Harlem Renaissance
Literature
About the Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance is the explosion of African American culture being integrated in Harlem. This happened in-between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. Massive amounts of African America art, writing, literature, and just culture in general was being flooded into Harlem after a lot of the African American population decided to move to Harlem.
The Harlem Renaissance primarily occurred because of The Great Migration. The Great Migration was the movement of millions of African Americans out of the South and into the North in order to escape the immense amount of racism that was in the South, compared to the mild racism that was in North during the time period.
During the time, the Harlem Renaissance was actually referred to as "The New Negro Movement"
Because the Harlem Renaissance organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP) gained popularity, power, along with influence in the entire country. Organizations that supported African Americans also helped to urge white people to accept that these African Americans were now apart of their country and won't go away. This eventually helped play a role in getting rights for African Americans, which happened years after the Harlem Renaissance.
The literature of the Harlem Renaissance produced many famous books such as Cane by Jean Toomer, The Fire in the Flint by Walter White, Home to Harlem by Claude McKay, Quicksand by Nella Larsen, The Walls of Jericho by Rudolph Fisher, Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes, Black No More by George Schuyler, The Chinaberry Tree by Jessie Redmon Fauset and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.