Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance was an era of written and artistic creativity among African-Americans occuring between World War I and the 1930s Depression.

It began with the migration of African-Americans to the northern cities. Large numbers of black Americans left their rural southern states homes to move to urban centers such as New York City, Chicago, and Washington, DC. The Roaring Twenties were boom times for the United States, and there were many jobs to go around especially in the North. Between 1920 and 1930, almost 750,000 African Americans left the South, and many of them seeking a better life a less racially tense environment.

This movement brought new creative activity in writing, art, and music and redefined expressions of African-Americans and created a black cultural identity. Many African American artists, writers and musicians flocked to a district of Manhattan called Harlem.