Harlem

Ren

aissance

Themes for Analysis

The Harlem Renaissance

• Why is integration and assimilation different for African-Americans as compared to European immigrants?

Double-Consciousness• African-Americans’

struggle to claim a distinct cultural identity and yet be seen as American– WB Dubois “The Souls

of Black Folk” and the metaphor of the “Veil”

• Obstacles: discrimination, stereotypes, lost African heritage, White approval/disapproval– Hughes “Father and

Son” and “I, Too, Sing America”

New Negro Identity• The use of African

settings, images, and symbols attracts whites and fulfills a desire to search for the roots of a lost heritage – Hughes “The Negro Speaks

of Rivers”

• Seeks to obliterate old stereotypes – Hughes “Father and Son”

• Obligation to present the beauty and truth of African-American life

• Promote racial pride

• Through integration and contact with the white and black upper classes new understanding will emerge – Jazz

– White patronage

The Purpose of African-American Art• “All Art is Propaganda”• Dubois, Locke, and others

criticize all Black art that doesn’t portray African-Americans positively

• Seek to undue the damage done by years of racial stereotypes– “The Souls of Black Folk – the

Talented Tenth”

• Claude McKay’s poems – “America” expose the effects of discrimination, combat racial stereotypes and promote pride and activism.

• “True Negro art” must resist the urge “towards whiteness.”

• Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and others look towards folk music and stories to represent a more authentic racial identity– “The Negro Artist and the

Racial Mountain”– The Blues, Jazz and

Spirituals– “The Weary Blues”

Optimism

• Theme for English B• All of our futures are intertwined