"Through the music, and through the poems, and through the artwork, America came to realize that America is not America without African Americans.”- Ralph Ellison (Novelist)
Perhaps this is the largest message from this movement, it not only opened the black mind, but soon enough it opened the minds of all people, white, Asian, Hispanic, etc. and paved the way from acceptance and self-realization, This truly is a Renaissance to remember because without the Harlem Renaissance, history would have continued as raciest, and apathetic towards blacks and themselves."
Perhaps this is the largest message from this movement, it not only opened the black mind, but soon enough it opened the minds of all people, white, Asian, Hispanic, etc. and paved the way from acceptance and self-realization, This truly is a Renaissance to remember because without the Harlem Renaissance, history would have continued as raciest, and apathetic towards blacks and themselves."
Having its roots in the south and in Africa, the Harlem Renaissance explored and respected African origins, rather than looking at the Europeans and American perspective, many of the novels and other works are based of themes and issues of Africa and southern struggles, before the Harlem Renaissance Africa and the south were backward primitive places that many successful, liberal blacks tried not to be associated with, but the Harlem Renaissance changed all that into simple pride. Many themes that encompassed the Harlem renaissance included: Racial identity, self-acceptance, and self-realization which were probably the most important themes of the H.R, In this time blacks had finally a standard for their culture and race and used this to realize that they should be the ones to define themselves, and choose their own destiny, but not only that, this movement also made people think about the “democracy” they, and their ancestors were living in, and began to question why it was called democracy when after all this time black men and women (woman of all races as a matter of fact) were excluded from the freedom mostly white people had, Langston Hughes also cried out to America why he was not free in a country born out of freedom, "I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.", in these ways this theme paved the way for future blacks to question American democracy, and start pride movements in later decades. Another main theme found in the Harlem Renaissance is the Black vs. white mainstream culture which was a huge conflict, and ultimately a big theme that arose with the start of the H.R, though the people were African American, the great cultural activists of the time were intellectuals and felt an association with mainstream intellectual trends, although all these people were black their profession made them follow a white European tradition, this tension of representing a culture but also belonging to foreign and different artistic traditions caused many conflicts, some people were concerned about proving that the negro man is as good as the white man, while others simply wanted to completely split from American, and European society.
The Harlem Renaissance was nothing other than an expressive period for blacks, its concerns were what blacks saw felt and experienced, and rather than being portrayed by others which was the main route of expression for blacks for most of their history, the black man himself took the job of expressing himself and describing black realities. So all in all the ability and responsibility to express himself and his people was one of the major issues the black faced and solved during this period. the very place all these events took place is itself a major theme in itself, the environment and atmosphere of the people, and its characteristics, had energized and inspired its creative expression, many books, and other references, from, and out of the time period of the Harlem Renaissance, have the name Harlem or refer to its important time. And finally the final theme of the Harlem renaissance was the common people. The problems, and notability of the masses and their culture was a concern for the writers and the thinkers of the 1930's. The music of the people: jazz, and the blues, was formally considered low life, and sinful, but began to rise in acceptance among the cultural set. There was also inner conflict over not being the common man, many people spoke for, and of the common man when they in turn were not the common man, this conflict of admiring, and speaking for the masses while not being part of the masses intellectually and culturally is evident in many of the works of the Harlem Renaissance, considering the fact that W.E.B DuBois popularized the aforementioned concept known as the “talented tenth” and it does make an impact on the Harlem Renaissance, for example W.E.B DuBois was a Harvard graduate, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neal Hurston, Columbia graduated, they were the intellectuals of their black society, and thus were generally accepted as part of the “talented tenth”.