Setting the Stage
By 1920: majority urban
Job opportunities during wartime grew for women, immigrants, and migrants.
Post war economic hardship
Nativism and the Red Scare
Immigration Act of 1924
Setting the Stage• Resurgence of KKK (and WKKK)
–ANTI: foreign, Catholic, black, Jewish, pacifist, communist, internationalist, bootlegger, gambling, adultery, birth control
• Southern oppression for Af.Am– segregation– racial violence– Denial of basic civil rights – Low wages and poor working conditions
– Limited education
The Great Migration
During and after World War I, African Americans moved to the North and West, where they found new opportunities but still encountered discrimination.
The Crisis – Brothers Come NorthHistorical Context: 1920, just after WW1 when many African Americans are disillusioned with America’s role in “making the world safe for democracy”
Audience: African AmericansPurpose: to persuade African Americans to leave the South.
Point of View: WEB Dubois was an early civil rights leader, so we expect his writings to be motivational for African Americans and critical of white culture/government.
The Crisis ‐ Brothers Come North
Connections:What connections do you draw between the text and your own life or your other learning?
Challenge: What ideas, positions, or assumptions do you want to challenge or argue with in the text?
Concepts:What key concepts or ideas do you think are important and worth holding onto from the text?
Changes: What changes in attitudes, thinking, or action are suggested by the text, either for you or others?
Race Riots
• 1917 ‐ East St. Louis ‐ labor tension. 100‐200 killed and 300+ buildings destroyed
• 1919 ‐ 26 riots, including Chicago ‐ drowning of Af.Am boy escalated ‐ 15w/23b killed, 178w/342b injured, 1000+ black families lost homes
• 1921 ‐ Tulsa ‐ white girl accused black boy of rape ‐ 150‐200 killed
Harlem Renaissance
• When most talented black artists came to express their African American experiences through music, literature, art, etc.
The Great Migration
NAACP
The Crisis
Harlem Renaissance
Tension in Cities
����������� ���• Marcus Garvey:
– advocated black pride and separatism– United Negro Improvement Association– Black Star Line
• W.E.B. Dubois– NAACP to upholding of 14th and 15th
amendments– anti‐lynching campaign– immediate equality through politics
• Booker T. Washington– eventual equality through economic
independence– vocational education (Tuskegee Institute)
Booker T Washington - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - WEB DuBois
- Generate as many “tugs” or reasons that pull you toward each leader’s philosophy.
- Determine the strength of each tug, placing strongest tugs at the farthest ends of the rope and weaker tugs toward the center.
�� ���� �� ���• Jazz:
– Origins in New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago
– West African folk + syncopated rhythms of Ragtime + minor chord voicing of the Blues.
– Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith,
Savoy Ballroomhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqsc0dhoED0
Cotton Club:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEaZkNQTVVc
�� ���� �� ���• Literature:
– celebrated black culture and dialect
– reflected the movement of the “New Negro” ‐‐ self‐assertive, racially conscious, and articulate – and spoke out about marginalization and alienation
– Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston
�� ���� �� ���Drama:o Paul Robesono Evelyn Preero Broke racial barriers
Painting:o Aaron Douglas – paintings
shaped by African culture and jazz music
o Palmer Hayden – paintings of daily life in Harlem.
The Jazz Age
• Jazz was taken over by the middle class society
• NY and Chicago = cultural centers for jazz
• Radio stations (new technology)
• Younger people popularized the black‐originated dances such as the Charleston
How it Feels to be Colored Me
Historical Context ‐ 1928 ‐ Harlem Renaissance is in full swingAudience ‐ printed in a political magazine with leanings toward pacifism and Christian socialismPurpose ‐ descriptive essay exploring identity and self pridePoint of View ‐ Zora Neale Hurston was a well known Harlem Renaissance writer
How it Feels to be Colored Meby: Zora Neale Hurston
Individual• sentence that was
meaningful ‐ that captures a core idea of the text
• phrase that moved, engaged, or provoked you
• word that captured your attention or struck you as powerful
Class• What themes emerge?• What implications or
predictions can be drawn?
• Were there aspects of the text not captured in your choices?