Langston Hughes: Founding Fathers Of The Harlem Renaissance

In the 1920’s many African American were searching for a refuge to escape from racism,discrimination, and violence. Many went to place called Harlem, a neighborhood in New York, where they commenced a new style of art, writing, and music. This was known as the Harlem Renaissance, where African Americans had their chance to be known for their skill. Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, were some of the important people who help express the African culture through writing and and music. They became an important figure in the birth of the Harlem renaissance. Even today they are remembered for their African American cultural success.

In the 1900s African American have slowly started to gain their rights after the end of slavery. It was a difficult and tedious process; however, they never gave up on what they believed in, which is “racial equality”. African American stood together in organizations, marches, and unions because they had something that united them which wasn’t just skin color; it was inequality and slavery. African Americans came together to celebrate the “New Negro”. They created an identity for themselves through history and culture, and it spread nationwide with the creation of the “Harlem Renaissance”. Harlem became the center of African American culture and the grassroots of African American history, or as Alain Locke has called it:”Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro.”

During the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a “Great Migration” of African Americans from the southern part of our country to the northern areas. The journey North was made in order to escape racial inequalities and injustices as well as to find employment. There was a sudden population boom to an area of New York City known as Harlem. “The Harlem Renaissance was a result of the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that occurred just after World War I to the middle of the 1930s” (Harlem Renaissance). The amazing writers, musicians, and artists which emerged during this “renaissance” had a profound effect on the way society viewed racism and racial discriminations and also paved the way for the Civil Rights Movement years

“I too sing America. I am the darker brother.” (Langston Hughes, “I, Too,” from Collected Poems, 46). Langston Hughes had many factors throughout his life that influenced his works. He was an artist that had works that crossed over into jazz, blues, and expressed his culture. During the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes shared his African American pride with others through his poetry, promoting equality and justice, while living life affected by racism, segregation, and Jim Crow laws.

“An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.”

In Harlem, where majority of black people resided, a culture of art and music and writing flourished, despite the treacherous obstacles they still had to overcome. One thing they did

African Americans have long endured slavery and have fought extensively in opposition to the Jim Crow laws and in favor of equal rights for African Americans. The struggle for African American equality has been tiresome and tormenting, like having a ‘white’ society neglect and repress the culture that embraces an African American. After WWI there was a major shift in American history that favored the African American society. In the 1920s and 1930s, “a cultural, social, and artistic explosion” took place in Harlem, known as the Harlem Renaissance, but more accurately defined to historians as the “New Negro Movement.” The Harlem Renaissance was a period in where Harlem became the center for African Americans ethnic identity and innovation

Hughes writing during the jazz era was liked by white people but was not as popular with African Americans. His writing was about normal black people and their culture. “In anything that white people were likely to read, they wanted to put their best foot forward, their politely polished and cultural foot—and only that foot." (“Langston Hughes.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation,

during this time he quickly became a part of the Harlem Renaissance. Four years later,

Before the Harlem Renaissance, African Americans had endured centuries of slavery and the struggle for abolition. The “Great Migration” relocated hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North (The Harlem Renaissance). African Americans started leaving the south in large numbers. They moved north to cities such as New York City, Chicago, and Washington D.C. (Rau, Dana Meachen). They were trying to escape from slavery and the awful Jim Crow Laws, also many had little money. African Americans had experienced these laws for many years, many facilities were segregated. Blacks and whites had to attend different public places such as, bathrooms, schools, public transportation and they even had to use different drinking fountains. They were in search of a better life. This is when the Harlem Renaissance began.

The Harlem Renaissance Era, also known as the New Negro Movement was a period of time from the early 1920’s to the 1940’s after World War I, and it took place in Harlem, New York. During this period people of the African American culture struggled to strive intellectually and also artistically. This movement was founded by Alain LeRoy Locke who is foreshadowed as the “Father of the Harlem Renaissance” for his publication in 1925 of “The New Negro”. This movement was to show white supremacist that blacks were more than just servants and also to let the black culture flourish. During the Harlem Renaissance books, poems, movies, and plays were created out of this sudden outbreak of cultural flourish. It was a time where black expressions bleed

The author Langston Hughes had a profound effect on the Renaissance, and history in general. His writing was extremely influential with both the politics and the social aspects of the movement. Because of these talents and writings such as the poems I too, and The Weary Blues Hughes’s efforts will never be forgotten and have been immortalized in the works of published literature. Because of Langston, America started to become a better place.

In the early twentieth century, many blacks who lived in the South moved to the North to find a better way of life. Many families landed in Harlem, New York and the neighborhood eventually became rich in Black culture and traditions. The mixture of cultures, heritage and traditions eventually lead to an explosion of Black creativity in music, literature and the arts which became known as the Harlem Renaissance. As with many transitional time periods in United states History, the Harlem Renaissance had its share of success stories. One of the well-known writers of the 1900’S is Langston Hughes. While many writers focused on one style or category of writing, Langston Hughes is the most versatile of all of the writers from the Harlem

Harlem was founded back in the 17th century as a Dutch outpost. Harlem adjoins New York City and host a large population of the African American Community. The blacks found New York City to be more accommodative to their culture and ideologies, during the great migration of the early 1900s, Harlem became the major destination and it became home to many African Americans. [1] Harlem received over time, Harlem developed from a farming village to become a huge settlement for the African American people and later a cultural center and a Cultural Revolution hub for the African American culture where great artist hail from.

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement and the enlightenment of black minds as a whole. This movement sparked the minds of many leaders such as Marcus Garvey, W.E.B Dubois, and Langston Hughes, these men would also come to be known as the earliest Civil Rights activists. While Garvey and Dubois expressed their views in speeches and rallies Hughes had a different approach and chose to articulate his thoughts and views through literature more specifically poetry. Through his poetry, Hughes became a world renown poet for such works as “Let America Be America Again”, “Harlem” and “I Too” taken from his first book “The Weary Blues.” These poems while written and inspired by the everyday struggles of being an African-American were arguably targeted at white Americans. Hughes wrote a majority of his work during the Harlem Renaissance and as a result focused on “injustice” and “change” in the hopes that society would recognize their mistake and reconcile, but in order for this to happen he would have to target the right audience.