historian+19


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**W.E.B DuBois** //**1. His Formative Years**// //W.E.B. DuBois was born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. At that time Great Barrington had perhaps 25, but not more than 50, Black people out of a population of about 5,000. Consequently, there were little signs of overt racism there. Nevertheless, its venom was distributed through a constant barrage of suggestive innuendoes and vindictive attitudes of its residents. This mutated the personality of young William from good natured and outgoing to sullen and withdrawn. This was later reinforced and strengthened by inner withdrawals in the face of real discriminations. His demeanor of introspection haunted him throughout his life.// //While in high school DuBois showed a keen concern for the development of his race. At age fifteen he became the local correspondent for the// New York Globe//. And in this position he conceived it his duty to push his race forward by lectures and editorials reflecting upon the need of Black people to politicized themselves. DuBois was naturally gifted intellectually and took pleasurable pride in surpassing his fellow students in academic and other pursuits. Upon graduation from high school, he, like many other New England students of his caliber, desired to attend Harvard. However, he lacked the financial resources to go to that institution. But with the aid of friends and family, and a scholarship he received to Fisk College (now University), he eagerly headed to Nashville, Tennessee to further his education. =How the Harlem Renaissance Begin. 2. []=
 * The Harlem Renaissance, “an especially brilliant moment in the history of blacks in America” (Gates and McKay 929), began in approximately 1919 and lasted until about 1940. During this time, many African-Americans moved north to escape oppression in the South; New York City (particularly the district of Harlem) quickly became, as James Weldon Johnson put it, “the Negro capital of the world.” As the African-Americans began to centralize and form strong communities, their art culture began to flourish. African-Americans were publishing vast amounts of literature, producing record numbers of paintings and sculptures, and participating in music, drama, and dance. Overall, the Harlem Renaissance proved to be a monumental turning point for African-Americans as they began to work “with a new sense of confidence and purpose…and a sense of achievement never before experienced by so many black artists in the long, troubled history of the peoples of African descent in North America” (929). ||

=African American Community during the Harlem Reniassance= 3. http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/C20th/harrenaiss.htm
 * ||  || 3 . During the Great Migration of 1914-1918, many rural Americans from South headed to the industrial North for employment opportunities. Among the many new mass congregations in American industrial cities, was a Harlem, New York City, a convergence of African-Americans from all over the country.

The Harlem Renaissance was an expression of African-American social thought and culture which took a place in newly-formed Black community in neighborhood of Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance flourished from early 1920 to1940 and was expressed through every cultural medium-visual art, dance, music, theatre, literature, poetry, history, politics and the consequent "white flight" of Harlem.

Instead of using direct political means, African-American artists, writers, and musicians employed culture to work for goals of civil rights and equality. Its lasting legacy is that for the first time (and across racial lines), African-American paintings, writings, and jazz became absorbed into mainstream culture. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after an anthology, entitled The New Negro, of notable African-American works, published by philosopher Alain Locke in 1925. ||  ||   ||