#6 Alain Locke Installment 2

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance is considered one of the most important eras in African American history. This renaissance is complied of many pieces of writing, art, music, and social movements mainly in the Harlem, New York area during the 1920s. Also known as the “Negro Movement”, the Harlem Renaissance is deemed important because this was a time that black Americans were showing pride in blackness and were seeking better lives for themselves.  While there were a vast amount of factories and industrialization growing in the north, a mass amount of black people were moving there. Not only because of the fast growth, but people were also getting fed up with the south and living the same agricultural life that their ancestors had. The artwork during this time also represented the desperate need to want to find job opportunities and the motivation that people began to feel.

Works

In 1925, Dr. Locke published the book The New Negro that was very influential to the African American community, being composed of many pieces of fiction and poetry. With this book, Locke examined all the achievements of Africans and African Americans and what makes this so influential is taking into consideration the time period at which it was published. During the 1920s, there was an immense amount of white supremacy throughout the United States, while Black American contributions were being ignored. Along with this, Locke was known to have collected many pieces of African art which he felt very passionately about.

Because of his contributions to this time, Alain Locke is considered the “Father of the Harlem  Renaissance” for of his stress of social issues, the importance of knowing your culture and embracing diversity.  Some of Locke’s other works include Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro in 1925,  A Decade of Negro Self-Expression in 1928 and When Peoples Meet: A Study of Race and Culture Contacts published in 1942. 

Along with all of the works that Locke produced, he worked very closely with many other authors, actors, and artists whom he mentored and help mold. Some of these people include Langston Hughes, Ossie Davis, and Zora Neale Hurston. Like Locke, these influential also seen the importance in embracing black culture and African roots and created works that reflected that idea and spoke out against discrimination.