Economic Jim Crow

Economic_Jim Crow

William Henry Johnson and the Harlem Rennaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement among African Americans during the early 1900s. Writers, musicians, and artists, based in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, sought to express their cultural experience and heritage in new ways. In this period, people like Langston Hughes (writing) and Duke Ellington (music) became famous for their innovative art.

One visual artist associated with the movement was William Henry Johnson, a painter whose vivid colors and narrative images showed a variety of aspects of African-American life. This piece, entitled “Blind Singer,” depicts two African-American street musicians using bright colors and simple shapes, two hallmarks of Johnson’s painting.

Blind Singer

This picture details an African-American soldier leaving his family and going off to war. African-Americans fighting during the World War I and World War II was a major issue within the community, as the African Americans were expected to fight for their country even though the lived in unequal segregation at home.

Off to War

Segregation of housing was an important part of the Harlem Renaissance era through much of the 20th century. Although this court case made it illegal for a city to tell African-Americans where they had to live, it was still legal for regular people to decide not to sell houses to African-Americans on the basis of race. As a result, many cities kept African-Americans and other non-white people segregated in separate neighborhoods. So although places like Harlem, which embodied the cultural backdrop behind much of Johnson’s work,were communities where African-Americans could come together to live together, oftentimes suchneighborhoods in the inner city were the only areas where African-Americans could find housing they could afford or purchase.

Another NAACP Victory

In the Supreme Court of the United States, October Term, 1916 [No. 231]. Charles H. Buchanan v. William Warley.
Pamphlet.
NAACP Collection, Manuscript Division. (7-20)
Courtesy of the NAACP

In order to keep people of color out of their neighborhoods, cities called for racial restrictive covenants that segregated housing. The NAACP attacked this practice in the courts in the case of Charles Buchanan v. William Warley. In the 1916 decision, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional an ordinance mandating that African Americans live in certain sections of Louisville, Kentucky. As a result of this case, whites resorted to private restrictive covenants, in which individual residents agreed to sell or rent only to whites, and de facto housing segregation continued.

The image displays aHarlem dance club in the 1940s. The Harlem Renaissance was not limited to the work of artists such as Johnson, as it also included poetry, literature, music, and dance.

America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945

Display Images with Neighboring Call Numbers

New York, New York. Scene in Harlem.

Parks, Gordon, 1912- photographer.

CREATED/PUBLISHED
1943 May.

NOTES
Title and other information from caption sheet entry.

Transfer; United States. Office of War Information. Overseas Picture Division. Washington Division; 1944.

SUBJECTS
Nitrate negatives.
United States--New York (State)--New York.

MEDIUM
1 negative : nitrate ; 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches or smaller.

CALL NUMBER
LC-USW3- 024034-E

REPRODUCTION NUMBER
LC-USW3-024034-E DLC (b&w film nitrate neg.)

PART OF
Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)

REPOSITORY
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.20540

DIGITAL ID
(digital file from intermediary roll film) fsa 8d28555

In this letter, Countee Cullen thanks the Harmon Foundation for bestowing upon him their literature award. The Harmon Foundation was one of several numerous organizations to promote African-American communities – they funded public works projects, offered scholarships, and granted awards for outstanding achievement in various fields. William H. Johnson received one of the prestigious Harmon Foundation awards for his art in 1929.

The Harmon Foundation--Providing Wings for the Artists

Countee Cullen to George H. Haynes, December 7, 1926.
Holograph letter.
Harmon Foundation Records, Manuscript Division. (7-10)
Courtesy of the CounteeCullenPapers
AmistadResearchCenter
TulaneUniversity
New Orleans, LA.

The Harmon Foundation, established by endowments in 1922, provided playgrounds throughout the country, tuition payments and vocational guidance for students, educational programs for nurses, and awards for "constructive achievements among Negroes." The areas of competition for monetary awards to African Americans included business, education, farming, fine arts, literature, music, race relations, religious service, and science. The nomination files for these awards provide a rich source of information about African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance period.