Home » Writing & Publishing » Writing from Harlem » Harlem: The 1920's (Part One)

Harlem: The 1920's (Part One)

© Nichel Anderson

The warmth of the table light was erotic. At the same time it penetrated my skin, mind, body and soul as the blues played in the background. The female poet, along with her male counterpart onstage, continues to rhyme and dance words back and forth. Just as the music slowed up to a poetic ending the two picked up the pace of poetry and abruptly came to an end following the temple beat. The crowd applauded for the performance was phenomenal and fulfilled us, the audience, for what we came to this establishment to receive: A good time and to hear aesthetically literature and sweet, sweet music.

Today there are many nightclubs, book reading groups, and bookstores with adjourning poetry-reading rooms that entice us to enjoy living through the art-form of literature, poetry and music. I often of times wonder when I attend these gatherings if these experiences were the same or close to the aura of expression as during the Harlem Renaissance era, or The New Negro Movement, as it was originally called before changing the name to the Renaissance.

I came to conclude that today literary creative expression is the branch of the tree that was formed by the seed of the Harlem Renaissance. In which, this movement during the 1920’s produced mountainous amounts of literature and the arts from African-Americans and continues to influence us today.

I wish to begin my analysis of my ancestors during this great time period beginning in the early 1920's by reviewing the many newsworthy events. In addition, the people that made this timeline famous from literature to the other areas of the arts. In my first review of this timeline, I am pose to ask several questions as I begin these series of review:

1. What made this movement so needed?

2. Who was the beginner pioneer of this movement?

3. What style of writing or style of expression was emphases?

• Lets take a look at the first question I raised:

There were a mass migration taking place of African-Americans from the rural agricultural South to the urban industrial North from 1900-1920. Many who made this pilgrimage went to Harlem along with other Black New Yorkers previously living in other areas. The extreme need of black folks to escape the South were caused by; lynching, poverty, and racism which seemed to be the driving force of this migration.

The North seemed like a place of great opportunity for The New Negro. A place where the freed slaves and their descendants could be free to express their exceptional talents. It was where dreams could flourish or be born and my ancestors did just that by their profound intellectuals minds and with bountiful creativity. Although, Chicago and Detroit were known also as the cultural hot spot of the creative expression for African Americans; Harlem was the place to set your mark of stardom relating to any field and to be remembered in African-American history.

survy.gif

The copyright of the article Harlem: The 1920's (Part One) in Writing from Harlem is owned by . Permission to republish Harlem: The 1920's (Part One) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.