The Harlem Renaissance: The Introduction into African American Culture
After the Civil War had ended, all slaves were freed, and were able to do anything they pleased. Many of them decided to move up north to escape the horrors they had lived through in the south. This became known as the Great Migration. African Americans went to many major cities in the North: Chicago, Detroit, and New York. A neighborhood in New York called Harlem became the epicenter of African American people, music, literature, art, and culture.
A New African American Identity: The Harlem Renaissance
Because of the end of the Civil War in 1865, hundreds of thousands of African American people who who were once slaves in the south became free people. Because of this, many of them moved out of the south, and into northern areas to escape from the horrors they once lived in. In result of them moving north, they began to become a fuller part of the society.
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was the development of a neighborhood called Harlem in New York City as a black cultural epicenter in the early 20th Century and the future social and artistic expansion that resulted. Lasting from around the 1910s through the mid-1930s, the period is considered a golden age in African American culture, exhibiting in literature, music, and art.
Although the "free" life for the African Americans in the north wasn't everything they had hoped it was, they still had a huge part of the society in the early 20th century. Much of their culture is still being practiced today in music, art, and their beliefs.