Harlem Renaissance Timeline

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Harlem Renaissance Summary

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Harlem Renaissance Timeline

1890: Between 1890 and 1920, about two million African Americans migrate from the rural southern states to the northern cities, where they hope to find better opportunities and less discrimination.
1910: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded, and prominent black leader W.E.B. Du Bois becomes editor of the group's monthly magazine, Crisis.
1912: James Weldon Johnson's influential novel Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is published.
1917: Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey arrives in Harlem and founds the United Negro Improvement Association, an organization that urges blacks to unite and form their own nation.

W.E.B. Du Bois. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

James Weldon Johnson. (© CORBIS. Reproduced by permission.)

1917: Between 10,000 and 15,000 African Americans join the Silent Protest Parade, marching down Fifth Avenue in complete silence to protest violence against blacks.
1917: The politically radical black publication The Messenger is founded.
1917: Two of Claude McKay's poems are published in the white literary journal Seven Arts.
1919: The 369th Infantry Regiment, a highly decorated unit made up entirely of African American soldiers, returns from World War I to a heroes' welcome in Harlem.
1919: Jessie Redmon Fauset becomes literary editor of Crisis.
1919: During the "Red Summer of Hate," African Americans react angrily to widespread lynchings and other violence directed against them, with race riots occurring in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and two dozen other American cities.
1920: James Weldon Johnson becomes the head of the NAACP.
1920: Acclaimed American playwright Eugene O'Neil's drama The Emperor Jones opens at the Provincetown Playhouse with black actor Charles Gilpin in the lead role.
1921: Harry Pace founds the Black Swan Phonograph Corporation and begins production of the "race records" that will help to bring jazz and blues music to a wider audience.
1921: The musical revue Shuffle Along opens on Broadway, delighting audiences with its high-energy singing and dancing and, many believe, providing the spark that ignites the Harlem Renaissance.
1921: Langston Hughes's great poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" is published in Crisis.

1922: Marian Anderson performs at New York's Town Hall, launching her career as a classical singer.

Bessie Smith. (The Bettmann Archive. Reproduced by permission.)

1922: The first major book of the Harlem Renaissance appears when Claude McKay's novel Harlem Shadows is published by Harcourt, Brace.
1922: Meta Warrick Fuller's sculpture Ethiopia Awakening is shown at the "Making of America" exhibition in New York.
1923: Bessie Smith records "Downhearted Blues" and "Gulf Coast Blues," soon becoming the most famous blues singer in both the northern and southern states.
1923: The National Urban League establishes Opportunity magazine, which will not only publish the work of Harlem Renaissance writers and artists but will help to support them through an annual contest.
1923: Roland Hayes makes his New York debut, singing a program of classical music as well as African American spirituals.
1923: Marcus Garvey is arrested for mail fraud and imprisoned for three months.
1923: The National Ethiopian Art Players produce Willis Richardson's The Chip Woman, the first drama by a black playwright to appear on the Broadway stage.
1923: Joe "King" Oliver's Creole Jazz Band makes a series of recordings with trumpet player Louis Armstrong.
1923: Pianist, composer, and band leader Duke Ellington arrives in New York with his band, the Washingtonians.
1923: Jean Toomer's innovative novel Cane is published and Toomer is hailed as one of the most promising young authors of the Harlem Renaissance.
1923: Harlem's largest and most famous cabaret, the Cotton Club, opens.

1923: The Ethiopian Art Players perform Eugene O'Neill's play All God's Chillun Got Wings in Washington, D.C., while in Cleveland the Gilpin Players at Karamu Theatre present In Abraham's Bosom by Paul Green.

Jessie Fauset with Langston Hughes and Zora Hurston. (Schomburg Center for Black Culture. Reproduced by permission.)

1923: Louis Armstrong joins Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, which—performing at the famed Roseland Ballroom—becomes the most popular dance band in New York.
1923: Kansas City-born artist Aaron Douglas arrives in New York and begins developing a new style that will make him the official artist of the Harlem Renaissance.
1923: The Fire in the Flint, a novel by NAACP leader Walter White, is published.
1923: The publication of Jessie Redmon Fauset's There Is Confusion marks the first Harlem Renaissance book by a woman writer.
1923: At the Civic Club dinner hosted by Opportunity's Charles S. Johnson, promising young writers meet the influential editors and publishers who can boost their careers.
1923: Josephine Baker appears in Chocolate Dandies on Broadway.
1923: Roland Hayes performs at Carnegie Hall.
1923: Poems by Harlem Renaissance star Countee Cullen appear in four major white publications.
1923: Zora Neale Hurston publishes her first short story in Opportunity.
1925: The exciting new musical form known as jazz is showcased in the "First American Jazz Concert" at Aeolian Hall in New York.
1925: Survey Graphic magazine publishes an issue devoted entirely to the work of Harlem Renaissance writers and artists.

