The purpose of this timeline is to show a running historical context of the Harlem Renaissance. The timeline itself spans from 1890 to 1935. I decided to include events long before the Harlem Renaissance. This was because as Cary D. Wintz states in her book Harlem Speaks: a living history of the Harlem Renaissance, “the Harlem Renaissance did not emerge out of a literary and cultural wasteland” (Wintz 9). I found that the cultural and political events of the late 19th century were absolutely crucial to the literature of the Harlem Renaissance. For example, the records of race-based court legislation (e.g. Plessy v. Ferguson) showed the racial tensions and attempts at reform that continued into the Harlem Renaissance. I also found early black reform to be very important. Examples of this are exemplified in the early work of W.E.B Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. These two men expressed views in the 1890’s that laid the ground work for organizations crucial to the Harlem Renaissance like the NAACP. I also thought that a profound detail to include was statistical data about African Americans at the end of each year. I more specifically included the number of recorded lynchings per year to show that with each years accomplishments came more barbarous treatment of African Americans. This is the reasoning for my inclusion of the many race riots that continued into the 20th century. The most interesting thing for me is how African Americans continued to flourish in the wake of such suppression. They were constantly prosecuted yet they created new art forms like Jazz and Blues that spurned a new and exotic cultural attitude. According Alfonzo W. Hawkins Jr. in his book the Jazz Trope, these new art forms produce a new musician who “must explore within him- or herself all the emotions that lie suppressed and expressed through a myriad of bends and curves, moving up and down the musical scale to achieve the goal of personal assertion against a confined reality” (Hawkins 3). They were prosecuted and continued to progress these art forms while revolutionizing civil rights, art, poetry, and literature in the Harlem Renaissance. If anything the Harlem Renaissance is a story of expression in the midst of suppression from oppression. This is something that is most effectively illustrated by an extended timeline like this Tiki Toki entitled “History of the Harlem Renaissance”.
Bibliography:
Cowan, Thomas Dale, and Jack Maguire. Timelines of African-American history: 500 years of Black achievement. New York: Berkley Pub. Group, 1994. Print.
Hawkins, Alfonso W.. The jazz trope: a theory of African American literary and vernacular culture. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2008. Print.
Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African American history: from 1492 to the present. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. Print.
Kramer, Victor A.. The Harlem renaissance re-examined. New York: AMS Press, 1987. Print.
Wintz, Cary D.. Harlem speaks: a living history of the Harlem Renaissance. Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks, 2007. Print.
