US History through the African American Experience

The Harlem Renaissance

How do music and art represent human dignity?

How did art define African Americans in the 1920s and 1930s in the Harlem Renaissance?

How did their music and art compare to how music and art affect you today?

Survey on music – click here to take the survey.

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See the results:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/MySurvey_Responses.aspx?sm=N%2fbJfY%2fNgSkD%2bPvjYE4e9Q%2bS30zKknV4eXxBF54xBxw%3d

The ideals of the Harlem Renaissance encompass

• Glorifying African roots
• Living with Dignity
• Positive Racial Consciousness
• Rejection of identity with white culture

How did the Harlem Renaissance artists challenge the accepted idea of African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance?  How did it encourage racial pride? Were the artists successful?  How did their artwork produce a new definition of the “negro?”

By the end of World War I, African Americans had participated in another war fighting for democracy.  African Americans on the home front migrated North and participated in the World War I effort in jobs and by helping the soldiers’ families.  The Chicago Race Riot in 1919 marked a new militancy among African Americans.

In the 1920s and 1930s, African Americans expressed this new sense of identity as the “New Negro” in the arts including:

• Music – jazz
• Poetry
• Visual Art
• Dance
• Literature
• Photography
• Drama
• Philosophy
• Politics

African Americans rejected the styles of Europeans and white Americans and celebrated their dignity, creativity, and their roots.  They asserted their freedom to express themselves on their own terms, not worrying about what the dominant society would think about them.  They rejected the images portrayed by black face performers and minstrel shows.

In this 3 week unit, you will learn about Harlem’s cultural renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s.  You will evaluate how powerful music and art can be in changing the image of African Americans during the 1920s and 1930s. You will evaluate the role of art in relationship to political and economic changes.

How do music or art represent human dignity to you?  How do they help you define yourself?  How did art do that in the 1920s and 1930s in the Harlem Renaissance with two artists?  How did their music compare to how music affects you today?

¶ 1 How can music and art represent human dignity?

¶ 2 Explain how one artist from the Harlem Renaissance represented human dignity.

¶ 3 Explain how a second artist from the Harlem Renaissance represented human dignity.

¶4 Explain how your favorite artist – music, art, poetry – gives you human dignity and explain why.

¶ 5 Conclusion  – Compare and contrast the artists of the Harlem Renaissance with your artist.  What are the similarities and differences in how your artist affects you in comparison to how the Harlem Renaissance affected their audiences in the 1920s and 1930s?

2/15	Intro Set up project	Read the “Harlem Renaissance”  365-6.  1.  What was the “formula” created by white Americans of black people?  2.  How did black artists during the Harlem Renaissance define themselves?  3.  Why did Locke say “The pulse of the negro world has begun to beat in Harlem? 4.  What did Brawley say defined the “Negro genius?”  5.  Africans Americans wanted to take nobility from their suffering.  What does that mean? 6. What prompted Claude McKay to write “If We Must Die”?  7.  Who was novelist Jean Toomer related to and how did he define the New Negro?
2/16	CAPT Practice Let America be America to Me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrqeywXhKfY	Read Josephine Baker Sees the World on p. 366.  1.  How did Baker say she used her performances as a singer?  2.  Read Langston Hughes, 366-8.  List 3 things you should know about Langston Hughes.  3.  How did Hughes define the New Negro?  4.  Read his poem “Mother to Son.”  What is the main idea of this poem?  5.  How can you identify with his message? 6.  Read Paul Robeson.  What are 3 things we should know about Robeson?  7. What is his definition of the New Negro?
2/22	Harlem Renaissance http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15722choose person	Read about Zora Neale Hurston, the New Negro Woman and the Harlem Renaissance and White America, 368-371.  1. How did Hurston define herself in relationship to whites?  2.  In the section “New Negro Women,” what were the 3 prescribed jobs for Black women?  3.  What power did African American women have? 4. What are 3 new activities that black women did?
2/23	Library fill in role card ken burns jazz http://www.schooltube.com/video/da5afb547587515d9796/Ken-Burns-JAZZ-Intro	The Jazz Age – 371-2 Define jazz.  List 3 different aspects of the music. What factors blended together to make jazz? According to Louis Armstrong, what was jazz built on? List 3 male jazz musicians. Name 3 women singers.
2/24	Role Card Library	Political Goals and Setbacks in the 1920s Give one example of a positive act by a president for African Americans Give one example of a negative act by a president toward African Americans Why did African Americans turn to the communist Party? Read the Conclusion on p 373.  What are three things that changed for African Americans from 1919 to 1930?
2/27		375-8 Opening Vignette: The Scottsboro Boys What is different about African Americans’ reaction to the Scottsboro case? Why did the Communist party get involved?
2/28		378-80 African Americans in Desperate Times How did experiences of black and white Americans compare for unemployment in the Great Depression? When was the Great Depression? What is evidence that Blacks in the south were worse off than blacks in the north?
2/29	Photostory or moviemaker	380-2 Scottsboro Campaign, Black Radicalism What did the Communists stand for? How did they support African Americans Why did African Americans support Republicans? What federal programs did black workers benefit from?
3/1		Black Militancy 382-8 Pick one member of the NAACP and describe how their actions were radical. Pick one Black Nationalist and describe how their actions were radical. Pick one Social Gospel Minister and describe how their actions were radical. Pick one Black Intellectual and describe how their actions were radical.
3/2	CAPT – editing	388-9   1.  Define the New Deal List 3 accomplishments of Mary McLeod Bethune Why do you think Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) did not support anti-lynching legislation?
3/5		Read 393-4, Black Artists and the Cultural Mainstream. Pick one artist and tell what they did and how they represent the 4 themes of the Harlem Renaissance: Paul Robeson, Margaret Walker Alexander, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/354.html, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/299.html
3/6	CAPT Math
3/7	CAPT – writing
3/8	CAPT Science