The Harlem Renaissance

During the 1920s, Harlem, a section of New York City, became the largest African-American urban area in the country. After World War I, there had been a large migration of rural Southern African Americans to large Northern cities in search of employment. Many of Harlem's residents were professionals, including doctors, lawyers, judges, and teachers.

Within the Harlem community, a small but influential group of mostly college-educated intellectuals strove to encourage racial pride among African Americans. Writers and artists sought to define and express a specifically African-American identity, experience, and culture. This movement became known as the Harlem Renaissance. One of the most well-known artists was Aaron Douglas. In 1925, Alain Locke, an African-American philosopher who had graduated from Harvard and Oxford, published The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance, an anthology of African-American poetry, fiction, drama, and art. Toomer's book Cane, published in 1923, was one...