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HAPTER 21
Terms & Names
Terms & Names
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
One American's Story
Zora Neale Hurston
James Weldon
Johnson
Marcus Garvey
Harlem
Renaissance
Claude McKay
Langston Hughes
Paul Robeson
Louis Armstrong
Duke Ellington
Bessie Smith
African-American ideas,
politics, art, literature, and
music flourished in Harlem
and elsewhere in the United
States.
The Harlem Renaissance provided
a foundation of African-American
intellectualism to which African-
American writers, artists, and
musicians contribute today.
WHY IT MATTERS NOW
WHY IT MATTERS NOW
When the spirited Zora Neale Hurston was a girl in Eatonville,
Florida, in the early 1900s, she loved to read adventure stories and
myths. The powerful tales struck a chord with the young, talent-
ed Hurston and made her yearn for a wider world.
A PERSONAL VOICE ZORA NEALE HURSTON
My soul was with the gods and my body in the village.
People just would not act like gods. . . . Raking back yards
and carrying out chamber-pots, were not the tasks of Thor. I
wanted to be away from drabness and to stretch my limbs in
some mighty struggle.
—quoted in The African American Encyclopedia
After spending time with a traveling theater company and
attending Howard University, Hurston ended up in New York where
she struggled to the top of African-American literary society by hard
work, flamboyance, and, above all, grit. “I have seen that the
world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or
less,” Hurston wrote later. “I do not weep at [being Negro]—I am
too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” Hurston was on the move,
like millions of others. And, like them, she went after the pearl in
the oyster—the good life in America.
African-American Voices in the 1920s
During the 1920s, African Americans set new goals for themselves as they moved
north to the nation’s cities. Their migration was an expression of their changing
attitude toward themselves—an attitude perhaps best captured in a phrase first
used around this time, “Black is beautiful.”
THE MOVE NORTH
Between 1910 and 1920, in a movement known as the
Great Migration, hundreds of thousands of African Americans had uprooted
JUMP AT THE SUN:
Zora Neale Hurston
and the Harlem
Renaissance
The Harlem
Renaissance
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themselves from their homes in the South and moved north to the big cities in
search of jobs. By the end of the decade, 5.2 million of the nation’s 12 million
African Americans—over 40 percent—lived in cities. Zora Neale Hurston docu-
mented the departure of some of these African Americans.
A PERSONAL VOICE ZORA NEALE HURSTON
Some said goodbye cheerfully . . . others fearfully, with terrors of unknown dan-
gers in their mouths . . . others in their eagerness for distance said nothing. The
daybreak found them gone. The wind said North.
—quoted in Sorrow’s Kitchen: The Life and Folklore of Zora Neale Hurston
However, Northern cities in general had not welcomed the massive influx of African
Americans. Tensions had escalated in the years prior to 1920, culminating, in the
summer of 1919, in approximately 25 urban race riots.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN GOALS
Founded in 1909, The
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) urged African Americans to protest racial violence. W.
E. B. Du Bois, a founding member of the NAACP, led a parade
of 10,000 African-American men in New York to protest such
violence. Du Bois also used the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis,
as a platform for leading a struggle for civil rights.
Under the leadership of James Weldon Johnson
poet, lawyer, and NAACP executive secretary—the organiza-
tion fought for legislation to protect African-American rights.
It made antilynching laws one of its main priorities. In 1919,
three antilynching bills were introduced in Congress,
although none was passed. The NAACP continued its cam-
paign through antilynching organizations that had been
established in 1892 by Ida B. Wells. Gradually, the number of
lynchings dropped. The NAACP represented the new, more
militant voice of African Americans.
MARCUS GARVEY AND THE UNIA
Although many
African Americans found their voice in the NAACP, they still
faced daily threats and discrimination. Marcus Garvey, an
immigrant from Jamaica, believed that African Americans
should build a separate society. His different, more radical
message of black pride aroused the hopes of many.
In 1914, Garvey founded the Universal Negro
Improvement Association (UNIA). In 1918, he moved the
UNIA to New York City and opened offices in urban ghettos
in order to recruit followers. By the mid-1920s, Garvey
claimed he had a million followers. He appealed to African
Americans with a combination of spellbinding oratory, mass
meetings, parades, and a message of pride.
