The Harlem Renaissance
Chapters that reference this topic include:
Chapter 1: "Schooling the New Negro: Progressive Education, Black Modernity, and the Long Harlem Renaissance" by Daniel Perlstein
Chapter 5: "Bringing Harlem to the Schools: Langston Hughes’s The First Book of Negroes and Crafting a Juvenile Readership" by Jonna Perrillo
“The New Negro” Textbook Chapter (Part IV)
For an introduction to the Harlem Renaissance, see part IV in this chapter from American Yawp, an online open American history textbook.
This exhibit by the New York Public Library Schomburg Center includes photos and descriptions of Black life in Harlem from 1900-1940, focusing on important people, events, and movements.
The Modern School [link coming soon]
This website from the Harlem Education History Project contains a variety of materials from the sixty-year history of the Modern School, which opened in 1934. Although most of the oral histories and primary sources cover later periods than chapter 1, they give insight into Mildred Johnson’s educational philosophy and the experiences of Modern School students.
In a blog post for the Association of Black Women Historians, Deirdre Flowers writes about Mildred Johnson and researching the Modern School as a former student.
Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing (1900-present)
Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing is also known as the “Black National Anthem.” It was written by James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson, the father and uncle of Modern School founder Mildred Johnson. For more, see this new digital humanities project that collects public recordings of the song, and read Imani Perry’s book, May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem.
Photographs of James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson, Mildred Johnson, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes (1932-1941)
These digitized portraits of some of the people discussed in chapter 1 are part of the collection of Carl Van Vechten, a writer and photographer who took portraits of many notable figures of the Harlem Renaissance.
The Amsterdam News (1909-present)
The Amsterdam News is a Black newspaper based in Harlem, which was founded in 1909. Those with access to ProQuest Historical Black Newspapers from a local public library or university can search for topics from the book to learn how they were covered in the Black press.
Photograph (1938) and Map of Sugar Hill
In this photograph, the Sugar Hill neighborhood is visible on the hill above the park. Sugar Hill was home to many wealthier Black residents of Harlem in the 1920s. Its boundaries are West 155th Street to the north, West 145th Street to the south, Edgecombe Avenue to the east, and Amsterdam Avenue to the west.
This issue of The Crisis includes poems by two authors discussed in chapter 1, Countee Cullen (p. 22) and Jessie Fauset (p.26). The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, was started in 1910 under founding editor W.E.B. Du Bois. During the Harlem Renaissance it was notable for its literary publications, with Jessie Fauset serving as the literary editor. Many other editions of the magazine (1910-present) are available online.
Association for the Study of African American Life and History, “Black History Themes”
In 1926, Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History founded the first Negro History Week (which later became Black History Month). Since 1928, each year’s commemoration has included a theme, which are all listed on the Association’s website.