Literature

Literature of the Harlem Renaissance Era

When did the Harlem Renaissance occur?

The Harlem Renaissance, sometimes called the New Negro Movement and the Negro Renaissance, has been variously dated. Dates for its beginning have been cited as around 1910, the mid-1910s, and 1920. Some claim that it formally began in 1925, when scholar, Howard University professor, and architect of the Harlem Renaissance Alain Leroy Locke published the anthology, The New Negro, bringing out works by rising African-American writers. Some sources believe that it ended in 1929, with the stock market crash, which sent the writers and artists out of Harlem to look for new opportunities. Most sources agree that it ended around the mid-1930s. The end has also been marked as 1940, when Richard Wright published his famous Native Son, which led to a new direction of black writing. Still others say that it closed when Langston Hughes, the last major writer of that period, died in 1967.