A PERSONAL VOICE MARCUS GARVEY
In view of the fact that the black man of Africa has con-
tributed as much to the world as the white man of Europe,
and the brown man and yellow man of Asia, we of the
Universal Negro Improvement Association demand that the
white, yellow, and brown races give to the black man his
place in the civilization of the world. We ask for nothing
more than the rights of 400 million Negroes.
—speech at Liberty Hall, New York City, 1922
The Roaring Life of the 1920s 659
A
Vocabulary
oratory: the art of
public speaking
A. Answer
The movement
of millions of
African
Americans to
Northern
cities greatly
increased their
black popula-
tions, and
heightened
racial tensions
that sometimes
resulted in dis-
crimination and
violence.
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
A
Analyzing
Effects
How did the
influx of African
Americans change
Northern cities?
K
E
Y
P
L
A
Y
E
R
K
E
Y
P
L
A
Y
E
R
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON
1871–1938
James Weldon Johnson worked
as a school principal, newspaper
editor, and lawyer in Florida. In
1900, he wrote the lyrics for “Lift
Every Voice and Sing,” the song
that became known as the black
national anthem. The first stanza
begins as follows:
“Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of
Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the
rolling sea.”
In the 1920s, Johnson strad-
dled the worlds of politics and
art. He served as executive sec-
retary of the NAACP, spear-
heading the fight against lynching.
In addition, he wrote well-known
works, such as God’s Trombones,
a series of sermon-like poems,
and Black Manhattan, a look at
black cultural life in New York dur-
ing the Roaring Twenties.
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HAPTER 21
Garvey also lured followers with practical plans, especially his program to
promote African-American businesses. Further, Garvey encouraged his
followers to return to Africa, help native people there throw off white
colonial oppressors, and build a mighty nation. His idea struck a chord in
many African Americans, as well as in blacks in the Caribbean and Africa.
Despite the appeal of Garvey’s movement, support for it declined in the
mid-1920s, when he was convicted of mail fraud and jailed. Although
the movement dwindled, Garvey left behind a powerful legacy of
newly awakened black pride, economic independence, and reverence
for Africa.
The Harlem Renaissance
Flowers in New York
Many African Americans who migrated north moved to
Harlem, a neighborhood on the Upper West Side of New York’s Manhattan Island.
In the 1920s, Harlem became the world’s largest black urban community, with res-
idents from the South, the West Indies, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Haiti. James Weldon
Johnson described Harlem as the capital of black America.
A PERSONAL VOICE JAMES WELDON JOHNSON
Harlem is not merely a Negro colony or community, it is a city within a
city, the greatest Negro city in the world. It is not a slum or a fringe, it is
located in the heart of Manhattan and occupies one of the most beautiful
. . . sections of the city. . . . It has its own churches, social and civic cen-
ters, shops, theaters, and other places of amusement. And it contains
more Negroes to the square mile than any other spot on earth.
“Harlem: The Culture Capital”
Like many other urban neighborhoods, Harlem suffered from overcrowding,
unemployment, and poverty. But its problems in the 1920s were eclipsed by a
flowering of creativity called the Harlem Renaissance, a literary and artistic
movement celebrating African-American culture.
AFRICAN–AMERICAN WRITERS
Above all, the Harlem Renaissance was a lit-
erary movement led by well-educated, middle-class African Americans who
expressed a new pride in the African-American experience. They celebrated their
heritage and wrote with defiance and poignancy about the trials of being black in
a white world. W. E. B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson helped these young
talents along, as did the Harvard-educated former Rhodes scholar Alain Locke. In
1925, Locke published The New Negro, a landmark collection of literary works by
many promising young African-American writers.
Claude McKay, a novelist, poet, and Jamaican immigrant, was a major fig-
ure whose militant verses urged African Americans to resist prejudice and dis-
crimination. His poems also expressed the pain of life in the black ghettos and the
strain of being black in a world dominated by whites. Another gifted writer of the
time was Jean Toomer. His experimental book Cane—a mix of poems and sketch-
es about blacks in the North and the South—was among the first full-length lit-
erary publications of the Harlem Renaissance.
Missouri-born Langston Hughes was the movement’s best-known poet.
Many of Hughes’s 1920s poems described the difficult lives of working-class African
Americans. Some of his poems moved to the tempo of jazz and the blues. (See
Literature in the Jazz Age on page 664.)
B
Marcus Garvey
designed this
uniform of purple
and gold,
complete with
feathered hat, for
his role as
“Provisional
President of
Africa.”
