The Great Migration & The Harlem Renaissance

[Music] black Americans change popular culture forever in the 1920s the creation of jazz alone was a huge accomplishment and eventually it found its way into the mainstream crossing racial lines once thought impossible to cross if it hadn't been for a complex chain of events things probably wouldn't have worked out and quite the same way in this video I'm gonna talk about the great migration and the Harlem Renaissance two separate movements that go hand-in-hand with each other both would have long-lasting effects for both black America and white America cooperation and understanding between white and black had been one of America's most troubling issues for a long time and around the 1920s it began to reach a critical point the great migration is the name given to the mass migration of black Americans from the north to the south the most common pattern being from the rural South to the urban north this huge demographic shift was important in many ways and greatly affected American culture and society it was largely because of the great migration that the Harlem Renaissance was able to happen but I'll talk about that more later in the video but what caused the great migration let's find out [Music] there is a long backstory to the great migration all stemming from the end of slavery at the end of the Civil War under reconstruction southern blacks were able to rapidly gain voting rights and became an important section of the voting public black officials were elected into office in many southern states it all seemed to be going very well but then reconstruction ended many states in the deep south slowly dismantled the voting rights for blacks now that they weren't really being enforced by an outside Authority through the use of clever exclusive tactics like the grandfather clause and literacy tests southern blacks were effectively reduce enfranchised though not being officially racist it was obvious that these tactics were directed at blacks after the turn of the century things only got worse for southern blacks Jim Crow laws an assisted racial segregation were enacted in many southern cities there was also the fashionable trend of the lost cause of the Confederacy this was basically a nostalgic and rose-colored view of the pre Civil War South that claimed that enslaved blacks had been happy and content working on plantations and it was for everybody's benefit that way this had some southerners to accuse blacks of being ungrateful and that the Society of the antebellum South was better for them of course those same people also believe that blacks were simpletons and couldn't handle the complexities of a new modern society the belief in the loss caused the Confederacy it was entirely sympathetic with the Confederate cause and was widespread enough in the south that it led to more negative developments for race relations one of these was the re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan which officially restarted in 1915 by the 1920s the KKK had reached record numbers of membership this led to increasing violence and hostility towards blacks as well as the increased influence of the KKK in southern politics throughout the post reconstruction and Jim Crow period lynching was still practiced and in fact the 1920s was almost at the tail end of the era that saw a significant number of lynchings so with all this still ongoing in the 1920s it was not a good time to be black in southern America millions of blacks still lived in the former Confederate States and more than 40% of the southern population in this era was black but without any real power or social influence they couldn't really do very much while the liberal ideas of reconstruction were being implemented they hadn't wanted to leave mostly because it was the only home they knew and there had been a more or less equal amount of social mobility for them in the north and the south but when that ended there was little left for them in the south with the increased voting rights for blacks in the Reconstruction period they were certainly a force to be reckoned with at the polls and this was resented by many whites as well as Southern Democrats who didn't stand a chance against the Republicans in the South being the party of Lincoln the man who freed the slaves the Republican Party received nearly all the votes of newly freed blacks which keep in mind it was nearly 40% of the population thus ensued an ugly racist campaign to disenfranchise blacks yet again [Music] so that's the lead-up to the 1920s in a nutshell beginning around the 1910s blacks had started moving in masse to northern cities to escape the increasingly racist south this migration continued into the 1920s and one of the most popular destinations was the Harlem district in New York this would become the headquarters of the important cultural developments in the black community in the near future the increased concentration of black intellectuals and artists led to a faster spread of ideas and an increased output of works at first this flourishing of black culture and thought was dubbed the new Negro movement but was later called the Harlem Renaissance because of that area's importance in the movement hundreds of thousands of southern blacks had now joined the relatively better off northern blacks creating higher concentrations of black Americans in northern cities and establishing their own communities that often took up entire sections of those cities this is a generalization but think of it kind of like this within the Harlem Renaissance figures those who were already in the north or the intellectual type and those from the south were more earthy though they brought with them new innovative and accessible developments in the arts like I said it's a generalization so don't think it was such a straight dividing line to illustrate that last explanation let's take a quick look at two of the most important black musicians of this time Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington Ellington had been born and raised in the north and was sophisticated suave and reserved Armstrong on the other hand was brash loud outwardly friendly and spoke with a drawl but both made very important contributions to black music the two types of people they represent brought their own unique creativity to the table they needed each other in order to break through racial barriers once the innovative ideas of the rural blacks were tweaked by the intellectual blacks they might then be ready to be digested by the mainstream white public this is also a generalization but hopefully you get my point essentially when these two types finally came together you had the perfect storm for the widespread dissemination of black culture one really important thing about the Harlem Renaissance was that it was the first time that black artists intellectuals were beginning to be consistently recognized by a large number of their white counterparts this certainly didn't mean that they were fully accepted into their ranks but it was a stepping stone one of the most important characteristics of the movement was a newfound racial pride