This document provides an overview and lesson plan for teaching students about the historical events and social movements that contributed to the emergence of the Harlem Renaissance. It outlines key events like the Northern Migration, World War I, and urban race conflicts of the 1910s that led many African Americans to move to Harlem in the 1920s. There, a new era of black artistic, literary, and intellectual culture known as the Harlem Renaissance thrived. The document examines the philosophies of W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Hubert Harrison during this period and how they differed in their approaches to addressing racial issues. Students are assigned a writing task comparing these philosophers and assessing which approach may still be

1. Day One: The Move to Harlem
1895-1920
Overview for Instruction
1895 The Nadir of Black Consciousness
1914 WWI: War abroad and at Home
1910-1920 The “Great” Northern Migration and urban racial
conflicts
1920s The Harlem Renaissance and the Emergence of a
New Racial Consciousness

2. Objective for Day One
By the end of this lesson, students will
be able to identify the key historical
events that contributed to the unique
culture from which the ‘Harlem
Renaissance’ emerged.

3. Lessons of the Hour
“… Do not ask me what will be the final result of the so-called negro problem. I
cannot tell you. I have sometimes thought that the American people are too
great to be small, to just and magnanimous to oppress the weak, too brave to
yield up the right to the strong, and too grateful for public services ever to
forget them or fail to reward them [...] But the favor with which this cowardly
proposition of disenfranchisement has been received [...] has shaken my faith
in the nobility of the nation. I hope and trust all will come out right in the end,
but the immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the
ugly facts before me”
-Frederick Douglass, Lessons of the Hour (Excerpt), January, 09, 1894

4. 1895-1918 The Nadir of Black
Consciousness
In 1895, there were over 2,000
documented lynchings of Blacks in the
United States.
1896 ‘Plessy v Ferguson’ affirms that
public services can remain segregated
given certain qualifications.
Approaching the 20th century, life for most
Blacks in the United States was one of
constant fear: fear of White terrorism,
economic and political exploitation, and
tyranny.

5. WWI: War abroad and at Home
“The world must be safe for democracy.” -
Woodrow Wilson
Many blacks believed that this was an opportunity to bring “true
democracy” back to the United States, and a way to demonstrate
patriotism
The dearth of laborers as men left the factories in the north meant that southern blacks had an
opportunity to move and increase their economic prosperity. To that end, roughly 500,000 Southern
blacks moved north to cities like Pittsburgh, Chicago, and New York. Over 200,000 blacks went overseas
to France to serve in the Army. They returned, proud of their service, and proud of their actions
overseas.
“Returning soldiers! We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting. Make way for Democracy! We
saved it in France… we will save it in the United States of America, or know the reason why.” - W.E.B.
Du Bois

6. 1910-1920 The “Great” Northern
Migration and Urban Racial Conflicts
Republican military control of the Confederate states governments
during the ‘Reconstruction Era’ created a ground swelling of White
backlash, directed locally through efforts to stifle the advancement of
Blacks to positions of political or economic autonomy or authority.
African Americans moved hoping for economic opportunity in the North, as
well as an escape from increasing violent terrorism they faced from White
southerners.
In 1892, the Boll-Weevil devastated southern cotton crops and small
sharecroppers, many African Americans, unable to get bank loans to continue
farming left in great numbers for both the cities (North and South) and to the
North.

7. 1910-1920
The “Great”
Northern
Migration and
Urban Racial
Conflicts
(continued)...

8. Urban Race Conflict in Baltimore, MD in April,
2015 Why is the protestor in the
video so passionate about
national TV crews coming to
Baltimore to cover riots in the
city?
Turn to a partner: First, tell
them what message you think
the protester is trying to
convey.
Second, do you think that
Baltimore riots in anyway
relate to the race riots in
1919?

9. 1910-1920 The “Great” Northern Migration
and Urban Racial Conflicts
Returning service men of both races compete for jobs and
housing in overpopulated cities.
Blacks hired during the war to fill vacant industrial jobs are
pushed out the labor force by Unionized Whites, even while
many urban Blacks begin organizing for Unions and other
labor movements.
In 1919, as racial tension boil over, ‘Red Summer’ riots
break out in the cities of Charleston, South Carolina;
Longview, Texas; Washington D.C, and Chicago, Illinois.

