Harlem Renaissance

American  

noun

1. a renewal and flourishing of Black literary and musical culture during the years after World War I in the Harlem section of New York City.

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Harlem Renaissance Cultural  

1. An African-American cultural movement of the 1920s and 1930s, centered in Harlem, that celebrated black traditions, the black voice, and black ways of life. Arna Bontemps, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Jean Toomer, and Dorothy West were some of the writers associated with the movement.

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Example Sentences

Enchanted by the stories he heard from his co-workers, he set out for New York around 1921, arriving in the early years of the Harlem Renaissance.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 20, 2026

Bassett wore a pink gown designed by Prabal Gurung that was inspired by a Harlem Renaissance painting, "Girl in a Pink Dress" by Laura Wheeler Waring.

From BBC • May 4, 2026

In 1972, filmmaker William Greaves reconvened a group of artists and luminaries from the Harlem Renaissance including musicians, playwrights, poets and scholars at Duke Ellington’s townhouse for an afternoon of reminiscing and rumination.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 21, 2026

I am reminded of the Harlem Renaissance era and the poetry that embodied our humanity and our strength.

From Salon • Jan. 21, 2025

It was writer and philosopher Alain Locke who coined the term “New Negro” to describe the pride-filled African Americans who emerged from the Harlem Renaissance.

From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler