The Independent
The Harlem Renaissance
Harlem
The Jazz Age
Jazz grew out of the era’s ragtime music, and its influence was not restricted to the musical arena. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald labeled the period from the end of the Great War to the Great Depression as the “Jazz Age” as much for the cultural change it brought about as the music that defined it. While much of the country found solace in the policies associated with Prohibition, Fitzgerald chronicled the hedonism found in the Jazz Age in many of his works, The Great Gatsby, and Tales from the Jazz Age. Speakeasies and night clubs abounded in urban areas as Prohibition was routinely circumvented or ignored outright.
Bigotry in American society remained a formidable obstacle, but jazz music and the culture it produced offered Americans an unprecedented opportunity to interact with one another regardless of race. White patrons routinely frequented jazz clubs to listen to African American performers like Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, and Duke Ellington.
The New Fashions
New Art Style
Between 1920-1930 and outburst of creativity among African American occurred in every aspect of art. This cultural movement became known as "The New Negro Movement" later the "Harlem Renaissance. Harlem attracted a prosperous and stylish middle class which sprouted an artistic center. African Americans were encouraged to clebrate their heritage and to become "The New Negro" a term coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke.
Important People Who Made It Happen
Stars
These are the ‘legendary’ and the ‘not often mentioned’ talents, namely, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jessie Redmond Fauset, Jean Toomer, Arna Bontemps, Rudolph Fisher, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Josephine Baker and many more.
About Us
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Phone: 940-268-7288