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From 1920 until about 1930 an unprecedented outburst of creative activity among black Americans occurred in all fields of art. Beginning as a series of literary discussions in the lower Manhattan (Greenwich Village) and upper Manhattan (Harlem) sections of New York City, 

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body...
W. E. B. Du Bois, 
The Souls of 
Black Folk (1903) 

This African American cultural movement became known as "The New Negro Movement" and later as the Harlem Renaissance. More than a literary movement and more than a social revolt against racism, the Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African Americans and redefined African American expression. Black Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to become "The New Negro," a term coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke. 

One of the factors contributing to the rise of the Harlem Renaissance was the great migration of black Americans to northern cities (such as New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) between 1919 and 1926. In his influential book The New Negro (1925), Locke described the northward migration of blacks as "something like a spiritual emancipation." Black urban migration, combined with trends in American society as a whole toward experimentation during the 1920s, and the rise of radical black intellectuals — including Locke, Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and W. E. B. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis magazine — all contributed to the particular styles and unprecedented success of black artists during the Harlem Renaissance period. 

You can also read more about the artists of the Harlem Renaissance in the Encarta Concise Encyclopedia — see the Encarta Articles page for a comprehensive list of related articles.

 


Harlem Renaissance
Learn about artists of the Harlem Renaissance — including Langston Hughes, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, shown above — in Encarta Concise Encyclopedia. 
W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois
NetNoir features a 1996 Black History Month spotlight topic that provides information about the Harlem Renaissance. 
The University of Southern California library provides an in-depth bibliography about the Harlem Renaissance and other topics in African American history. 


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