B. Answer
Garvey believed
that African
Americans
should build
a separate
society; he
preached a
message of self-
pride and he
promoted
African-
American
businesses.
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
B
Summarizing
What
approach to race
relations did
Marcus Gar vey
promote?
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145th St.
140th St.
135th St.
130th St.
125th St.
Eighth Ave.
Seventh Ave.
Fifth Ave.
Madison Ave.
Park Ave.
Lenox Ave.
North
H
a
r
l
e
m
R
i
v
e
r
At the turn of the centur y, New York’s Harlem neighborhood was
overbuilt with new apartment houses. Enterprising African-American
realtors began buying and leasing proper ty to other African
Americans who were eager to move into the prosperous neighbor-
hood. As the number of blacks in Harlem increased, many whites
began moving out. Harlem quickly grew to become the center of
black America and the birthplace of the political, social, and cultur-
al movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.
Harlem in the 1920s
The Fletcher Henderson Orchestra became one of
the most influential jazz bands during the Harlem
Renaissance. Here, Henderson, the band’s founder,
sits at the piano, with Louis Armstrong on trumpet
(rear, center).
N EW JERSEY
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predominantly
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0
1 mile
0
1 kilometer
Cotton Club
Savoy Theatre
Lafayette
Theatre
Marcus
Garvey home
Library
Apollo Theatre
James Weldon
Johnson home
In the mid 1920s, the Cotton Club was one of a
number of fashionable entertainment clubs in Harlem.
Although many venues like the Cotton Club were
segregated, white audiences packed the clubs to
hear the new music styles of black performers such
as Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith.
The Roaring Life of the 1920s 661
In 1927, Harlem was a bustling neighborhood.
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In many of her novels, short stories, poems, and books of folklore, Zora Neale
Hurston portrayed the lives of poor, unschooled Southern blacks—in her words,
“the greatest cultural wealth of the continent.” Much of her work celebrated what
she called the common person’s art form—the simple folkways and values of peo-
ple who had survived slavery through their ingenuity and strength.
AFRICAN–AMERICAN PERFORMERS
The spirit and talent of the Harlem
Renaissance reached far beyond the world of African-American writers and intel-
lectuals. Some observers, including Langston Hughes, thought the movement was
launched with Shuffle Along, a black musical comedy popular in 1921. “It gave just
the proper push . . . to that Negro vogue of the ‘20s,” he wrote. Several songs in
Shuffle Along, including “Love Will Find a Way,” won popularity among white
audiences. The show also spotlighted the talents of several black performers,
including the singers Florence Mills, Josephine Baker, and Mabel Mercer.
During the 1920s, African Americans in the performing arts won large fol-
lowings. The tenor Roland Hayes rose to stardom as a concert singer, and the
singer and actress Ethel Waters debuted on Broadway in the musical Africana.
Paul Robeson, the son of a one-time slave, became a major dramatic actor. His
performance in Shakespeare’s Othello, first in London and later in New York City,
was widely acclaimed. Subsequently, Robeson struggled with the racism he expe-
rienced in the United States and the indignities inflicted upon him because of his
support of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. He took up residence
abroad, living for a time in England and the Soviet Union.
AFRICAN AMERICANS AND JAZZ
Jazz was
born in the early 20th century in New Orleans,
where musicians blended instrumental ragtime
and vocal blues into an exuberant new sound. In
1918, Joe “King” Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band
traveled north to Chicago, carrying jazz with
them. In 1922, a young trumpet player named
Louis Armstrong joined Oliver’s group, which
became known as the Creole Jazz Band. His tal-
ent rocketed him to stardom in the jazz world.
Famous for his astounding sense of rhythm
and his ability to improvise, Armstrong made
personal expression a key part of jazz. After two
years in Chicago, in 1924 he joined Fletcher
Henderson’s band, then the most important big
jazz band in New York City. Armstrong went on
to become perhaps the most important and
influential musician in the history of jazz. He
often talked about his anticipated funeral.
A PERSONAL VOICE LOUIS ARMSTRONG
They’re going to blow over me. Cats will be coming from everywhere to play.
I had a beautiful life. When I get to the Pearly Gates I’ll play a duet with Gabriel.
We’ll play ‘Sleepy Time Down South.’ He wants to be remembered for his music
just like I do.
