+Harlem RenaissanceAfrican-American Culture in the 1920s

Standard 11.5.5

+ Harlem—New York City neighborhood

Renaissance—”rebirth” of culture

Harlem Renaissance—flowering of African American literature, music, and art

+The Harlem Renaissance

Causes

“The New Negro” Movement African Americans are

characterized as self-assertive, racially conscious, articulate, and, for the most part, in charge of what they produced.

Great MigrationThe New Morality

+Music: Jazz & Blues

Jazz—improvisational style of music influenced by Dixieland music and ragtime

Blues—soulful style of music that evolved from African American spirituals(themes: unfulfilled love, poverty, oppression)

Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington

Bessie Smith

+

Speakeasies and Harlem Nightclubs Cotton Club

Music: Jazz & Blues

Fought against racism through the communication of entertainment and intellect.

+Literature

Langston Hughes “The Weary Blues,” “I, too, Sing America,”

“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”

Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God

Writers’ Themes— Growing Urbanity, Sophistication,

Alienation, Marginality

+

+Langston Hughes “The Negro Speaks of

Rivers” Page 432

+Langston Hughes “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”

Now, its your turn…

Focus on one aspect of yourself and one common natural or manufactured item to write a free verse poem in the style of Hughes “The High School Student Speaks of Trees” “The Musician Speaks of Drums”

Repetition Stanzas beginning

with I plus an action verb