From the 1920s, until the middle of the 1930s, Harlem, New York, became a center of black culture, where artists, writers, poets, musicians, and more flourished, expressing their cultural pride. The Harlem Renaissance came about from the Great Migration, where hundreds of thousands of African Americans migrated up to the northern part of the United States. During this time, many of these African Americans realized that they had a lot in common when it came to past experiences. This, in a sense, ignited a sense of pride and passion for the black community; this is how the Harlem Renaissance era had come into play.
Publications that developed during the Harlem Renaissance allowed the rest of America to realize that things were not only unequal, but needed to be equal. The sense of black pride was born here as well. When black people moved to New York, they took their black pride with them. allowing the Harlem Renaissance to push through. When life gave them lemons, African-Americans sure made their lemonade, There were many greats that came out of the Harlem Renaissance era; Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Marcus Garvey to name a few.
Zora Neale Hurston was a fixture of the Harlem Renaissance, rubbing shoulders with many of its famous writers. “Born in Alabama on January 7, 1891, Zora Neale Hurston spent her early adulthood studying at various universities and collecting folklore from the South, the Caribbean and Latin America. In 1937, she published her masterwork of fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God” (Zora Neale Hurston, Biography.com). Their Eyes Were Watching God is a fiction novel that eventually became her most famous work. Hurston’s death took place in 1960, but her impact on black society will reign forever.
W.E.B. Du Bois, another Harlem Renaissance writer, was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He is also famous for being the first African American to earn a Ph.D., which he earned from the prestigious Harvard University. Du Bois is arguably one of the best spokespeople for African-American rights in the start of the 20th century. He co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. Du Bois accomplished much and broke many barriers for the African-American community before his passing in 1963 (Marcus Garvey, Biography.com).
Another man of the Harlem Renaissance went by the name Marcus Garvey. He was famous for representing Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) on July 15, 1914. Garvey, like Hurston and Du Bois, was very influential on the black youth, then and now. He was well known for his motivational quotes, one especially being “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. Marcus Garvey understood that black people, especially the youth, needed to learn about and acknowledge their culture. When their grandparents and parents are gone, who will be able to tell the stories of the black man’s struggle during the Harlem Renaissance? Black writers, young black writers, are the best for the job. They can keep themselves informed with their cultures due to research and being taught by their elders. After all, your story is best told by you.
In essence, the Harlem Renaissance was an era of grace and divinity. African Americans started to feel that sense of self love and pride for themselves after hearing for decades that they were meaningless and did not amount to the same amount of importance as their white counterparts. This period of time helped empower the black youth today, for now they take the quotes of Hurston, Dubois, Garvey and more to strengthen the black communities. Also, this has inspired a new era of black writers (some include Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Nikki Giovanni) to write and express themselves in a new light. The Harlem Renaissance was vital to our society, simply because it allowed black Americans to, for once, tell their own story. The Harlem Renaissance, for these reasons, inspire me to write.
