The Harlem Renaissance was an important African American flowering of art, literature, and music in Harlem, New York from 1919 to the mid 1930s. This intellectual and artistic movement gave a new sense of cultural identity to African American writers and thinkers. It also served to lay the foundation for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. It included several important writers, including Langston Hughes, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Alain Locke, Jean Toomer, Rudolf Fisher, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston. Important characteristics of Harlem Renaissance literature include:
If students get stuck, it helps to sound it out. There are also audio readings on the internet of the novel - some students may also find it more helpful to listen along with the reading.