The Harlem Renaissance American Pop-Culture stems heavily from the influence from the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement in which Blacks asserted themselves by recognizing who they really were in society and appreciating their African heritage instead of copying the white culture. The Harlem Renaissance was revolved around the literary fields of creative art, music, book writing, theater, and dance. This movement was able to show African Americans had an artistic value like the white culture did. The African Americans began to adopt musical talents, the ability to write great poems and stories, and to use their mind as an instrument to a poetic culture. This historical movement would eventually shape our present day musical and poetic culture. The Great Migration was the beginning to the development of the Harlem Renaissance. After World War I had ended in 1919, millions of blacks had left the South in order to start a new life for them and their families. For the first time there a middle class black class was created. In the decade between 1910 and 1920, the black population of the North grew tremendously. As the population of the black community continued to grow, it eventually reached the city of Harlem. Harlem is where the renaissance all begins. As music shifted in the 1920s to urban areas job opportunities increased. Along with this was an increase in spending power for black Americans. “America itself was also undergoing a change from agricultural center to industrial giant, thus transforming the core population from farm worker to urban dweller” (Hilliard 1). Fortunately for the black community, during the migration they brought their artistic talent with them. Black Americans soon started express their talents publically. Many musicians found jobs preforming at restaurants, as street performers. The musicians sang about what they felt in their soul, they told stories through their music. The poets wrote about what they believed, they wrote about how they felt, and how they felt about what was going around them. In the beginning of the Renaissance there was a loud but sudden appreciation for anything that was produced or written by an African American. For poorer blacks, Marcus Garvey led a back to Africa movement which represented a renewed sense of race pride. The movement started being recognized when authors and musicians started putting their work in public and began getting recognized by the whites.
Many authors, poets and musicians began arising from the streets. A major poet was a woman by the name of Zora Neal Hurston. Hurston was one of the most influential writers of the decade. Zora expressed African heritage in her poems and novels. Land and the struggles of the black society were reflected in her poems as well. “African Americans have had a strong connection to the land that they live on because of their past as slave workers” (Rollins 2). One of the biggest poets of the Harlem Renaissance was a man by the name of Langston Hughes. Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance.
Hughes's creative genius was influenced by his life in New York City's Harlem, a primarily African American neighborhood (Hillard 2).His artistic values helped craft American literature. Hughes, like others active in the Harlem Renaissance, had a strong sense of racial pride. Through his poetry and stories he showed tried to show that there is no difference between the white culture and the black culture.
Hughes tried to balance racism and injustice, Louis Armstrong was one of the biggest musicians during the period of the Harlem Renaissance Armstrong was born in New Orleans. His moment of fame came when he went to New York to get involved in the recording industry. With his group the hot six he took the use of a solo instrument the trumpet. Another artist that was able to accomplish many memorable achievements was a man named Paul Robinson.
Not only