Triumphs And Hardships Of The Harlem Rennisance

Triumphs and Hardships of the Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance played a major role in Black History, as well as in American History as a whole. During this period blacks were realizing their potentials as writers, artists, and other social and intellectual figures. It was a great time for blacks, but many hardships accompanied their triumphs. Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston took great steps as black writers and many other blacks were successful as Jazz musicians and baseball players. The darkness of the Harlem Renaissance was dominated by the Ku Klux Klan.

Langston Hughes was very concerned with the role of Black Americans in the white society. In his poem Mother to Son, a black mother urges her son to keep going on, despite the hardships. She pushes him by saying, "So boy, don't you turn your back./ Don't you set down on the steps/ 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard./ Don't you fall now-/ For, I'se still goin', honey,/ I'se still climbin." Langston Hughes realizes that blacks have just as much, if not more potential than whites. He also realizes that it is going to take some pain and suffering on the part of blacks to get to that potential.

Hughes believed that blacks fall under an inappropriate criticism from themselves. When talking about middle class blacks in The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, Hughes says, "But this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America-this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible." Hughes believed that blacks often forgot their true heritage while trying to be more like the white people. Black parents tell their children not to behave like negros, to do things perfectly like the white man. Hughes believed that blacks were taught not to see how special their own culture was, because it was not the white way of doing things. Hughes wanted blacks to return to their own culture, to stop being so white. "But, to my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, if he accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering 'I want to be white,' hidden in the aspirations of his people, to 'Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro-and beautiful'," stated Hughes in The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.

Zora Neale Hurston was another black writer during the Harlem Renaissance who wrote about black hardships. In The Gilded Six-Bits she tells the story of a black husband and wife who seem to be happy in their marriage. The wife is then tempted by another black man who is pretending to be rich. Her husband comes home to find that she has cheated on him for a ten-dollar gold piece that turned out to be fake. The husband silently lets her know that he is disappointed in her, while slowly forgiving her for the sin she committed. By writing this story she lets her readers know that black people are real. They suffer in the same ways as white people. According to the Norton Anthology of American Literature, Hurston did not believe in trying to make her race look or sound better. She portrayed her race in the way that they really were. She was not ashamed of the feelings that they felt, or the hardships that they went through. In her opinion, blacks were just as good as white people.

Another great triumph came about through the Negro baseball leagues. According to Todd Bolton, NLBPA Historian, blacks were allowed to play some baseball in the 1800's. Rube Foster initiated the first organized Negro League in 1920. This league was called the Negro National League and continued until 1931. Several different leagues came about during the time of Negro League baseball. The Eastern Colored League and the Negro American League were some of them (1-2). Apparently Cap Anson, a white baseball player, was the initiator of the 60 year "Color Barrier" that existed in baseball. His phrase, "Get that nigger off the field," was the starting point for segregation in baseball. The team name Giants became synonymous with black baseball teams. Newspapers would not print pictures of black players, but you would know that the teams were black if they had Giants in their title. Slowly, baseball began to integrate. Jackie Robinson started playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. The Giants picked up Hank Thompson and Monte Irvin soon after. Eventually, blacks even became managers of some baseball teams (Marasco 1-3).

Jazz music and its musicians were another big thing during the Harlem Renaissance. Louis Armstrong, in particular, had a great influence on the Jazz world. Armstrong was from a poor New Orleans family. During his stay at a reform school he learned to play the cornet. After leaving the reform school, Armstrong made friend with Joe Oliver, who bought him his first cornet. Armstrong played in several bands throughout the years. He even did recording sessions with stars such as Bessie Smith and Clarence Williams. Armstrong was a mentor to many of Jazz's finest musicians. "Louis Armstrong's station in the history of jazz is unimpeachable. If it weren't for him, there wouldn't be any of us," said famous trumpet player, Dizzy Gillespie (Cultural 1). Armstrong continued to play, record, and tour for the rest