It seems that nobody can agree on the exact moment when the Harlem Renaissance began. Maybe that's because quite a few important things were happening at around the same time. Some historians claim that the return of the 369th Infantry Regiment to Harlem at the end of World War I (1914–18) marked the beginning of the new era. On February 17, 1919, this military unit of more than one thousand black soldiers and eighteen white officers (at that time African Americans were not allowed to command troops) marched up New York City's Fifth Avenue to the jazzy beat of black bandleader James Reese Europe's world-renowned military band. Among the approximately thirty thousand blacks who had fought on the front lines in France (around four hundred thousand had joined the armed forces in other capacities), the men of the 369th served bravely in the...