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The emergence of The Harlem Renaissance progresses Black art and literature.
1922 (Jan 5)
The Harlem renaissance emerged as a period of great achievement in Black American art and literature. The movement embraced poets such as Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and James Weldon Johnson; novelists Walter F. White, Wallace Thurman, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston; sculptors Richmond Barthe and Augusta Savage; and painters Aaron Douglas, Alice Gafford, and Archibald Motley. The Harlem Renaissance artists were known for drawing critical attention and popular sentiments from both Blacks and Whites. During this period, James Weldon Johnson and Alain Locke edited The Book of American Negro Poetry (1925), and The New Negro (1925), respectively. Both were anthologies of the works of Black writers. Claude McKay, the first important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, was noted for his Harlem Shadows (1922), a collection of bitter but eloquent poems on the condition of Blacks in post-war America. Among Countee Cullen's better-known works was his volume of poems titled Color. Its appearance in 1925 pushed the Harlem renaissance to a new high. Other notable works published during this period were poet Langston Hughes's The Weary Blues (1926), Walter White's The Fire in the Flint (1926), Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928), and Passing (1929), and Wallace Thurman's The Blacker the Berry (1929).
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.