Harlem Renaissance

BACKGROUND INFORMATION-  

• Marked the fist time that mainstream publishers and critics took African American literature seriously.
• This renaissance is primarily a literary movement, but it was closely related to development in African American music, theatre, art and politics
• No common literary style or political ideology defined the Harlem Renaissance, but what united participants was their sense of taking part in a common endeavor.
• Most characteristic aspect of the Harlem Renaissance was the diversity of  its expression
• The diverse literary expression of the Harlem Renaissance  had a huge range, from musical poems to poems attacking racial violence.
• The Harlem Renaissance appealed to a mixed audience
• The renaissance relied heavily on white publishing houses and whit-owned magazines 
• A major accomplishment of the renaissance was to push open the door to mainstream white periodicals the
• The African American musicians and other performers also played to mixed audiences, Harlem's cabaret brought both Harlem residents and white New Yorkers.
• IN the end, the more successful black entertainers, who were widely liked, moved their performances downtown 

Lanston Hughes -

• Born on February 1, 1902 and died on May 22, 1967

• Langston was an American writer, known for using jazz and everyday black speech in his poetry.

• His poems usually express the tribulations and sometimes the joys of ghetto life in plain, spirited resembling the colloquial speech of American blacks.

• In 1921 he publishes his first poem, 'The Negro Speaks of rivers', in Crisis magazine.

• In the late 1920's Hughes lived in New York City and he became a prominent figure of the Harlem Renaissance

 Claude McKay

• Born in 1890 in Jamaica and died 1948.
• McKay's first novel, Home to Harlem, is a vivid picture of a black soldier's life in New York.
• Other novels by McKay are Banana Bottom and Banjo
• He also wrote an autobiography, A Long Way from Home.
• In 1942 McKay renounced is former left wing philosophy and converted to Roman Catholicism
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  Countee Cullen
  • Born in 1903 and died in 1946.
  • Cullen was an American poet, novelist, playwright, and educator.
  • In the first half of the 20th century he was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance
  • Cullen was one of the best-known black poets
  • Cullen carefully crafted poems were widely admired by both whites and blacks