American culture through the decades . From its effect on thecivil rights movement of the 1960sto its last legacy in modern arts and culture , the Harlem Renaissance was , as professor Cary D. Wintz , distinguished professor of account at Texas Southern University , wrote in 2015 , " the first clock time that a considerable number of mainstream publisher and critics take African American literature seriously , and it was the first time that African American literature and the arts draw substantial tending from the nation at large . "
