The explosion of Black creativity 100 years ago—known as the “New Negro Movement” or “Harlem Renaissance”—saw Black creatives boldly demonstrating their unique artistic gifts in traditional representations as well as in angry and political forms.
Though it may not have been the impetus for this explosion of creativity, it was occurring in the midst of the greatest migration of Black people from the South to other parts of the country. Pushed by poverty, injustices inherent in sharecropping, the prevalence of Jim Crow laws, and the constant threat of inhumane violence, Black people left the only places most of them knew as home and ventured on faith and a prayer into unknown lands that were also suspect.
Having found a refuge from sanctioned violence and a way out of abject poverty, many Black people were able to allow their creativity to flourish. Though many of the most prominent and celebrated creatives had not experienced first-hand the cruelest injustices their Black brothers and sisters from the South were fleeing, proximity and knowledge of suffering and resilience, alike, served as the impetus to create and invested the artists’ creativity with meaning.
Also, in utilizing these realities as subject matter, creatives were able to elevate and reveal to the world the state of most Black Americans fleeing the South. Out of pain came genius and culture in which Black artists seemed unified in purpose, if not style, in showing what the world of Black people was and what it could be.
Gwen Dungy 