New Negro Renaissance

book Keywords for African American Studies

by Erin D. Chapman

Formerly known as the “Harlem Renaissance,” the New Negro Renaissance was an era of cultural and political foment, exhilaration, and self-­generated “opportunity” among people of African descent as they gathered, through immigration and migration, in the world’s metropoles—­New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, London, Paris, even Tokyo—­in the decades leading up to and following World War I and continuing through World War II. The generation of African Americans and Afro-­Caribbean immigrants who came of age in this period proudly branded themselves “New Negroes,” signaling their modern, self-­determined distinction from the docility and dependence on white benefactors they saw in their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

This essay may be found on page 125 of the printed volume.