Harlem Renaissance in the NYC - Essay Example

? Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance In the suburbs of New York there is a small place named Harlem. The name came from the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands as originally it was a Dutch village, merged within New York in 1873. During this time, Harlem was full of upper middle class white community mostly from Europe, who developed several public buildings and constructed great avenues in that area. But in the start of 20th century, Harlem became a home town for the African Americans as during the First World War, many African Americans arrived there and bought places for their residence. This huge group contained people from every aspect of life and of different occupations, particularly the musicians and those who study literature. There was also unskilled labor that was forced to move in big cities due to the problematic situation caused by war. Hence there was actually a form of migration by the Negro community from their hometowns to big cities as there were fewer opportunities in their local areas. This whole situation was named as the great migration which started in 1910s originally but resulted in a great New Negro Movement, or the Harlem Renaissance. During this time, the blacks from the American community came in front and took every respectable position in the society of whites by their skills and education. Harlem became the centre of black professionals who belong from every class of the society and started to recognize themselves and their community in the post slavery culture of US. Since that time, Harlem has the dominant population of blacks1. In real meaning, Harlem Renaissance originated from the participation of Negros in local theatres. Before that, it was a common conception that black faces and skins cannot convey the human emotions as good as a white face. This participation of Negros in plays boasted their moral and the event was termed as the most important event for Negros of US of their entire history. Another mild stone was the war poems written by different white poets which were taken by the Blacks as the right time to end the unequal treatment they face from the white community and the racial injustice. The whole movement was led by first African American Rhodes scholar, Alain Locke, a professor of philosophy at Howard University at that time. The movement blossomed in 1920s, particularly in the year 1925, when there had been a flood of literary articles and different artistic performances by the African Americans, who drew attention of white intellects to their culture and their participation as active and beneficial members of the society2. The Harlem Renaissance was indeed a blossoming time for the African American culture, particularly in the field of creative arts. It was considered to be a literary movement which laid the basis for all later African American literature and had noteworthy impacts on the overall black literature. Many famous names are attached with the movement, which include Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Jessie R. Fauset, Claude McKay, Arna Bontemps, Rudolph Fisher, Alain Locke, Wallace Thurman and Zora Hurston. All of these African American novelists and writers evoked the spirit of pride into black community with their writings and literary works. Some of the above persons publish journals of their own which were full of black literature depicting the black culture and their lives. In this way, several people contributed their best towards the revival of black literature and its introduction to modern society3. The Harlem Renaissance was not only limited to the publications and literature activities. From its beginning it was associated with every form of art, whether it is music or some other form of creative art. The Negro migration from the south towards north during the war times was not only due to earning purpose, but also to find a better place where skilful and intellectual people can really flourish apart of their color and race. Harlem provided them with such opportunities very well. The locality contained a well maintained saloon run by A'Lelia Walker, who was very rich black women and was a great supporter of the movement. She inherited a successful hair-care products empire from her mother and by use of her extreme wealth, she build a famous saloon which turned into a restaurant named “the dark tower”, during the peak era of the Harlem Renaissance, where most of the black literature and music flourished since many of the writers and poets used to visit there and were very good friends of Walker. In her own words, this saloon would be a pleasant place for all Black artists, musicians and authors who would like to create or invent something new for entire Negro nation. It was, indeed, turned out to be the musical hub since it produced many great black musicians like Langston Hughes, Zora Hurston, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen and James Weldon Johnson. They used traditional black folk material in order to encourage black people to regain their dignity and to inspire the other communities from their enriched talent in music and other forms of art4. No doubt the Harlem Renaissance played its part in flourishing and prospering of several types of the music, particularly jazz and blues music. Various African American artists struggled and worked for the bloom of their music, tends to explore different aspects of black creative arts and worked for its growth and spread. Some prominent musicians and artists of that time include Aaron Douglas, Louis Armstrong, "Jelly Roll" Morton, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Josephine Baker etc, who contributed a lot in the growth of Harlem style music5. Also, a new style of playing piano was introduced namely Harlem Stride Style, which became very famous amongst the wealthy blacks and soon spread nationwide. Actually the piano was included in the traditional jazz band so as to produce better music and to diminish the social difference between the poor and rich, as piano was thought to be a symbol of wealth during those times6. This whole contribution was made from the African American talented musicians who revived the music with this amalgamate of sounds and modification in instruments. All such genres were of explicit interest and most white composers and novelists copied this style of black creative art7. Thus whites and blacks come together in song compositions and concert performances for the first time ever. Black style melodies and rhythms were used frequently and were highly appreciated8. Later, jazz and blue music also become the fashion in dance clubs and late night parties where the music is being played all the time by D.Js. This music has now become a part of our social lives and we are used to listen it. As far as the evaluation and the criticism over Harlem renaissance is concerned, it is very mixed and different historians and critiques have their own point of views about this. During the entire movement itself, very little critic was done over the artistic approaches taken by all Black participants. At that time, there were mainly two approaches about the main theme of the movement. One of them was from Du Bois, James W. Johnson and Alain Locke etc, who said that the entire black community can get privilege equal to whites by using their traditional art forms and by proving their contributions in every field of art and culture. They were of the view that artistic success can never be denied and in this way the talented blacks can get to a way of pride and zenith. On the other hand, people like Claude McKay, Langston Hughes and Zora Hurston were strictly in oppose to this idea of using art as a propaganda by saying that in this way only cultured, wealthy and skilful blacks are promoted which is an inequality with the lower class people. Thus overall, most historians say that Harlem Renaissance portrait many wrong things associated with blacks as there is nothing much which they originally produced themselves. It is treated like an ideal situation for black community where the reality is that no extra ordinary work was done. However, some others also say that the period definitely took blacks to identify their positions in the society by getting mastery over skills and producing good quality content. According to Nathan Huggins, this movement was a milestone to take the two most divided communities of the society close. As the blacks start to have their racial pride by acquiring skills and techniques, this combination would certainly be beneficial for the American society9. Hence all together, it was Harlem renaissance which awoke the black community of US to gain their civil rights and all such facilities like respect which they deserve. Nevertheless, it changed the whole scenario of slavery and it is due to this campaign that artists like Michael Jackson and Will Smith came in front and their talent is highly acknowledged and appreciated. This is not the end of course, as the intelligent and skilful blacks are fully aware of their position and dignity as respectable human beings. They now know how to safeguard their rights and how to combat with racial injustice and inequality from the white members of the society10. Bibliography ANDREWS, W. L., FOSTER, F. S., & HARRIS, T, The Oxford companion to African American literature (New York, Oxford University Press 1997 BAKER, H. A, Modernism and the Harlem renaissance (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1987) FLOYD, S. A., Black music in the Harlem Renaissance a collection of essays. (Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press 1993) Harlem as an African American community retrieved on 2/1/2012 GUSHEE. L, Pioneers of jazz: the story of the Creole Band (Oxford, Oxford University Press 2005) K.VERNEY, African Americans and US popular culture (London, Routledge 2003) Nina Gifford, The Harlem Renaissance. National Center for History in the Schools (University of California, Los Angeles) OLIVER. P, The story of the blues: the making of a black music (London, Pimlico 1997) TROTTER, J. W., LEWIS, E., & HUNTER, T. W, African American urban experience: perspectives from the colonial period to the present. (New York, Palgrave Macmillan 2004) REDIGER. P, Great African Americans in music (New York, Crabtree Pub. Co. 1996) Samuel Black, The Harlem Renaissance Poets and Musicians retrieved on 2/1/2012 Read More