The Art of the Harlem Renaissance

 Jada Ferguson

 African American Literature

 12/3/25 

The Art of the Harlem Renaissance

 In the days of slavery, the negro and the white man knew who the negro was; after slavery neither knew. The situation regarding negro’s had been desperate, degraded and sub-human where both races knew the negro was the white man's slave, on how both knew how the negro was expected to behave, and both knew the possibility of his life situation. Because of this, a brief political struggle followed legal freedom. In some 20 years, the Jim crows legislation clinched this outcome on where the southern negro learned about the negro’s “new” status; even when it wasn't new. Legal boundaries compelled negroes to live and to act like slaves in the south but many didn't stay which led to thousands to go up north where they didn't know how to behave. The Harlem Literary renaissance of the 1920’s was a quest for an image. During the riots in 1919 and stock market crashes in 1929, Negro writers and a few concerned white writers  produced a flood of novels and essays and poetry dealing with the aspect of race being an issue. When in regards to the Harlem renaissance, it was a major and cultural type of movement that lasted from 1918 to 1937 which then it took place during the neighborhood of Harlem, New York which was known to be the center of the community for Africna Americans. Apartment buildings are being refurbished while for new businesses are booming, tree filled parks and safe playgrounds are being fashioned out of abandoned lots. During this decade, it was mostly referred as a “Negro Renaissance” from Alaine Locke who was one of the leading figured during this movement who was also the first African American Rhodes Scholar. He obtained his PHD in philosophy from Harvard where in 1925 he published an essay “Enter The New Negro” where in the passage he described an African American population who were busy on seeing “A new vision of opportunity”. There was then a transformation with the name “Negro Renaissance” where it then turned into the “Harlem Renaissance” since it narrowed on how people understood it, changing it to make it feel more involved and eye catching on black artists during that time. With black artists, the phrase “Harlem Renaissance” evoked a black creativity  in the 1920’s in Manhattan. This decade was a burst of creativity for black artists. In 1922 alone, the year opened with the publication of Ulysses and closed with The waste land. That year saw published E. M. Forster's Alexandria, Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room, The Beautiful and the Damned, The Forsythe Saga, The Enormous Room, Trembling of the Veil. Remembrance of Thing's Past was first translated into English. In May of that year alone, Thomas Hardy, Arnold Bennett, Irvin S. Cobb, J. P. Marquand, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Strachey, James Branch Cabell, Belloc, Maurice Baring, J. M.Barrie, and E. E. Cummings published. It was a creative year during a creative decade. Black artists found public outlets for their private vantage points on the world. The discovery of a “New Negro”, through art, knocked down holes in walls of white indifference which was more cited in political, social and literary areas forged by the white man which after half a century of misunderstanding and centuries of slavery, the concretion would be forged by a black man, the “new negro” would be the newest American to enter the social mainstream. Locke argued how the “Old Negro” was largely a construct which was a figure defined by societal debates, historical controversies and even perpetuated by African Americans themselves as a form of social mimicry under oppressive circumstances. Locke asserts that the current generation is shedding this “chrysalis of the Negro problem,” experiencing a spiritual emancipation and transitioning from a problem to be solved into a community with a “task” ahead. While Alain Locke advocated for incorporating African artistic themes into modern works, George Schuyler strongly refuted  the idea of a distinct “black art” or a sensibility  in his 1926 article, "The Negro Art Hokum." Schuyler argued that American black artists, like their white counterparts, exhibited diverse styles and subjects, making the expectation of a uniform artistic expression insulting. Schuyler argued on how the contributions like spirituals, blues, jazz, and the Charleston, acknowledging their origins but emphasizing their connection to specific regions and circumstances, not specific racial traits. He asserted that the literature, painting, and sculpture of African Americans reflected European influence and that prominent artists like W.E.B. Du Bois and Henry Ossawa Tanner demonstrated assimilation into American culture. Langston Hughes in ‘Cool Poet’ wrote, “We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If the white folks seem pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. Ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know them, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves” Giving the best way of explaining how during the Harlem Renaissance, black people were trying to express their creativity in a way that doesn't show how scared or how shamed they should be by creating something even if they're a different skin tone. If people who are the same as them or who are different like it or dislikes it, it doesn't matter to them because they are free and are able to express their culture to others. With Langston Hughes work reaching to other countries like Germany where there was slight misrecognition. When it came to the translation of his work putting it into German, he worked with 17 translators and also producing over 60 translations between 1922 and 1933, primarily 1929 and 1931, often centered in Vienna. It revolved with how the interconnectedness of jazz, blues and Hughes's poetry on how the impact of jazz extended beyond music, which began to influence dance, art, and culture with Hughes as poet began to embrace these types of forms to better understand African American culture. Understanding Hughes’ work requires appreciating the multiple “languages” embed within jazz with its driven nature. When it came to art surrounding the black community, there was hardships when it came to those black artists trying to include their culture in museums. There was controversy that the Metropolitan museum of art decision to exclude Harlem residents from the exhibition planning process and the large of artwork that was created by vibrant artists community during the Harlem renaissance. It was occurring during the marked period in the civil rights movement and also the black power movement. It was to show the study and uprising of black people using their creative abilities to express themselves in the arts not in a way of creative production but in a way for study. The work in a way was to surround in topics of racial politics and discussions about the art and culture within the united states. Bridget R. Cooks argued in her passage the these type of conflicts rose which engaged in both political and aesthetic issues. The decision to represent Harlem without incorporating the community’s voice sparked widespread protests and accusations of racial bias. The Harlem renaissance was more then a movement but more in a way for an artistic success for African Americans which was a declaration of identity, pride and resistance that they never backed down from what they believed in. Black artists challenged stereotypes thrown at them which gave them a chance to reshape how they were seen in American society around white people. The Harlem renaissance showed that art was not only just a form of expression for black people, but a tool for change and to reshape the definition of identity in the United States.  Mitchell, Ernest Julius. “‘Black Renaissance’: A Brief History of the Concept.” Amerikastudien / American Studies, vol. 55, no. 4, 2010, pp. 641–65. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41158720. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025. Gates, Skip G. “Of Negroes Old and New.” Transition, no. 46, 1974, pp. 44–58. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2934955. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025. Keller, Frances Richardson. “The Harlem Literary Renaissance.” The North American Review, vol. 253, no. 3, 1968, pp. 29–34. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25116789. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025. Davis, Arthur P. “LANGSTON HUGHES: COOL POET.” CLA Journal, vol. 11, no. 4, 1968, pp. 280–96. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44327876. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025. Wipplinger, Jonathan O. “Singing the Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes, Translation, and Diasporic Blues.” The Jazz Republic: Music, Race, and American Culture in Weimar Germany, University of Michigan Press, 2017, pp. 165–96. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1qv5n7m.10. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025. Cooks, Bridget R. “Black Artists and Activism: Harlem on My Mind (1969).” American Studies, vol. 48, no. 1, 2007, pp. 5–39. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644000. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025. Locke, Alain. “Alain Locke on the “New Negro” (1925) | the American Yawp Reader.” American Yawp, 1925, www.americanyawp.com/reader/22-the-new-era/alain-locke-on-the-new-negro-1925/. Schuyler, George S. “The Negro Art Hokum.” The Nation, 16 June 1926, pp. 662–664. Hughes, Langston. “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” The Nation, 23 June 1926