The New Negro in the Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance (1917-1935) marked a pivotal era of cultural, social, and artistic expression for blacks. Blacks history at the time stemmed from the racial legacy of slavery and the post bigotry of Reconstruction Era. Wishing to no longer be viewed as inferior, several writers in the early 1900s began to promote a dual identity most notably known  as Double Consciousness.  This dual identity which called for African-Americans to auto examine their role as blacks and american, allowed them to reconcile white's view of black as  inferior and incapable of contributing to society.  Writers thus promoted pride and empowerment and exemplified as educated African-Americans who published novels, poetry, essays to promote a racial uplift of they’re race. This social display of transcendence would be a way for the "New Negro" to fight the discourse of  bigotry and became a central theme in the Harlem Renaissance.

1903- "The Souls of Black Folk" is published.

Excerpt from W. E. Dubois book, "The Souls of Black Folk"

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s selfhttp://genius.com/Ricardo-a-garza-the-new-negro-in-the-harlem-renaissance-annotated/# through the eyes of others .... One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body”

1909 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) is  founded.


1916- Angela Weld Grimke's play "Rachel" is produced

Excerpt from Angela Weld Grimke play, "Rachel"

" Why it would be more merciful to strangle the little things at birth. And so this nation white christian nation has deliberately set its curse upon the most beautiful the most holy thing in life"

1919- "If We Must Die" is published.

Excerpt from Claude McKay poem "If We Must Die"
" If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
.... Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!"


1922-"The Book of American Negro Poetry" anthology is published.

Excerpt from James Weldon Johnson's preface to "The Book of American Poetry"

"The status of the Negro in the United States is more than a question of national mental attitude ... And nothing will do more to change that mental attitude and raise his status than a demonstration of intellectual parity by the Negro"

1925-"The New Negro" anthology is published.

Excerpt from Alain Locke's essay "The New Negro"

"The intelligent Negro of today is resolved not to make discrimination and extenuation for his shortcomings and performance, individual or collective"

1925- "I, Too, Sing America" is published.

Excerpt from Langston Hughes "I, Too, Sing America"

"I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh"
1928- Jessie Redmon Fauset publishes "Plum Bun"

Excerpt  from Jessie Redmon Fauset novel "Plum Bun"

" But that's what I don't understand. Why should it have made any difference in the first place? I'm just the same as I was before you knew I was coloured and just the same afterwards. Why should it ever have made any difference at all? "


1928- "How it feels to be colored me" is published

Excerpt from Zora Neale Hurston "How it feels to be colored me"

“I have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored. I am merely a fragment of the Great Soul that surges”