The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance

The Roaring Twenties The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance

Prediction The Harlem Renaissance refers to…

The Great Migration • Hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved from the rural South into northern industrial cities during and after WWI • Push Factors • Poverty • Debt • Racism • Violence • Pull Factors • Factory jobs • More freedom and independence

New Attitudes • White attitudes toward African Americans did not really change after WWI • African American soldiers had hoped that their service would enhance their social status • Factory workers hoped that their prosperity would continue • When these hopes were ruined, many African Americans became bitter and even more determined to fight for their rights

Chicago Race Riots • In 1919, an African American teenager swimming in Lake Michigan drifted toward a white beach • An angry crowd on shore threw rocks at him and knocked him unconscious • The teenager drowned • Angry African Americans formed crowds to march into white neighborhoods to retaliate • White crowds grew even larger and wreaked havoc in black neighborhoods • Casualties: • 38 dead (15 white, 23 black) • 537 injured • 1,000+ homeless • The summer of 1919 became known as the “Red Summer” as 120 people died in race riots throughout the country

Marcus Garvey’s Black Nationalism • Garvey encouraged African Americans to take pride in their own achievements and to develop an awareness of their African heritage • Most of his following was among poor urban blacks, and his movement grew explosively in the 1920s • He rejected assimilation into white society • The United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) established black-owned grocery stores and encouraged African Americans to only patronize black-owned businesses • Garvey also urged his supporters to leave America for Africa to establish a new society of their own • Garvey’s followers declined sharply after 1923, when he was charged with business fraud and deported to Jamaica • However, the black nationalism movement would survive long after Garvey

Harlem Renaissance • By the end of WWI, Harlem had become one of the nation’s largest and most influential African American communities • Culture flourished in Harlem as a new generation of artists and intellectuals grew to prominence • Langston Hughes • Louis Armstrong • Zora Neale Hurston • Many others • Jazz became a staple of American popular culture due to its exposure in Harlem

African-American Pride • The literature, poetry, and art of the Harlem Renaissance drew heavily from African roots • Artists worked to display the richness of their heritage • They also strove to prove to whites that their race was worthy of respect • The Harlem Renaissance not only advanced African American art and culture, but it also exposed this art and culture to a much wider audience • While the Harlem Renaissance may not have had much impact on the lives of ordinary black men and women of the 1920s, it had a lasting effect on American art and culture, and would have a great impact on the Civil Rights movement

The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance