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Alain Locke The first African American Rhodes Scholar, a graduate of Harvard University, and one of the major anthologists of the Harlem Renaissance, Alain Locke edited and published The New Negro in 1925. This anthology, which reflects the social and political contexts of the Harlem Renaissance, also distills the spirit and varied talents of Harlem Renaissance poets, dramatists, essayists, and short story writers. Considered one of the preeminent texts of its time, The New Negro conceived of black America as linked not only to other African-based cultural movements around the world but also to other movements, such as the Irish or Czech, that fused ethnic pride or nationalism with a desire for a fresh achievement and independence in art, culture, and politics" (Gates 957). Charlotte Osgood Mason Charlotte Osgood Mason was one of many white patrons who subsidized the careers of such artists as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Alain Locke. Co...

The Harlem Renaissance (known then as the "New Negro Renaissance" refers to the period of artistic boon that occurred in Harlem, New York from 1919 till 1929. A number of events can be said to have led to the birth of the Renaissance: initially, the mass movement of southern blacks from the Jim Crow South to the North--or Great Migration--contributed to a population swell and competition for jobs in cities like Harlem, Boston, Philadelphia, and Manhattan. Marcus Garvey is credited with having been a major influence on the Renaissance, as he rallied African Americans around a political campaign none had ever seen the likes of before. A newly discovered sense of unity began to form, followed by an emphasis on black nationalism in politics, a demand for deeper intellectual insight into the problems of African Americans, and a growing economy that arose from black entrepreneurship. All of these developments contributed in their own ways to the emergence of the Renaissance. ...

*photograph sourced from this site Born in Holly Springs,  Mississippi "just six months before Emancipation," Ida B. Wells would become one of the earliest and most outspoken advocates of human rights (Gates, et al.). Her father was politically-minded and considered himself a 'race man'; her mother, Elizabeth, who worked as a cook, strongly encouraged her children's educations. Ida would attend one of the Freedman Schools in Holly Springs until she was sixteen. After losing her parents to the Yellow Fever epidemic of the 1870s, young Ida was determined to keep what remained of her family together and supported her siblings on her meager teacher's salary. Her interest in racial politics in the South began with her outrage at the disparity between the salaries earned by white teachers (eighty dollars a month) compared to those of African American teachers (about thirty dollars a month). This concern, together with a determination to improve the education...