A Renaissance in Harlem

1. Harlem in the 1920s was home to tens of thousands of African Americans, many from the South, who felt a strong sense of racial pride and identity in this new place. • This spirit attracted a historic influx of talented African American writers, thinkers, musicians, and artists, resulting in the Harlem Renaissance. • Artists • Black artists won fame during this era, often focusing on the experiences of African Americans. • William H. Johnson, Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence were well known. • Writers • Little African American literature was published before that era. • Writers like Zora Neale Hurston and James Weldon Johnson wrote of facing white prejudice. • Poets • Poets like Claude McKay and Langston Hughes wrote of black defiance and hope. • These poets recorded the distinctive culture of Harlem in the 1920s. A Renaissance in Harlem

2. Zora Neale Hurston • Author of Their Eyes Were Watching God • Writer employed by the Federal Writer’s project • Researched folklore of the Floridas for the WPA • Writing is mostly “apolitical” and focuses on women’s concerns

3. Marcus Garvey • Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr was a publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, Black Nationalist, Pan-Africanist, and orator. • Marcus Garvey was founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League • On 10 June 1940, Garvey died after two srokes, putatively after reading a mistaken, and negative, obituary of himself which stated, in part, that Garvey died "broke, alone and unpopular" • “ Our union must know no clime, boundary, or nationality… let us hold together under all climes and in every country…”

4. James Weldon Johnson (1871- 1938) • “He was a field secretary in the NAACP, a journalist, a publisher, a diplomat, an educator, a translator, an English professor, a songwriter, a well-known poet and novelist.” • He wrote The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Fifty Years and Other Poems

5. Langston Hughes • Most popular and versatile writer of the Harlem Renaissance • Wanted to capture the traditions of Black culture in written form • 1902-1967

6. Claude McKay1890-1948 POET, NOVELIST, JOURNALIST Born in Jamaica, McKay did not experience severe racism until he moved to the USA. He wrote serious poetry, usually sonnets, about racial abuse. • His spirit is smoke ascended to high heaven. • His father, by the cruelest way of pain, • Had bidden him to his bosom once again; • The awful sin remained still unforgiven. • All night a bright and solitary star • (Perchance the one that ever guided him, • Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim) • Hugh pitifully o'er the swinging char. • Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view • The ghastly body swaying in the sun: • The women thronged to look, but never a one • Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue; • And little lads, lynchers that were to be, • Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.

7. Louis Armstrong • “Armstrong gained fame as a (jazz) horn player, then later became better known as a bandleader, vocalist, musical ambassador and founding figure in much modern American music.” • “everything from pomp to humor to grief to majesty to the profoundly gruesome and monumentally spiritual worked its way into his tone”

8. Duke Ellington • Duke Ellington became one of the most influential artists in the history of recorded music • He’s largely recognized as one of the greatest figures in jazz history • blues, gospel, movie soundtracks, popular, and classical. • His career spanned five decades and included leading his orchestra, composing an inexhaustible songbook, scoring for movies, and world tours. • generally considered to have elevated the perception of jazz to an artistic level on par with that of classical music. • His reputation increased after his death, and he received a special award citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board in 1999.

9. BESSIE SMITH1895-1937 • Bessie had started to style herself as a Swing musician and was on the verge of a comeback when her life was tragically cut short by an automobile accident in 1937. While driving with her lover Richard Morgan (Lionel Hampton's uncle) in Mississippi their car rear-ended a slow moving truck and rolled over crushing Smith's left arm and ribs. Smith bled to death by the time she reached the hospital. John Hammond caused quite a stir by writing an article in Downbeat magazine suggesting that Smith had bled to death because she had been taken to a White hospital and had been turned away.