Harlem.

In 1925 a New York Herald Tribune article announced, "we are on the edge, if not in the midst, of what might not improperly be called a Negro Renaissance." The causes of this renaissance — as with all such movements — were financial and educational. Blacks participated in the postwar prosperity — although to a much lesser extent than did whites — and the young generation of literate and literary blacks made the best of it. Many of the most gifted gravitated to a center of black population north of 125th Street in Upper Manhattan that gave its name to the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem nightlife attracted white audiences, and black culture began to receive serious critical attention from white intellectuals.

Locke and Van Vechten.

The movement was shaped significantly by the influence of Alain Locke, a Howard University philosopher, the first black Rhodes Scholar...