Bessie Smith's Influence On African American Culture

Although African Americans were emancipated by the 20th century, they still faced racism, Jim Crow disfranchisement tactics, and oppression. They had been struggling for equality, freedom, a voice, and a matter of simply being able to live their life just as everyone else (whites to be exact). The most affected area was southern America. Afro-Americans, especially the offspring of those who had lived through enslavement and the failure of the Reconstruction era, were trying to migrate to the northern area for a better lifestyle in work, education, and family. Through this migration from the country to the city in the 1920’s, a “New Negro” developed in America, highlighting a new generation of African American community in the sense of culture, art, literature, paintings, drama, and music. This constructed the impacting community of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. The big “C”- Culture- created the best and the finest of the African American Harlem community. The most important aspect of this new culture was music. Music expressed that African American culture should …show more content…
She toured with Ma Rainey through T.O.B.A. and performed in several vaudeville shows as well. Bessie Smith was well known for her soulful, bluesy, jazzy, and grand voice. She justified a more jazzy sound than Ma Rainey, as is portrayed in When Harlem was in Vogue, “… he heard Bessie Smith for the first time: ‘That wasn’t a voice she had, it was a flamethrower licking out across the room’… What was true of the blues… was truer of jazz.” This jazz input clarified the soulful and lively sound that the African American community identified themselves with. This new sound and approach allowed them to foreshadow a more vibrant future in America and an escape of all the troubles their ancestors have gone through as ill-treated people in America, particularly in the