blacks from the South had been especially beaten down by society and sent to the very back of the social order but now elements of black culture were being accepted by mainstream white culture and felt like progress was being made and all thanks to black Americans unique historical experience and the positive innovation that came from such negative circumstances now blacks who accepted their low social ranking by submitting to White's so-called Uncle Tom's were disdained by the new generation of black intellectuals and were encouraged to have more pride in their race blacks had generally thought that the subservience to whites was demeaning and beneath them but now they felt like they could openly resist that role in society in the literary realm a few of the most prominent names were Langston Hughes James Weldon Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston all were writers who dabbled in multiple styles and who tried to bring back culture to the forefront and display all the achievements of black Americans past and present Langston Hughes wrote his first poem the Negro speaks of rivers in 1920 at the age of 17 even though it predates the real beginning of the Harlem Renaissance I think it perfectly captures its spirit I've known rivers I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins my soul has grown deep like the rivers I bathed in the Euphrates when Dawn's were young I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset I've known rivers ancient dusky rivers my soul has grown deep like the rivers Hughes briefly tracks the history of black Africans from the old world to the new world this was the collective experience of black Americans they were bound together by it he puts forth that the African race was as ancient as the rivers as old as the great civilizations and that it was at least as legitimate as the white race in the entertainments fear of course there were countless jazz musicians from both sides of the mason-dixon line but outside of them a few of the most important word Josephine Baker the famous dancer and singer Bill Bojangles Robinson the tap dancer and actor and Paul Robeson the singer and stage performer in the film world there was one black filmmaker who was especially important in this period Oscar Micheaux was important not only as one of the first black filmmakers but also just as an independent filmmaker who was actually able to achieve some success he started making films before the start of the Harlem Renaissance but like Langston Hughes was a bit ahead of the curve the show didn't shy away from portraying the problems within black society such as the quasi caste system that existed between fair-skinned and darker skinned black Americans and he portrayed the suffering of blacks under Jim Crow which featured prominently in some of his films but he also made more run-of-the-mill low-budget films that used the tactics of the Hollywood production system Michele's films were also great for exposing black actors to black communities across larger areas than previously possible most of the cast for his films were black or mixed-race and these films gave them an opportunity to do normal roles as opposed to the handful of stock characters usually assigned to black actors in average Hollywood films those most often being servants bellhops porters and other subservient service positions as well as just plain racist stereotypes Machaut demonstrated a remarkable talent for directing producing and promoting his films and although they were only really shown to black audiences it was enough to make a significant impact within that demographic and in the era of the mentally successful and profitable Hollywood production line system of making movies most independents couldn't stand a chance so whose success was impressive even outside the boundaries of race [Music] the Harlem Renaissance didn't start jazz and it certainly wasn't the first time America had seen a group of black intellectuals but coupled with the great migration and put these people physically closer together which helped their ideas spread faster it gave black people an opportunity to jumpstart their long awaited push for equality that is the greater influence of the Harlem Renaissance the jazz literature and art that came from Harlem and Beyond are great from the perspective of equality and everything but from the perspective of that generation of black Americans they stood for something far more important they represented a push for equality they saw their first recognition from their white contemporaries signaling the beginning of understanding across racial lines and for the first time large numbers of black Americans were proud to be black they were able to see their own contributions to the world without the stain of slavery consuming their collective memory entirely the first step to achieving equality was largely a success once they convinced themselves that they were equal to White's they could then convince whites that they were equal to them while the Harlem Renaissance faded away with the onset of World War two the leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s looked to the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance for inspiration many of its surviving leaders contributed to various civil rights campaigns and had clearly not lost their zeal for improving the situation of blacks in America the Harlem Renaissance could not have been as successful as it was without the great migration and while that mass exodus of blacks out of the south was spurred on by discrimination and hate there was at least something good that came out of it something that would eventually lead to real progress being made I've had this video in the works for a long time like for a few months now but it took a longer time than normal to put all my ideas together since this was a more bigger picture video than I'm used to doing but I think it was an important one since we all know how important jazz was to 1920s pop culture and I constantly mentioned it in my videos so it was time to show a backstory of sorts and of course jazz was only a part of the whole story anyways thanks for watching and I hope I did an okay job explaining all of this let me know what you thought in the comments and if you like this video please consider subscribing to my channel for more short documentaries about the 1920s as well as other media like music radio cartoons and magazine articles well that's all for now are you sikhs and gals out there but stay tuned for more tales from the Jazz Age [Music]

Channel: The1920sChannel

Views: 156,058

Keywords: harlem renaissance, 1920s harlem, 1920s jazz documentary, the great migration, 1920s great migration, 1920s racism, 1920s kkk, 1920s harlem renaissance, harlem renaissance documentary, great migration documentary, langston hughes, langston hughes poems, josephine baker documentary, louis armstrong documentary, duke ellington documentary, 1920s documentary, oscar micheaux documentary, oscar micheaux films, harlem renaissance figures, jim crow in america, jim crow laws

Id: 0AQeRITMhD0

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020