The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural awakening among African
Americans between the two world wars. It was the cultural phase of
the "New Negro" movement, a social and political phenomenon that
promoted a proud racial identity, economic independence, and
progressive politics. In this Very Short Introduction, Cheryl A.
Wall captures the Harlem Renaissance's zeitgeist by identifying
issues and strategies that engaged writers, musicians, and visual
artists alike. She introduces key figures such as Langston Hughes,
Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer, along with such
signature texts as "Mother to Son," "Harlem Shadows," and Cane. In
examining the "New Negro," she looks at the art of photographer
James Van der Zee and painters Archibald Motley and Laura Wheeler
and the way Marita Bonner, Jessie Fauset, and Nella Larsen explored
the dilemmas of gender identity for New Negro women. Focusing on
Harlem as a cultural capital, Wall covers theater in New York,
where black musicals were produced on Broadway almost every year
during the 1920s. She also depicts Harlem nightlife with its rent
parties and clubs catering to working class blacks, wealthy whites,
and gays of both races, and the movement of Renaissance artists to
Paris. From Hughes's "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" to W.E.B. Du
Bois's novel Dark Princess, black Americans explored their
relationship to Africa. Many black American intellectuals met
African intellectuals in Paris, where they made common cause
against European colonialism and race prejudice. Folklore -
spirituals, stories, sermons, and dance - was considered raw
material that the New Negro artist could alchemize into art.
Consequently, they applauded the performance of spirituals on the
concert stage by artists like Roland Hayes and Paul Robeson. The
Harlem Renaissance left an indelible mark not only on African
American visual and performing arts, but, as Cheryl Wall shows, its
legacies are all around us.
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