I, Too

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement centered in Harlem, New York, during the 1910s and 1920s. The movement gave birth to artists like Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes. It also included innovations like the expansion of jazz music, which eventually took the country by storm and became the most popular music genre for decades.

The Harlem Renaissance was the natural progression of Black cultural thought and expression building up for 60 years since the Civil War. The Black community found itself at a number of crossroads as more Black people left the oppressive South and as the country modernized, especially leading up to and after the First World War. Some of these crossroads included the role Black people saw for themselves in American culture, how best to fight for and secure civil rights, relationships with the white community, and how to view America’s present, its past, and its future.

While these were and continue to be complex issues, Hughes took some strong positions. Hughes believed in and loved Black culture, including the progressive culture of the Harlem Renaissance and the jazz scene. He included the vocabulary, flow, and