WEBVTT - How Did the Harlem Renaissance Work? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:07.040 Welcome to Brainstuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:11.840 Lorn Bogebaum here. From poetry and prose to music, painting, 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.680 and sculpture, the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.159 produced an unprecedented array of art and social change in 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.079 the United States. The end of the Civil War in 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.479 eighteen sixty five ushered in the emancipation of hundreds of 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.320 thousands of Black Americans who had been enslaved in the South, 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:32.080 and by nineteen twenty about three hundred thousand of them 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.760 had moved north in search of economic, social, and political freedoms. 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:38.800 This is known as the Great Migration, and it was 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:44.080 also a time of general urbanization. Northern cities like St. Louis, Chicago, 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.840 and Cleveland saw many new citizens, but Harlem, in particular, 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.840 a three square mile or seven hundred and seventy seven 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.160 Hector neighborhood in New York's northern Manhattan, became a destination 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.280 for around one hundred and seventy five thousand Black Americans 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:02.080 seeking a fresh start. It offered them lower real estate 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.679 and rental prices than many other locations. But Harlem was 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:08.479 a significant city for a number of reasons, as Black 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.080 Americans began re establishing and redefining what it meant to 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:16.440 be black in a post slavery world. We spoke with 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:20.120 William J. Maxwell, professor of English and African and African 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:24.200 American Studies at Washington University in Saint Louis. He said, 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.199 to think about it in a concrete and practical way. 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.560 New York was where the existing artistic infrastructure was a 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.280 big publishing companies were now in New York and no 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:37.319 longer in Boston. Modern art was centered in New York, 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.840 and Harlem was becoming an attractive destination for black artists. 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.400 Harlem was also so important because it was the most 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.840 international black city in the United States. That's the place 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.960 Caribbean migrants came, and you had people from Barbados and 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:55.000 Haiti pouring in. Jamaicans like political activist Marcus Garvey and 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.760 the poet Claude Mackay were deeply involved in the movement 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.240 and were coming to New York along with a lot 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.160 of Africans outside of Africa or Paris. New York was 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.200 probably the most international black city in the world at 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:12.160 that point. While changes were flourishing in other parts of 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:17.399 the country as well. The movement an explosion of literary, artistic, intellectual, 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.320 and social change among Black Americans quickly became known as 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:25.679 the Harlem Renaissance. Maxwell said it was a self conscious 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.200 movement in the sense that the people who organized it 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.480 knew they were holding a renaissance. It was called different 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:33.480 things at the time, but it wasn't the kind of 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.560 esthetic or cultural event that was only labeled from a 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.200 distance of years. It was labeled at the time it 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:44.280 was actually happening. While many view the Harlem Renaissance as 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.680 a primarily literary movement that included the birth of works 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:51.200 from leading poet and author Langston Hughes, the Golden Era 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.239 that lasted from approximately the nineteen teens through the mid 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.519 thirties also saw the proliferation of visual arts, music, theater, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.600 and more. But at its core, the Harlem Renaissance was 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.919 more than an artistic movement. It was an age dedicated 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:11.040 to reclaiming and redefining blackness in a new way. Maxwell explained, 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.680 a renaissance is about the idea of rebirth. There are 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.160 examples like what the Italian Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance had 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.079 a similar idea in the rebirth of African culture as 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.359 it was before slavery, but it was also about reinventing 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.760 a connection all over the black world for cultural possibility 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:32.000 and power. What's paradoxical about the Harlem Renaissance is the 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.200 black artists were defining what it meant to be a 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.520 modern black people. In other words, for black people to 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.840 be urban or to have found various forms of economic freedom, 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.080 which is one reason it was centered in New York. 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.120 After the Great Migration. There was a revival of African 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.240 culture as it was before slavery, but the more important 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:51.560 piece was defining what it meant to be a Black 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:57.000 American in relation to modernity. According to Maxwell, the significance 0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:59.880 of the Harlem Renaissance extended beyond the arts and permi 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.080 at culture as a whole. He said, there were a 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.920 lot of different styles, and all these people were trying 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.200 to redefine Blackness as modern. One of the basic elements 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.040 of nineteenth and twentieth century racism was the idea that 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.520 black people were primitive or behind the curve of history. 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.039 The Harlem Renaissance really pushed against that and suggested the 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.719 Black people maybe the most modern people who have the 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:27.080 capacity for change. One crucial way Black Americans pushed back 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:31.880 against historic racism was to effectively transform the country's musical landscape. 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.440 While jazz music had roots in southern towns and cities 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.120 like New Orleans and Memphis, and was also developed in 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.800 cities like Chicago, it found fame on the East Coast. 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.560 Maxwell explained classical nineteen twenties jazz wasn't invented in New 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.240 York City, but that's where jazz music first became marketable 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.960 at a national commodity. Artists like Bessie Smith and Duke 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.080 Ellington weren't from New York, but they played clubs there 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.480 and established an audience there. New York is where early 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:06.120 jazz joined the national entertainment industries. According to Maxwell, it's 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:08.880 thanks to New York that the jazz imported from elsewhere 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.799 began to be played on the radio and in movie theaters. However, 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.559 a specific style of jazz did originate there. He said. 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.560 Some jazz did get invented in New York, a specific 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.880 style called stride piano from artists like Fats waller In 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.280 James P. Johnson, who wrote the music for the Charleston. 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.159 Those guys showed the power of New York City as 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.760 an entertainment capital, and that they became professional songwriters in 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:35.800 Tin pan Alley. While the Harlem Renaissance continues to be 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.479 celebrated for the contributions of renowned figures like dancer Josephine 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.839 Baker and artist Aaron Douglas, there's still a lot to 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.360 be discovered and learned from the era, unpublished novels by 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.560 authors like Claude McKay, for example. Maxwell said there was 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.600 a great variety of work created during the Harlem Renaissance 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.800 that we don't understand yet, but people know the works 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.080 of Langston Hughes, the great poet who produced classical A 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:04.320 Tree Soaked in Black folklore and speech styles, and Zoraneil Hurston, 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.480 one of the great storytellers and anthropologists, who is also 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.640 known for bringing black oral forms into prose. But beyond that, 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.000 there's a lot of other work like that from a 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:17.360 young novelist named Rudolf Fisher, who was also a serious 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.839 physician and wrote witty novels like Walls of Jericho. Also, 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.840 there were young poets like Helene Johnson, who wrote witty, 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:30.360 almost Dorothy Parker like pieces. The Harlem Renaissance effectively ended 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.680 in the nineteen thirties after the economic effects of the 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:36.560 great depression set in, causing businesses, nightclubs, and publishing houses 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.599 to shutter and writers and artists to scatter in search 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.680 of employment. Although the historic period of the Harlem Renaissance 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.360 hit its height a century ago, its influence has continuously 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.000 impacted American culture through the decades, from its effect on 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.680 the civil rights movement of the nineteen sixties to its 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:57.720 lasting legacy in modern arts and culture. Carry de Winz, 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:01.159 a distinguished professor of history at Texas learn University, put 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:05.159 it this way, in the Harlem Renaissance was the first 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.680 time that a considerable number of mainstream publishers and critics 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.320 took African American literature seriously, and it was the first 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.760 time that African American literature and the arts attracted significant 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:24.080 attention from the nation at large. Today's episode was written 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.320 by Michelle Konstantinovski and produced by Tyler Clay. For more 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:28.880 on this and lots of other topics, is it how 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.480 stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is a production of I 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.960 Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio is 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.680 at the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:37.920 listen to your favorite shows.