The Story of the Harlem Renaissance, in 6 Facts
Throughout the 1920s, New York City’s Harlem neighborhood served as the vibrant headquarters of a transformative period in African American art, literature, music, and social justice leadership. This movement, known as the Harlem Renaissance, was a catalyst for celebrating African American culture and heritage, giving the Black community newfound ownership of their experiences and pride in how their stories were told. It also sought to challenge racial stereotypes and forge social and political equality, planting ideas that would be meaningful for years to come. Here, told in six facts about the movement, is the story of the Harlem Renaissance.
It Started With the Great Migration
From the 1910s until the 1970s, approximately 6 million Black Americans made their way from the Southern U.S. to Northern, Midwestern, and Western states, fleeing racial discrimination and economic hardships, and seeking better work and education opportunities. Known as the Great Migration, this mass movement transformed the country’s demographic landscape and was a major impetus for the Harlem Renaissance. By the 1920s, some 200,000 newcomers had made the New York City neighborhood of Harlem home; at just 3 square miles in size, the neighborhood had the largest concentration of Black people in the world, with people from all backgrounds, including artists, laborers, scholars, and writers. By the early ’20s, a vibrant cultural community was blossoming in this small corner of Upper Manhattan.
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Magazines Were Crucial to the Movement
In March 1924, a dinner party at Harlem’s Civic Club brought together a group of emerging and established writers and publishers. That gathering is now widely regarded as kicking off the Harlem Renaissance. The movement encompassed a wide variety of creative arts, but at its core was the literary scene. Two publications in particular emerged as crucial platforms for burgeoning African American writers at the time. One was The Crisis, founded in 1910 as the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) by renowned civil rights activist and sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois. It initially focused on social and political issues but expanded its content to include a wider representation of African American life and ideas. The magazine provided space for then-unknown writers such as Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer to share their literary works, and by the start of the 1920s, The Crisis was distributing 100,000 copies a month. Another magazine, Opportunity, emerged in the early 1920s, and also amplified creative Black voices, including that of Zora Neale Hurston.
The Movement Produced Many Enduring Black Icons
Some of the 20th century’s most important African American creatives and activists emerged during the Harlem Renaissance. In literature, leaders such as Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, as well as Countee Cullen, among others, sought equality while celebrating Black identity and heritage. Meanwhile, jazz and blues maestros such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Bessie Smith became powerful musical voices reflecting the social climate of the time. The Harlem Renaissance was also a battleground for social justice, with activists such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey advocating for equal rights and laying crucial groundwork for the civil rights movement. Today, the era’s vibrancy is immortalized in celebrated visual art from painters Beauford Delaney, Archibald Motley, and sculptor Augusta Savage. The collective impact of these icons continues to reverberate today.
The Harlem Renaissance Music Scene Was Boosted by Prohibition
While jazz music predates the Harlem Renaissance, its popularity soared during the 1920s “Jazz Age” — and one of the genre’s unlikely benefactors was Prohibition. In January 1920, the United States banned the manufacture and sale of “intoxicating liquors,” and the law quickly spurred the creation of underground bars known as speakeasies. By the mid-1920s, thousands of New York speakeasies were competing for business, and to attract more of the predominantly wealthy, white crowds, entertainment was brought in regularly — jazz music legends such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were among the most popular performers at the time. Speakeasy culture led to ample and well-paying opportunities for Black musicians, and it introduced jazz music to a broader audience beyond Harlem.
The Renaissance Reverberated Across the Country
Despite its name, the Harlem Renaissance wasn't confined solely to Upper Manhattan. While Harlem was the symbolic capital, this revival of Black culture resonated as a nationwide movement in urban centers such as Chicago (whose own movement was known as the Chicago Black Renaissance) and Los Angeles, while also finding its way to smaller pockets throughout the country. In Texas, African American poet Bernice Love Wiggins had several works published in local papers, and self-published a poetry collection that has drawn comparisons to some of the era’s literary greats, including Hurston and Hughes. Short story writer and poet Anita Scott Coleman, from New Mexico, was considered one of the American West’s most important Harlem Renaissance contributors. Her work was published in the influential magazine The Crisis, and she eventually published more than 30 short stories in other periodicals. Aaron Douglas, one of the most renowned visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance, began his career in Kansas, but was eventually convinced by Opportunity magazine founder Charles S. Johnson to bring his talents to the movement’s epicenter in Harlem, extending his influence even further.
It Ended With the Great Depression
The 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression plunged the United States into economic turmoil, and as a result, most of the Harlem Renaissance’s patronage and financial support — not to mention its artistic energy — waned. The end of Prohibition in 1933 dealt a final blow to the remaining nightlife scene, and by the mid-1930s, many of the onetime pillars of the community had moved on in search of other work to make ends meet. By 1935, the initial optimism and empowerment fostered by the Harlem Renaissance withered in the face of deep-rooted racial prejudices and inequalities that persisted despite the era’s advancements. In March of that same year, the tensions culminated in a defining event, when rumors about the arrest and police treatment of a Latino teenager accused of shoplifting spread throughout Harlem, sparking a deadly riot that has come to be seen as the official end of the Harlem Renaissance. But while the era was over, its influence lived on. African American thinkers, artists, and activists gained recognition and validation like never before during the Harlem Renaissance, and the consciousness that the movement cultivated helped fuel the Civil Rights Movement throughout the 1950s and ’60s.
