Poems of the Harlem Renaissance
US History/Napp Name: ______
Historical Context:
“During the Great Migration of the early 1900s, many African Americans left the South for Northern cities. Some moved to an area in uptown New York City known as Harlem. This formerly all-white neighborhood became home for the largest group of African Americans outside the South. Drawn by this large African-American population, Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey came to Harlem in 1916 seeking members for his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The goals of the organization were to help African Americans regain their African heritage by setting up their own institutions here or by returning to Africa.
The racial pride that developed from this Black Nationalist movement helped nurture the Harlem Renaissance, a literary, musical, and artistic movement that began in the 1920s. Its writers, artists, actors, composers, singers, and musicians used African-American experiences as themes for their works. They expressed pride in their culture and the pain of their subjugation and segregation.”
~ U.S. History and Government Readings and Documents
Questions:
1-What happened during the Great Migration of the early 1900s? ______
2-Why do you think many African Americans left the South? What problems did African Americans encounter in the South? ______
3-What was Harlem? ______
4-Why was Marcus Garvey come to Harlem in 1916? ______
5-What organization had Marcus Garvey founded? ______
6-What was the goal of Marcus Garvey’s organization? ______
7-What developed from this Black Nationalist movement? ______
8-Identify significant characteristics of the Harlem Renaissance. ______
The Poets:
1-Langston Hughes:
“Langston Hughes is one of the most famous writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance. He was born and raised in the Midwest. But at the age of 20, he abandoned his Midwestern life to become a writer in New York. Inspired by musicians in Harlem clubs; Hughes’s poem ‘The Weary Blues’ uses the rhythms of blues and jazz.”
2-Jessie Redmon Fauset:
“Jessie Redmon Fauset moved in 1919 to New York, where she worked on the staff of The Crisis, the magazine edited by W.E.B. DuBois. She encouraged so many young writers of the Harlem Renaissance (including Langston Hughes) that she is credited with being one of the movement’s founders. Her poem “Orifalmme”, published in The Crisis in January 1920, is introduced by a quotation from Sojourner Truth, a formerly enslaved woman who became a public speaker for the causes of abolition and women’s rights. An oriflamme is a symbol that inspires courage and devotion.”
Questions:
1-Who was Langston Hughes? ______
2-Identify two significant facts about his life. ______
3-Who was Jessie Redmon Fauset? ______
4-What was The Crisis? ______
5-Can you identify any significant facts about W.E.B. DuBois? [Previous Knowledge] ______
6-Who was Sojourner Truth? ______
7-What causes did Sojourner Truth support? ______
8-What is an oriflamme? ______
“The Weary Blues,” by Langston Hughes, 1925
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway…
He did a lazy sway…
To the tune o’ those Weary
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan-
“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf.”
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more-
“I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied-
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied-
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
Questions:
1-What details in the poem “The Weary Blues” indicate that the piano player performed in a shabby place? ______
2-Why do you think the piano player in “The Weary Blues” chose to play such sad music all night long? ______
3-Do you think that Langston Hughes liked blues as a form of music? Explain your answer. ______
“Oriflamme,” by Jessie Redmon Fauset, 1920
“I can remember when I was a little, young girl, how my old mammy would sit out of
doors in the evenings and look up at the stars and groan, and I would say, ‘Mammy what
makes you groan so?’ And she would say, ‘I am groaning to think of my poor children;
they do not know where I be and I don’t know where they be. I look up at the stars and
they look up at the stars!’” – Sojourner Truth.
I think I see her sitting bowed and black,
Stricken and seared with slavery’s mortal scars,
Reft of her children, lonely, anguished, yet
Still looking at the stars.
Symbolic mother, we thy myriad sons,
Pounding our stubborn hearts on Freedom’s bars,
Clutching our birthright, fight with faces set,
Still visioning the stars!
Questions:
1-In the poem “Oriflamme,” why do you think Sojourner Truth’s mother was separated from some of her children? ______
2-In what way was Sojourner Truth’s mother an “oriflamme,” or symbol that inspires courage and devotion? ______
3-How do you think that “visioning the stars” might have strengthened African Americans? ______