Throughout the course Ive learned alot of knowledge of Harlem Renaissance especially the upbringing of the Social progress and succeeding accomplishments of African Americans. African Americans had faced and overcome racial injustice. Over time, African Americans have overcome this in order to obtain a better education, a better career, a better future, and better prospects. Black people have made massive progress in the areas of art, music, writing, and education. Around this time period, African Americans began to be recognized for their efforts to expand and enhance their culture, acquire respect, and advocate for their rights. The significance of this theme is to educate people about the upbringing of black people and it was a step towards equality and recognition of black achievements, during the Harlem Renaissance Era. African Americans were viewed as merely labor and possessions. White people disproportionately imposed the dispossession on African Americans. Harlem Renaissance literature indicates valuable American Americans contributions to society that were often neglected and misinterpreted. My first 3 blogs I have chosen demonstrate people to gain knowledge and educate themselves about what African Americans have gone through and their upbringing of succeeding and black excellence.
Beginning with W.E.B DuBois Crisis Magazine had a representation for African Americans and can reshape people’s opinions on African Americans. According to Donal Harris “However, in 1910 another kind of magazine, the African American monthly, specifically The Crisis, emerged with the conscious desire to reshape the style, size, and color of commercial periodicals as well as the implicit race of the people who read and wrote them.” (pg 62). These covers of the Crisis Magazine show the experience of how African Americans had issues with racial stereotypes and racial discrimination and try to correct the stereotypes. These covers were supposed to be the new representation of the New Black America. The purpose of these covers was to overcome the stereotypes of African Americans. These covers also show and determine on how it was moving, how they showed African American accomplishments, and how they influenced. These covers of The Crisis Magazine are for readers in the world and African Americans as it helps them not only change the image of African Americans in the public eye. As well as help combat the narrative of the stereotypical and racism that was going on. This magazine has had an impact and was very popular and was mainly concentrated on African American history, politics, culture, social injustice, and their rights. The implications of “the New Negro “ is the Crisis Magazine on having a voice for African Americans to speak their truths and facts to educate other people. This magazine also tries to have a voice for African Americans to expand and increase their culture and to gain respect and to advocate for their rights. This can also help to open opportunities for their future. In the United States, African Americans were not acknowledged by the public and were not treated well.
African Americans trying to have a voice to expand and increase their culture and to gain respect and to advocate for their rights. Also, all of these covers are so descriptive, natural, and real which made me visualize and interpret what W.E.B Du Bois was attempting to do with these covers. Based on the Crisis Magazine what makes African Americans and Blacks American is having the freedom and independence to have their own choice and able to have opportunities for their future. For instance in the Crisis Magazine in Vol. 18, No. 1 (1919-05-01) and Vol. 17, No. 5 (1919-03-01) they show on how many African Americans entered for World War I 1 which shows loyalty and being proud, and wanting to fight for their country. Another example of what makes African Americans American is based on what they have been through. They weren’t able to have an education but now they have the freedom and choice. For example in the Crisis Magazine in Vol. 24, No. 4 (1922-08-01)in this shows and represents in the cover that African Americans are wanting to have an education and a career for their future. The covers are for African American descents can use the cover of crisis as a visual representation of what their culture has achieved and accomplished over the years. The Crisis wasn’t just a news magazine it was a step towards equality and recognition of black achievements.
In Survey Graphic Harlem Mecca of the New Negro “The Making of Harlem” by James Weldon Johnson. Harlem became a place that doesn’t necessarily have ownership because due to the culture, art, literature, and music. Harlem was only the beginning of something new that puts America’s culture into shock. This made African Americans come together in Harlem to search for a new future and new opportunities and to become themselves. They also had the same interests of progressing and getting ahead without leaving behind their customs, culture, and beliefs, developing in this way. According to James Weldon Wilson, In the Making of Harlem, it states “Harlem is indeed the great Mecca for the sight-seer, the pleasure-seeker, the curious, the adventurous, the enterprising, the ambitious and the talented of the whole Negro world; for the lure of it has reached down to every island of the Carib Sea and has penetrated even into Africa.” (Wilson, page 13). This quote determines that African Americans wanted to develop to grow and to achieve and to have ambition and talent.
The progress of African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance was changing in the “Social Progress” in the Opportunity Magazine. African Americans have been achieving and succeeding with art, music, writing, and education. Around this time African Americans have been acknowledged and received recognition to expand and increase their culture and to gain respect and to advocate for their rights. This can also help to open opportunities for their future. Many of the people that have succeeded and received recognition for example novelists such as Carl Van Vechtim and Otto K. Khan; chairman of the Board Directors of the Metropolitan Opera Company. Most African Americans that have achieved it were also by having an education and preparation and have careers which were Gwendolyn B. Bennett, Senator Adelbert H. Roberts, and R. Maurice Moss. Gwendolyn B. Bennett assisted Pratt Institute- Brooklyn, Columbia University, and among other universities for Art. According to the Social Progress, it claims “Miss Bennett’s artwork while at Pratt Institute attracted considerable attention, and some of her drawings have appeared as covers and illustrations in the Crisis and Messenger. Her poetry has equalled her art. One of her poems appears in the current issue of OPPORTUNITY.”( page 62). Gwendolyn B. Bennett is one of the most successful African American women that has worked for the Crisis Magazine and Opportunity Magazine. Also, her artworks and poems she wrote were both published in the Crisis Magazine and Opportunity Magazine. One of the cover arts that Gwendolyn B. Bennett made and was published in the Crisis Magazine was called “The Crisis Christmas Number” in 1923. Also some of her poems that were published as well from Opportunity Magazine and Crisis Magazine that were called “Heritage” in The Opportunity in December 1923, “Nocturne” in the Crisis in November 1923, and “To Usward” in the Crisis and Opportunity in May 1924. Another person that has received an education and made a career for himself is Senator Adelbert H. Roberts, who graduated from Northwestern University Law School and was the first African American to be elected as a senator in Chicago. R. Maurice Moss also made a career but to help others. According to “Social Progress” it states “Mr. Moss is a graduate of Columbia University and has spent a year at the New York School of Social Work. His experience includes boys’ and athletic direction in community service and Y. M. C. A. work, and surveys of the Negro population in several communities.”( page 62). Based on the reading, the “Social Progress” in the Opportunity Magazine determines on how African Americans have succeeded, accomplished, and made a better future for themselves.
The Walking tour of Harlem was a very interesting and captivating trip. The tour started at the Schomburg, “a research library of the New York Public Library and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide.” Which is public library and a space loaded with photographs of legendary and important individuals and events from Harlem’s earliest years, which is actually located at 135th Street. The walking tour of Harlem was enlightening and amusing from seeing the descriptions of the photographs in the room and walls. To seeing and walking around important historic streets and visualizing how Harlem was in the past. Seeing and walking around made me realize that Harlem was very unified and especially during the Harlem Renaissance, African Americans came together to form a society in which they could spend their lives without any fear or form of criticism from white people. This tour made me look at different points of view and gave me more knowledge about the Harlem Renaissance.
Harlem, Mecca of the new negro. Yale University Library. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2022, from https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17368696
Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, May 8). Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 10, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schomburg_Center_for_Research_in_Black_Culture