1925: Marcus Garvey is convicted of mail fraud and imprisoned in the Atlanta Penitentiary.

Langston Hughes. (The Bettmann Archive. Reproduced by permission.)

Lafayette Theater. (© Bettmann/CORBIS. Reproduced by permission.)

1925: Marian Anderson wins a singing competition sponsored by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
1925: Countee Cullen's first volume of poetry, Color, is published.
1925: Artist Sargent Johnson exhibits his paintings at the San Francisco Art Association, and Archibald Motley wins a medal from the Art Institute of Chicago for his painting "A Mulatress."
1925: Wallace Thurman moves from Los Angeles to New York and soon becomes a leader of the younger generation of Harlem Renaissance writers and artists.
1925: Zora Neale Hurston enters Barnard College on a scholarship, studying anthropology.
1925: Well-known white poet Vachel Lindsay reads the poems of Langston Hughes, then working as a restaurant busboy, to the audience at his own poetry reading, announcing that he has discovered a bright new talent.
1925: The New Negro anthology, edited by Alain Locke, introduces the work and ideas of the Harlem Renaissance.
1926: W.C. Handy's Blues: An Anthology is published, bringing wider attention to this unique African American musical form.
1926: Langston Hughes's first volume of poetry, The Weary Blues, is published.
1926: The NAACP-sponsored theatrical group the Krigwa Players stages three plays.
1926: White author Carl Van Vechten's controversial novel Nigger Heaven is published.

1926: The Harmon Foundation holds its first annual art exhibition of works by African American artists, and Palmer Hayden and Hale Woodruff win top awards.

Nella Larsen. (UPI/Corbis-Bettmann. Reproduced by permission.)

1926: A daring new (but short-lived) literary journal called Fire!! appears.
1927: Duke Ellington begins a three-year stint at the Cotton Club, gaining fame and praise for his innovative style and compositions.
1927: James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones, a book of poems modeled after sermons by black preachers and illustrated by Aaron Douglas, is published.
1927: Several young Harlem Renaissance writers and artists accept money and other help from wealthy patron Charlotte Mason, whom they call "Godmother."
1927: Langston Hughes's second poetry collection, Fine Clothes to the Jew, features blues rhythms and Harlem-inspired imagery.
1927: Ordered to leave the United States, Marcus Garvey returns to Jamaica.
1927: Wealthy African American A'lelia Walker, whose mother founded a successful black hair and skin care business, opens a nightclub and literary salon called the Dark Tower.
1927: Porgy, a musical play with black characters and themes, opens on Broadway.
1928: A number of important Harlem Renaissance works are published, including Rudolph Fisher's Walls of Jericho, Nella Larsen's Quicksand, Jessie Redmon Fauset's Plum Bun, W.E.B. Du Bois's Dark Princess, and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem (which becomes the first bestseller by a black author).

1928: Poet Countee Cullen marries Yolande Du Bois, daughter of the great black leader, in an extravagant wedding that is one of the most memorable social events of the Harlem Renaissance.

Harlem in the 1920s. (© Underwood & Underwood/CORBIS. Reproduced by permission.)

1928: Palmer Hayden's work is featured in a one-man exhibition at a Paris art gallery, and Archibald Motley exhibits his paintings at the New Galleries in New York.
1928: Wallace Thurman edits another literary journal, Harlem, that is—like its predecessor, Fire!!—destined to appear only once.
1929: Wallace Thurman's play Harlem opens on Broadway, becoming the most successful production of its time by a black author.
1929: The Harmon Foundation sponsors an exhibition of black artists at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
1929: Novels by Wallace Thurman (The Blacker the Berry) and Claude McKay (Banjo) are published, as is Countee Cullen's The Black Christ and Other Poems.
1929: The Broadway show Ain't Misbehavin' features music by piano player Fats Waller.
1929: The stock market crashes, setting off the economic downturn known as the Great Depression.
1930: Marc Connelly's play The Green Pastures, notable for its African American characters and content, opens to great acclaim on Broadway.
1930: Langston Hughes's novel Not Without Laughter is published.
1931: Artist August Savage opens the Savage School of Arts and Crafts in Harlem.
1931: A'lelia Walker dies unexpectedly.

1933: A number of Harlem Renaissance writers and artists find employment with the Works Project Administration, a government-sponsored program designed to put Americans back to work.

Aspects of Negro Life by Aaron Douglas. (Schomburg Center for Black Culture. Reproduced by permission.)

1934: Wallace Thurman's death in the charity ward of a New York hospital stuns and sobers his Harlem Renaissance friends.
1934: Aaron Douglas is commissioned to create a series of murals, which will be entitled Aspects of Negro Life, for the 135th Street (Harlem) branch of the New York Public Library.
1935: Harlem is the scene of a major riot sparked by anger over discrimination by white-owned businesses.