The Literary Movements Of The Harlem Renaissance

American history in the 1920’s saw a movement in political views through the Harlem Renaissance. The literary movement was poised in promoting African American cultural values that were overlooked and underestimated in America at the time. This essay is not for a mere discovery of facts, but to review the political effects that poets where trying to achieve through their work. The Harlem Renaissance’s purpose was to achieve social justice, have an integrated society and to be able to celebrate their culture through various art forms such as poetry. The renaissance led way to the greatest human civil rights movement of the 20th century and also exposed the importance of ethnicity to a race conscious American society. The poems from Harlem Renaissance helped bring black culture into a mainstream audience where it was viewed as vibrant and new. Many songs, poems, novels and art pieces focused …show more content…
Whites had the power, with power comes money and money translates to freedom. Poets are trying to break free of the chains of the past with words as their lock pick. Poetry was a way to connect to many different groups of people. Having an integrated society was a dream to becoming accepted. The poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes talks about what its like to have a dream and not be able to live out your dream. He says that you needed dreams in situations like this to be able to survive. He then asks what happens to a dream if you never strive for it; does it just go away after time or does it “explode”. This was unexpected while reading the poem, but when I it-it stood out as the most important line. It’s a very vivid image that he paints in your mind, I could see an idea exploded and destroys everything else around. White people made African Americans feel as if they were less than human and I can imagine the dream was to be able to live as one people instead of being