—quoted in The Negro Almanac
Jazz quickly spread to such cities as Kansas City, Memphis, and New York
City, and it became the most popular music for dancing. During the 1920s,
Harlem pulsed to the sounds of jazz, which lured throngs of whites to the showy,
exotic nightclubs there, including the famed Cotton Club. In the late 1920s,
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, a jazz pianist and composer, led his
662 C
HAPTER 21
Background
See Historical
Spotlight on
page 617.
The Hot Five
included (from
left) Louis
Armstrong,
Johnny St. Cyr,
Johnny Dodds,
Kid Ory, and
Lil Hardin
Armstrong.
C
C. Answer
They expressed
their pride in
African-
American expe-
rience; they cel-
ebrated their
heritage and
folklore.
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
C
Synthesizing
In what ways
did writers of the
Harlem
Renaissance
celebrate a
“rebirth”?
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ten-piece orchestra at the Cotton Club. In a 1925 essay
titled “The Negro Spirituals,” Alain Locke seemed almost to
predict the career of the talented Ellington.
A PERSONAL VOICE ALAIN LOCKE
Up to the present, the resources of Negro music have been
tentatively exploited in only one direction at a time–melodi-
cally here, rhythmically there, harmonically in a third direc-
tion. A genius that would organize its distinctive elements
in a formal way would be the musical giant of his age.
—quoted in Afro-American Writing: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry
Through the 1920s and 1930s, Ellington won renown
as one of America’s greatest composers, with pieces such as
“Mood Indigo” and “Sophisticated Lady.”
Cab Calloway, a talented drummer, saxophonist, and
singer, formed another important jazz orchestra, which
played at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom and the Cotton Club,
alternating with Duke Ellington. Along with Louis
Armstrong, Calloway popularized “scat,” or improvised jazz
singing using sounds instead of words.
Bessie Smith, a female blues singer, was perhaps the
outstanding vocalist of the decade. She recorded on black-
oriented labels produced by the major record companies.
She achieved enormous popularity and in 1927 became the
highest-paid black artist in the world.
The Harlem Renaissance represented a portion of the
great social and cultural changes that swept America in the
1920s. The period was characterized by economic prosperi-
ty, new ideas, changing values, and personal freedom, as
well as important developments in art, literature, and
music. Most of the social changes were lasting. The eco-
nomic boom, however, was short-lived.
The Roaring Life of the 1920s 663
D
K
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Y
P
L
A
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E
R
K
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P
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DUKE ELLINGTON
1899–1974
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington,
one of the greatest composers of
the 20th century, was largely a
self-taught musician. He devel-
oped his skills by playing at family
socials. He wrote his first song,
“Soda Fountain Rag,” at age 15
and started his first band at 22.
During the five years Ellington
played at Harlem’s glittering
Cotton Club, he set a new stan-
dard, playing mainly his own styl-
ish compositions. Through radio
and the film short
Black and
Tan
, the Duke Ellington Orchestra
was able to reach nationwide
audiences. Billy Strayhorn,
Ellington’s long-time arranger and
collaborator, said, “Ellington
plays the piano, but his real
instrument is his band.”
Harlem Renaissance:
Areas of Achievement
D. Answer
African
Americans were
outstanding in
the performing
arts.
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
D
Summarizing
Besides
literary accom-
plishments, in
what areas did
African Americans
achieve remarkable
results?
Zora Neale Hurston
James Weldon Johnson
Marcus Garvey
Harlem Renaissance
Claude McKay
Langston Hughes
Paul Robeson
Louis Armstrong
Duke Ellington
Bessie Smith
1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its significance.
MAIN IDEA
2. TAKING NOTES
In a tree diagram, identify three
areas of artistic achievement in the
Harlem Renaissance. For each, name
two outstanding African Americans.
Write a paragraph explaining the
impact of these achievements.
CRITICAL THINKING
3. ANALYZING CAUSES
Speculate on why an African-
American renaissance flowered
during the 1920s. Support your
answer. Think About:
racial discrimination in the South
campaigns for equality in the
North
Harlem’s diverse cultures
the changing culture of all
Americans
4. FORMING GENERALIZATIONS
How did popular culture in America
change as a result of the Great
Migration?
5. DRAWING CONCLUSIONS
What did the Harlem Renaissance
contribute to both black and general
American history?
1.
2.
1.
2.
1.
2.
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