10. 1920s The Harlem Renaissance and the
Emergence of a New Racial
Consciousness
“The world of the future will look upon the world of today
as an essentially new turning point in the path of human
progress. All over the world the spirit of democratic
striving is making itself felt. The new issues have
brought forth new ideas of freedom, politics, industry,
and society at large. The new Negro living in this new
world is just as responsive to these new impulses as
other people are”.
Hubert Harrison, 1917

11. 1920s The Harlem Renaissance and the
Emergence of a New Racial
Consciousness
Harlem, New York, NY, became the epicenter for urban, black artists,
musicians, poets, and intellectuals in the 1920s. And for this new creative
class the “Negro was in vogue,” as Langston Hughes writes in his
autobiography The Big Sea. For the first time in American history, large
numbers of black artists could earn their livings and be critically
acknowledged in their fields.
Wrestling with the fresh scars of slavery and relishing the creative impulse to
determine for oneself the product and media of expression, one of the more
central topics touched on by the artists was that of the “New Negro”, which
was a reflection by black artists and intellectuals on race and its many
manifestations in American society.

12. Day Two: The New Negro - an
Evolution in Black Racial
Conscious, 1917-1930
N
o.

13. Overview of Day
Two:Where we left off; video “The Harlem
Renaissance”
Name that Tune
Harlem Poetry
Harlem Art
WEB DuBois
Booker T Washington
Huber Harrison
Moving Forward Assignment

14. Objective for Day
Two
Students will be able to compare and contrast the
political and social philosophies of WEB Du Bois,
Booker T Washington, and Hubert Harrison.

16. Can you name the artist and song?

17. If We Must Die - Claude McKay
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy,
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

18. Harlem Renaissance
Art

19. W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
Founder and leader of the Niagara Movement in 1905 and the
NAACP in 1909
Fought for full rights and political representation of the “Talented Tenth,” the
exceptional intellectuals of African-Americans
Opposed Booker T. Washington, considered a “militant” advocate. They
sought to gain full and equal rights for blacks in America, and the abolition of
segregation.
“I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. But I do care
when propaganda is confined to one side while the other is stripped and
silent.”

20. Booker T. Washington (1856-
1915)
Nicknamed the “Wizard of Tuskegee;” made the “Atlanta Compromise,” where
he pushed for avoiding confrontation in exchange for basic education and
vocational training
Pragmatic; focused more on economic situations and intellectual
shortcomings over social inequalities that he felt could not be changed in the
immediate future. Advocated for blacks in the South to learn trade skills, like
agriculture and industry, over classical arts like literature and humanities.
Curried many wealthy white benefactors to help donate and build schools,
homes, and buildings in the South, where there was little support from local or
state governments

21. Hubert Harrison (1883-1927)
Nicknamed the “Black Socrates;” editor of Harlem publication The Voice: A Newspaper for
the New Negro, the newspaper of Liberty League, of which he founded.
Radical voice of race-conscious leftist politics and class conscious intellectual thought
during the Harlem Renaissance. Left the Socialist Party for the IWW after witnessing
unions and the party privileging race (i.e. the white race) over class.
The Liberty League advocated political and economic independence for blacks and black
communities, social equality before the law and an end to the American racial caste
system, an end to policies of white-supremacy and class exploitation, as well as the right to
armed self defense of blacks against white terrorism.
Saw Washington’s work and ideas as “subservient” to white elites.
Harrison lamented Du Bois’s focus on the “Talented Tenth” of Black Americans and instead
focused his efforts on helping the totality of Black communities empower themselves
consciously, economically, and politically.

22. Moving Forward:
Race and Racism
from past to present
Using the information from your
venn diagram, answer the
following essay question (min.
1,000 words):
Which philosopher do you think
was right and why? Do you
think that thinker’s social
philosophy would still be
effective today?