Harlem Renaissance : What were the causes? What were the effects? essay sample

 

 

After slavery had been abolished nationwide, the Harlem Renaissance became the greatest event in the African American history. It marked the appearance of the new urban African American culture that was born in the neighborhoods but quickly spread all over the US. Harlem was a formerly white neighborhood in New York City, but circumstances such as the Great Migration of the 1910-20s quickly changed that. By 1920s, Harlem housed about 200,000 African Americans. People migrated to North searching for better housing and employment opportunities. Abolition of slavery did not much improve conditions for African Americans in the South.  

 

Despite big cities in the North did not accept former slaves with open arms, but all of them had a shortage of industrial laborers. Nevertheless, the competition was still tough, and migrants used every chance to make their lives better. Many of them were writers and musicians who changed American popular culture immensely. The Harlem Renaissance brought jazz to America with its brilliant musicians such as Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Louis Armstrong. Some prolific American writers, like Langston Hughes or Claude McKay, also emerged on the wave of the Harlem Renaissance. Their impact influenced not only the local population of the suburbs but brought the Golden Age of American culture.