Langston Hughes And Richard Wright's Influence: A Cultural Movement In The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that lasted between the 1920s and 1930s. In more depth, this movement consisted of artistic explosions, including music, writing, and many others that helped African Americans emerge into a virtually white nation. The Harlem Renaissance was the only place of the 20th century where “racial solidarity was equated with social progress, and where the idea of blackness became a commodity in its own right.” . It is questioned however, that if the impact on the emerging African Americans was truly that substantial. Evidently, African Americans were benefited by this movement in all aspects of life, including social, cultural, economical, and political. “It remains the period to which we attribute the …show more content…
Many people took part in trying to make this happen, including very famous writers, Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. These two influential men took huge amounts of pride in their own race. Their main goal was to be able to avoid being like whites, and instead try to make a name for themselves and the rest of all the African Americans. The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain was written by Langston Hughes, and in this piece, he emphasizes his love for his own race, and the passion that he possesses to want to spread black consciousness. “We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn 't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn 't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves” . He expresses the idea that blacks should not worry about what white people think, instead they should be trying to overcome the obstacles themselves without any influence from others. As he describes the struggles that African American artists have to overcome, it shapes the causes of the …show more content…
Since African Americans were so poorly treated in the deep south, it was such a change for them in the North. Now that they are finally able to express themselves here, it has absolutely changed their life. Blacks no longer had to be ashamed of or hide their cultural values such a music or beliefs. Howard Thurman was a man who took advantage of this expression, regarding his religious beliefs. In 1944, Thurman is known as the first African American man to co-pastor with a white man in the first interracial church. This broke many barriers in America, because it taught the rest of the blacks in the nation to not be afraid to go after what you believe in. Thurman once said, “Don 't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive” . This proved to be a huge milestone for African Americans. The black population really needed one person to have the confidence to step up and fight for what was right. In a religious aspect, Howard Thurman was their savior. On another cultural idea, such a music, there were many emergents for African Americans during this time. Music, especially jazz, had a great outbreak in this decade, mainly because it was the Roaring Twenties, and this was not only a time for money but a time for music. People were beginning to go out and see jazz shows