Intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance
W.E.B. DuBois
Founder of the NAACP, Educator, essayist, journalist, pan- africanist, scholar, social critic, and activist W.E.B. DuBois was one of the greatest forces behind the Harlem Renaissance. W.E.B DuBois was also the leader of the Niagara Movement. A graduate of Harvard University, DuBois’s wrote the book, The Philadelphia Negro, that was released in 1899. In his book he stated that housing and employment discrimination were the principal barriers to racial equality and black prosperity in the urban North. Many of the Organization as well as the movements began by DuBois still exist today.
"One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." - W.E.B. DuBois
"One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." - W.E.B. DuBois
Marcus Garvey
Founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and the back to African movement, Marcus garvey settled left his home of Jamiaca to settle in Harlem in 1917. Marcus Garvey's version of Black Nationalism argued that African Americans' quest for social equality was a delusion. He believed that African- Americans fate would forever lie in the hands of the whites, and they may become a majority in number, but never in influence. His movement advocated for the movement of Africans back to the motherland were true believe true emancipation and prosperity lied.
A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. - Marcus Garvey
A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. - Marcus Garvey
Alain Locke
Alain Locke is known as the Father of the Harlem Renaissance. In his 1925 essay titled "The New Negro", Alain Locke, educator, philosopher, and patron of the art, spoke about what he called a movement. This movement sought to transform not only how whites saw African-Americans, but how African Americans saw theirselves. His essay described a "new psychology", and a "new spirit".
Nathan Huggins in his book, Harlem Renaissance, states:
"Alain Locke believed that the profound changes in the American Negro had to do with the freeing of himself from the fictions of his past and the rediscovery of himself. He had to put away the protective coloring of the mimicking minstrel and find himself as he really was. And thus the new militancy was a self-assertion as well as an assertion of the validity of the race."
Nathan Huggins in his book, Harlem Renaissance, states:
"Alain Locke believed that the profound changes in the American Negro had to do with the freeing of himself from the fictions of his past and the rediscovery of himself. He had to put away the protective coloring of the mimicking minstrel and find himself as he really was. And thus the new militancy was a self-assertion as well as an assertion of the validity of the race."
Famous Musicains of the Renaissance
Writers of the Harlem Renaissance
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston's most famous book "Their Eyes Were Watching God" was criticized because of her use of thick dialect through out her book. Although it was published in 1937, it is seen as a great achievement of the Harlem Renaissance. In her book Jamie speaks of an all black town known as Eatonville, in which black were self sufficient and their culture lively exsisted. The book was criticized because to some whites it didn't seem "realistic" enough. The fact that was a town in Florida that was entirely inhabited and governed by African -Americans seemed almost fantasy like. The dialect used within the book was seen as "poor english". The greatness of her books weren't realized until after she died .
Artists of the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem ... Harlem
Black, black Harlem
Souls of Black Folk
Ask Du Bois
Little grey restless feet
Ask Claude McKay
City of Refuge
Ask Rudolph Fisher
Don't damn your body's itch
Ask Countee Cullen
Does the jazz band sob?
Ask Langston Hughes
Nigger Heaven
Ask Carl Van Vechten
Hey! ... Hey!
" ... Say it brother
Say it ..." - Frank Horne, "Harlem"
Black, black Harlem
Souls of Black Folk
Ask Du Bois
Little grey restless feet
Ask Claude McKay
City of Refuge
Ask Rudolph Fisher
Don't damn your body's itch
Ask Countee Cullen
Does the jazz band sob?
Ask Langston Hughes
Nigger Heaven
Ask Carl Van Vechten
Hey! ... Hey!
" ... Say it brother
Say it ..." - Frank Horne, "Harlem"