Transcript: What was the Harlem Renaissance?

DAVID HARTMAN: This mosaic we’re standing on- what is it?

BARRY LEWIS: This mosaic is a memorial to Langston Hughes and Arturo Schomburg. The idea for the mural was taken from the first poem that Langston Hughes had published: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”.

DAVID HARTMAN: Describe the Harlem Renaissance. What does that really mean?

PROFESSOR KATE RUSHIN: Well, the Harlem Renaissance is really talking about a very large social movement that was fueled by many different factors. Including the great migration of African Americans from the rural south Jim Crow and segregation to the north, looking for better opportunities and relief from some of the violence and the oppressive share- cropping system. So it was a shift from rural south to urban north.

DAVID HARTMAN: Who were the writers and the poets during this period?

PROFESSOR KATE RUSHIN: We’ve already mentioned Langston Hughes as one of the primary movers, Allan Locke author of the essay “A New Negro” was certainly instrumental and inspiring to people, especially young people to leave behind the old subservient attitudes and to take a new pride and to make out into areas of education and art and the political world. Other important people in the period were County Collin who’s considered a primary poet of the period also Claude Mc Kay, Zora Neal Hurston who actually at one point collaborated with Langston Hughes.