The Harlem Renaissance occurred as a means for a new generation of blacks to form their own culture in a world dominated by whites. Even after slavery was outlawed in 1865, the Black Codes and the KKK came in an attempt to perpetuate the status quo. In response to these and other shadows of slavery, black artists attempted to develop their own distinct racial identity during the Harlem Renaissance, breaking away from the racist culture of southern whites and in some cases the previous generation of blacks. The end result was a flowering of black arts, with distinct traits (such as those identified by Zora Neale Hurston) which are still visible today. If not for the Harlem Renaissance, and the way it shaped itself against the forces acting on blacks in that time, black culture as we know it today may have developed quite differently.

1910-70 6 Million blacks moved north in what was called the Great Migration. The North was traditionally much more racially tolerant, if not always completely egalitarian, and blacks there were much safer and had more opportunities.

Excerpt from Rudolph Fisher’s City of Refuge (1925)

“In Harlem, black was white. You had rights that could not be denied you; you had privileges, protected by law.”


1917 Three Plays for a Negro Theater by Ridgely Torrence portrayed blacks as complex characters, breaking from minstrel show stereotypes.

Excerpt from Ridgely Torrence’s The Rider of Dreams, one of the Three Plays

“All I wants is room to dream my good dreams an’ make my own music.”


1919 After World War I, competition for jobs added to previously existing racism to cause race riots in the Red Summer of Hate.

Excerpt from Claude McKay’s If We Must Die (1919)

“Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!”


1921 Langston Huges moves to New York, where he would become a key player in the Harlem Renaissance.

Excerpt from Langston Huges’ The Weary Blues.

“In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan”


1922 James Weldon Johnson released the Book of American Negro Poetry, which, in addition to showcasing black artists, attempted to define black art and emphasize its contributions to the American zeitgeist.

Excerpt from the preface of James Weldon Johnson’s Book of American Negro Poetry

“The Negro has already proved the possession of these powers by being the creator of the only things artistic that have yet sprung from American soil and been universally acknowledged as distinctive American products.”


1926 Carl Van Vechten’s book, Nigger Heaven, divides its readers due to its title and perceived inaccurate portrayal of blacks, but also contributes to interest in the Harlem Renaissance.

Excerpt from Carl Van Vechten’s Nigger Heaven (1926)

“We sit in our places in the gallery of this New York theatre and watch the white world sitting down below in the good seats in the orchestra. Occasionally they turn their faces up towards us, their hard, cruel faces, to laugh or sneer, but they never beckon.”


1926 Fire! A magazine dedicated to "burning up" older ideas, was made by Harlem Renaissance artists. The "younger" art was very liberal and often offensive to more conservative tastes.

Excerpt from Richard Bruce Nugent’s Smoke, Lilies and Jade (1926)

“Melva had said… don’t make me blush again… and kissed him… and the street had been blue… one can love two at the same time…”


1930s Harlem Renaissance dies with stock market during the Great Depression.

Excerpt from Helene Johnson’s Invocation (1931)

“And do not keep my plot mowed smooth
And clean as a spinster’s bed,
But let the weed, the flower, the tree,
Riotous, rampant, wild and free,
Grow high above my head.”