Introduction
The Harlem Renaissance refers to a movement that took place between the 1920s and the 1930s when Africa-American art and writing exploded. Though there had been Africa-American art and writing before, the concentration of African American voices was biggest during this period in time. The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement was inspired by Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Alan Locke, the author of “New Negro” and W. E. B. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis magazine. This movement expressed the pride in blacks and motivated many African Americans to embrace their culture. The main area of discussion by this movement was the struggles of the black people as a minority race in the country at that time and the celebration of their culture through literature and art.
Indeed the Harlem Renaissance had a profound impact on the country as it gave voice to a people who had been slaves for so long and who were trying to escape the oppressive Jim Craw laws that governed the south. This movement wrote to America what it felt like to be side lined in America on the count of one’s race. The cultural movement marked the first time in the history of the United States of American that the majority white population took notice of the literature of the minority African Americans. Harlem Renaissance got its reputation as the period when a group of talented African-American writers produced a wide range of recognized literature in the categories of art, easy and poetry. Harlem Renaissance helped shape American culture, while adding its own elements to the American’s tradition. It offered new ways of seeing and understanding what it meant to be Black at this crucial time in history. Harlem Renaissance was a literary and artistic movement with expansive connection to civil rights and reform.
Poets of the Harlem Renaissance
During the Harlem Renaissance, poetry transformed the nation of the African-American people to great and unexpected heights. Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, and many more are among the Harlem Renaissance poets that made way for the future generation of African-Americans to expresses their inner self away from color and the injustices they suffered as a minority people in the country.
Langston Hughes is notably the most influencial and most memorable of the Harlem poets. He wrote the famous poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers. His poetry expresses the complications faced by African-Americans with a great mixture of happiness, culture and environmental struggles. Claude McKay, from Jamaica, immigrated to the United States in 1912, and published a volume of poetry by the name Songs of Jamaica in the same year. In 1919 he wrote a spectacular piece known as If We Must Die. McKay published many more successful pieces thereafter. His poetry addressed social and political concerns.
James Weldon Johnson wrote the famous, Lift Every Voice and Sing. His autobiography, An Ex-Colored Man, published in 1912, explores issues of race during the post world war. Weldon later published God’s Trombones, a poetry book that reflects on his experiences in the south as an African-American. Countee Cullen was another of the rising stars of poetry during the Harlem Renaissance. He won various awards for one of his poems, The Ballad of The Brown Girl.
These are a few of poets who made major contributions to the Harlem Movement through poetry. Their contributions have elevated the American society, and have encouraged a lift in the level of social consciousness. Their thoughts, metaphors, lyrics, similes, and their use language encouraged many and continue to do so even today. The Harlem Renaissance became the rebirth of African American culture, in New York City and America at large. Among many modern writers that have been inspired by the works from the Harlem Renaissance, are Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, and Toni Morrison. The Harlem poets also had an influence on Martin Luther King's “I Have A Dream” speech. The speech can be closely related to Langston Hughes poem “Let America be America Again”.
It is Harlem Renaissance that provided the very important progress in African American Art and Literature. Were it not for the Harlem Renaissance, the African America literature would not had had a chance at success as the bringing together of such the wide range of artistic talents, grand pieces of arts, and the opportunity to pool numerous ideas regarding diverse subject matters together would not have been. Harlem renaissance encouraged the development of new and renewed consciousness and hence the birth of great poets and writers. It allowed for African-Americans to celebrate their cultural heritage while building their confidence against the backdrop of slavery and prejudicial laws of the southern part of the country. Harlem Renaissance is hence a spring of inspiration not only to the African-American but also to other groups in the country that at one time would feel misrepresented or their voices unheard.
References
Asante, M. K. (2012). African-American History. New Jersey: People Publishing Group, Inc.
Carroll, A. (2012). Art, Literature, And The Harlem Renaissance: The Messages Of God's
Trombones.
Grimes, L. (2013). Harlem Renaissance Poets. New York: City University of New York.
