Study #13

The New Negro Renaissance, later called the Harlem Renaissance, took its inspiration from the lives and struggles of black people moving away from the oppressive rural South and into the more tolerant urban North. Tapping into the vibrant culture of the South’s African roots—including its dialect, customs, and mannerisms—and mixing it with American experimentalism, black writers and artists claimed the right to represent themselves and their community for the first time ever and consequently produced important works that reflected the racial consciousness and sense of freedom they were feeling.

Augusta Savage viewing “Susie Q” and “Truckin”

Born in Florida, Augusta Savage moved to Harlem in the early 1920s to realize her ambition of being an artist. In 1923, Savage applied to a special program to study art in France, but was rejected because of her race. She took this as a call to action, and sent letters to the local media about the selection committee's discriminatory practices. Savage's story made headlines in many newspapers, but it wasn't enough to change the group's decision; regardless, she continued to create and attend school on scholarships, and made a name for herself as a portrait sculptor

“The New Negro: An Interpretation,” was a 1925 anthology composed by Alain Locke and planted some of the bravest black writers of the 1920s - Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, etc - squarely in the public eye. “The New Negro” marked the birth of a new style of writing: a swank, gritty, realism that streaked through the modern world.

Georgette Seabrooke was born in South Carolina but moved to New York City as a young woman to pursue the arts. In 1936 she was chosen by the Federal Art Project of the WPA as one of four "master artists" to paint murals at Harlem Hospital. She was the youngest artist chosen and the only female. Recreation in Harlem is nearly 20 feet long and depicts daily life in Harlem in the 1930s. Seabrooke explained that her "attempt was to give the nurses something to look at, something which they could partake in and find interesting rather than their own personal work which in a recreation room might not be as exciting as a subject apart."

Fire!! was a literary journal conceived to express the uniquely black experience during the 1920s in a modern and enlightening fashion. The magazine's founders wanted to express the changing attitudes of a younger generation by exploring issues in the black community, such as homosexuality, interracial relationships, promiscuity, and color prejudice.

Langston Hughes by Consuelo Kanaga, 1933

Langston Hughes wrote that the name Fire!! was intended to symbolize their goal "to burn up a lot of the old, dead conventional Negro-white ideas of the past ... into a realization of the existence of the younger Negro writers and artists, and provide us with an outlet for publication not available in the limited pages of the small Negro magazines then existing." The magazine's Harlem headquarters burned to the ground shortly after it published its first issue.

Midsummer Night in Harlem by Palmer Hayden, 1936 — *Midsummer Night in Harlem* by Palmer Hayden, 1936

Palmer Hayden is known for his narrative scenes of New York's urban life and the rural South. Like a photographer taking snapshots, he depicted black subjects during unguarded moments in their daily routine. His characterizations - sometimes humorous, sometimes unflattering - feature a compelling use of line and possess the immediacy of popular illustrations.

The Subway by Palmer Hayden, 1930 — *The Subway* by Palmer Hayden, 1930

Labor-saving technology, shorter working hours and higher wages in the 1920s gave black Americans freedom for leisure and entertainment. During the Renaissance, Harlem came to define what was avant garde not only for black America, but white America as well, with leading hotspots like the Cotton Club bringing jazz music to the mainstream.

A scene from Within Our Gates by Oscar Micheaux, 1920 — A scene from *Within Our Gates* by Oscar Micheaux, 1920

Oscar Micheaux was considered the first major Black filmmaker and producer, and featured predominantly black casts who portrayed characters who pushed back against the cruel caricatures seen in popular films at the time. Working out of his own independent company on a shoestring budget, Micheaux gave his characters a dignity and humanity that was rarely seen on screens at the time, and addressed “the politics of skin color within the black community, gender differences, class differences, [and] regional differences especially during this period of the Great Migration,” according to film professor Jacqueline Stewart.