HARLEM RENAISSANCE

Year 2019, Issue: 3, 35 - 53, 30.06.2019

Zeki Edis Mehmet Bilem

Abstract

Harlem Renaissance is an era of which the black
American race is proud at most. Beginning in the 1920s and ending towards
1930s, the movement was known as the New Negro Movement at the time. Having
been frustrated and forced to isolation under Jim Crow segregation the New
Negro intellectuals gathered in Harlem. The works they produced had a
distinguished aspect different from the previous black art and culture. They
were products of black minds and highlighted the black culture with a racial
awareness. The black artists of the Renaissance did not feel an obligation to
be welcome by their white counterparts, yet in contrary they were boasted of
their black side and attached a special importance to being both black and
American. They were relatively more radical compared to the old Negro mentality
who sought for a passive integration of the black race into the American
nation. The main point discussed in this article is the extent of success
reached in their quest of being original and black. The article puts forth both
the aspects to be proud of and the negative sides that halted the progress of
the black race towards the civil rights acquisition and equality. 

Keywords

Harlem Renaissance, African-American History, Black Literature

References

• Ahmann, M. H. (1969). The New Negro. New York: Biblo and Tannen. Helbling, M. (1999). The Harlem Renaissance: The One and the Many. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Huggins, N. I. (2007). Harlem Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press. Wallace, M. (2007). Langston Hughes: The Harlem Renaissance. New York: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark. Wintz, C. D. (1988). Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance. Houston, TX: Rice University Press.