African+Americans+of+the+1920s

= African Americans of the 1920s =

Thesis:
Although race riots, lynchings, and other forms of racial discrimination ran rampant throughout the 1920s, African Americans used literature, music, and art to uplift the race through intellect and creativity. This new wave of innovation and spirit within the rapidly changing country gave African Americans more merit and attempted to promote racial integration by proving to whites that their race was worthy of respect.

The Harlem Renaissance
After the civil war, many African Americans came to the inner city to start a new life. The time between 1900 and 1920, the amount of African Americans in New York City doubled. As a result of this massive migration, many of the countries best black advocates lived there, including intellectuals, artists and writers. Because of this, Harlem became the capital of thriving African American culture, fostering new ideas, talents and ambitions for the race. 
 * The Harlem Renaissance was not only in the confines of the United States, it was a Global Movement that spread to Europe, the Caribbean and Africa.
 * The reason the Harlem Renaissance was so focused on Jazz, literature and Art was because African Americans lacked the means to take part in a political movement. Their music, art and poetry spoke for itself, and infiltrated into mainstream society.
 * The Harlem Renaissance redefined how America viewed African Americans. It was a cultural movement that gave African Americans a new identity and a voice through the arts, and New ideas from W.E.B Du Bois, Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey. This new cultural attitude gave African-Americans a new understanding of their past. These new ideas gave them the inspiration and consciousness to develop a new cultural identity, and a unified race.

Langston Hughes
Born in Joplin, Missouri and a member of an abolitionist family, Langston Hughes became the first African American voted into public office in 1855. He began writing poetry when he was in eighth grade, and later attended Columbia University. He dropped out of the program, yet continued to write poetry. His most famous and most published poem, was called “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and was published widely in NAACP publications. "No great poet has ever been afraid of being himself...We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren't, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too... If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top of the mountain, free within ourselves." --Langston Hughes
 * One of his other works, entitled “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” spoke on the fact that many African American would surrender their identity and racial pride in order to integrate into white society.

“I, too”

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Then.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Besides, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">They'll see how beautiful I am <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And be ashamed--

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I, too, am America.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 20pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Langston Hughes

The Jazz Age
==<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #f03379; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> ==
 * ==<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As Americans began investing more time in leisure activities to accompany their new, simple lives following WWI, Jazz music, an African American form of entertainment, emerged through clubs, radio, and records. ==
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It originated in the South, in cities like New Orleans, then traveled north to cities including Chicago, New York and Kansas City.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Influenced popular culture in the 1920s--jazz poetry, fashion and industry
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Had an immoral reputation--after Prohibition law was passed, speakeasies (liquor serving nightclubs) became popular venues for jazz performances
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jazz was a highly improvisational form of music, with a spontaneous nature, which allowed individuals to interpret and play a composition in their own original way. There’s also a strong egalitarian presence in the formation of a jazz piece with interaction and collaboration weighing equally on the composer and performer.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jazz was an expression of diverse musical style, embodying African American elements and traditions. It allowed a sense of pride and power for Black individuals. Jazz drew heavily from African roots and helped prove the richness of African American heritage.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jelly Roll Morton
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Popular and influential Afro-Creole pianist, but also a comedian, pimp, and gambler
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">His “Jelly Roll Blues”, composed in 1905, was the first jazz arrangement published in print in 1915.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Louis Armstrong
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Born in the birthplace of jazz, believed to be the most important improviser in jazz.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Colorful character, innovative, sense of humor, leading personality, provoking infectious excitement from a crowd.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Profound musical impact
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Remained politically neutral, which alienated him from the African American community who hoped he would use his prominence in white society to become a civil rights figure.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">﻿<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One of America’s greatest jazz composers, arrangers and musicians
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Duke brought style and sophistication to jazz. He redefined and synthesized American music that contained a directness and simplicity of expression.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Ellington’s Orchestra” became house band at Cotton Club, a poplar speakeasy--radio broadcasts from the club made him famous across the country and brought him financial security

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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ella Fitzgerald <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jazz pioneer, singer, although she first aspired to be a dancer
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Caught up in the jazz craze that engulfed Harlem of the 1920s
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">50 yr musical career, 70 playing albums and 2,000 different songs on the gramophone format
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Introduced to jazz through it’s popularity and availability in Harlem, including live broadcasts and various recordings

Connection to Today:

 * The cultural acceptance and ideas set fourth during the Harlem Renaissance made it possible for African-Americans to gain their rights they deserved. MAny of the "Black Power" ideas that we see during the 1980s were first set into motion by the Harlem Renaissance. Without such a movement, African Americans may not have achieved as easily their civil rights, because to do so they needed a unified group of people.
 * Music has evolved since the Harlem Renaissance, but African Americans still dominate the music world with a new type of music called R&B. Rhythm and Blues combines traditional instrumental styles of music with contemporary music we hear much of today.