Contextual Background

Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance was the cultural, intellectual, and literary movement that took place in and around Harlem in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Due to the great migration, Harlem became the center of new ways of existing as a black person in America. The movement is an umbrella term for important black identity-related work in politics, music, theatre, writing, and critical scholarship. The movement also brought several Black francophone thinkers to the forefront of America’s sociopolitical landscape. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement seeking self-determination in various fields of expression and systems of thought. Even though the north served as a shelter from the abhorrent and deeply violent Jim Crow laws in the southern part of the country, the northern states were not without racism. The Harlem Renaissance, therefore, also became an opposing force to racism in the north. Many micro-countercultures, such as the queer movement and feminist movement, flourished under the banner of Harlem Renaissance.