How did the Great Migration lead to the Harlem Renaissance?

Question

Nativism , Harlem renaissance , Sacco and Vanzetti , racial perspective ,ethnic perspective, red scare , and the 1920’s

Answer 1

This is a fantastic question.

Let's unpack The Great Migration which began at around 1910 and ended in 1970. This was the single largest migration of black Americans from the Southern US, across the Northern and Midwestern US. It totaled at around 6 million people moved from the South.

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural awakening in Harlem during the 1920s to the 1930s.

Putting the pieces together, the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration are intrinsically linked. As black migrants moved to Harlem, the cultural diffusion was allowed to happen. Jazz music came from the musical traditions of the blues, which had its roots in African traditions, and throughout the Renaissance, this new style of music emerged. Louis Armstrong was among one of the greats in jazz music.

There was also literature from the likes of Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay. The visual arts also flourished during this time with Aaron Douglas.

Though here's a very tough question:

Why Harlem?

And the answer is complicated. There was an area in the US like Harlem by the 1920s, and that was Tulsa OK, the Greenwood District. It was dubbed "Black Wall Street" and it was effectively erased in 1921 during the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Other areas were trickier. In the Midwest, Indiana was hostile. It was a KKK stronghold, and cities like Chicago and Detroit red lined black residents fiercely.

The Great Migration led to the Harlem Renaissance because it was allowed to thrive beyond the 1920s.

Answer 2

As many African Americans moved from the rural south to the more urban northern environments, there was an explosion of culture that is typical of many different world views all interacting with each other in a short time span. Many people felt that if they just left the Jim Crow dominated south, that their life and their family's lives were immediately improve, and when they were confronted with the harsh reality that there was still rampant discrimination, even if it wasn't as overt as the south, there was a breaking point and that led to many of the artists that got notoriety during the Harlem Renaissance. Art, poetry, politics all were changed during this time period as a whole group of people were finally given an outlet to speak to the country at large and share their perspective on what it meant to be an American and how that differed from the mainstream point of view.