Close Read: Harlem Renaissance
CR
Objective
CR
Introduction
How can poetry serve as a primary source to better understand the
culture, mindset, or atmosphere of a historical era or time period?
Following the Great Migration in the late 1910’s and early 1920’s, a growth of African American art
& culture was seen across the great cities of America. The center of this movement was found in
Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City that had seen many African Americans move in during
the Great Migration.
Brain Dump:​
Analyze the map below, and answer the two analysis questions that follow.
Analysis Questions:
1) Which set of directions listed below BEST represent the movement of African Americans and
other minorities during the Great Migration?
a) West to East
b) East to South
c) North to South
d) South to North
2) What was the Great Migration caused by? What were the effects of the Great Migration?
Directions:​
Below are three poems written about the Harlem Renaissance by American poet, Langston Hughes.
These poems are invaluable to historians - they help us gain insight to what it was like to live through the Harlem
Renaissance as an African American living in Harlem. First, read the poems closely and analyze them using the
questions that follow. When you have read all three, you will complete a short writing task.
Good Morning ​
by Langston Hughes
1
Good morning, daddy!
I was born here, he said,
watched Harlem grow until the colored folks spread from river to river
across the middle of Manhattan
5
out of Penn Station
dark tenth of a nation,
planes from Puerto Rico,
and holds of boats, chico,
10
up from Cuba Haiti Jamaica,
in buses marked New York
from Georgia Florida Louisiana
to Harlem Brooklyn the Bronx
but most of all to Harlem dusky sash across Manhattan
15
I've seen them come dark
wondering
wide-eyed
dreaming
out of Penn Station
20
but the trains are late.
The gates are open
Yet there're bars at each gate.
What happens to a dream deferred?
Daddy, ain't you heard?
Analysis Questions:
1)
How might the title “Good Morning” allude / refer / be related to the Harlem Renaissance?
2)
Which lines most closely refer to the Great Migration? What do you think the relationship between the Great
Migration and the Harlem Renaissance might be?
3)
According to lines 14 - 17, what characteristics does the author observe in newly arrived migrants in New
York?
4)
What does the “gates are open | Yet there're bars at each gate” mean?
5)
Below is an excerpt from the New York Times in 1933. The title of the article was “​
Negro Segregation in the
North: Barriers Relaxing, but Slowly; BIAS ALSO FACED BY NEGRO IN NORTH”. Read the excerpt and
answer two questions that follow.
a)
How did Jim Crow Laws & cases such as ​
Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) ​
ensure that African Americans
had inferior education?
b) How does this excerpt better help you understand what a “dream deferred” might be?
6)
What does this poem tell you about the experience of African Americans in the 1920’s and 1930’s?
I, Too​
by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed -I, too, am America.
Analysis Questions:
1)
Who do you think the “I” is symbolic of? Who do you think the narrator represents?
2)
What do you think the narrator is saying by declaring “I, too, am America”?
3)
What kind of future does the narrator see? How does this compare with his current status?
4)
How does Langston Hughes refer to a dream that has been deferred in this poem?
Harlem by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Analysis Questions:
1)
What sorts of images or emotions does this poem conjure?
2)
Why do you think this poem is called “Harlem”? What is Langston Hughes trying to tell his audience about
Harlem?
CR
Analysis Task
Harlem Renaissance
Directions: ​
Using information from the document above, please respond to the following task. Task: ​
Using the information from the documents above and your knowledge of US History to
respond to the following task:
Historians often use poetry as primary sources to better understand the culture, mindset, or
atmosphere of a historical era or time period. The poetry of the Harlem Renaissance serves as a
primary source for historians to better understand the African American experience during the
1920’s and 1930’s. Langston Hughes is one such poet historians often read.
Based on the three poems above, in a written response - please answer the following questions:
● Describe​
the experience of African Americans in the 1920’s & 1930’s
○ What is the dream Langston Hughes is referring to? Why is it deferred? What is
keeping African Americans from achieving the American dream?
● describe​
means “to illustrate something in words or tell about it”
​