How Is the Culture and Art From Harlem Renaissance From Then and Today
Lessons Today from the Harlem Renaissance
A panel of four Stetson University professors gathered at the Museum of Art – DeLand recently to explore the rich history of the Harlem Renaissance, while recognizing that its dreams of equality remain unrealized 100 years later.
The panel word, "And so and Now: Reflecting on the Harlem Renaissance," coincided Feb. 8 with Black History Calendar month and the museum's current exhibit, which features more than 85 pieces of African-American art, including ones by the major artists of the Harlem Renaissance.
The exhibit, "African American Art: We Too Dream America," will remain on brandish until March 17. Stetson students receive complimentary admission to the museum at 600 N. Woodland Blvd., across the street from campus, and Cultural Credit is available.
The Harlem Renaissance was a time of explosive creativity in the arts, equally the Swell Migration brought African-Americans from the South into New York City, Chicago and other Northern cities for better opportunities and economic prosperity, the professors said. This pivotal period began around 1919, flourished through the 1920s and began to wane after the stock market crashed in 1929.
America celebrated the music of band leader Duke Ellington and other jazz greats who performed in the Harlem speakeasies, and lauded the writing of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. But these African-Americans still confronted racial stereotypes, discrimination and societal oppression.
"Something I notice to be deeply, securely sad is so much of what was brought to light so, in the '20s and 30s, is not but still occurring today, but in many cases occurring even in worse forms and atmospheric condition," said Rajni Shankar-Brown, Ph.D., acquaintance professor and Jessie Ball duPont Chair of Social Justice Education.
"As an example, our schools were extremely segregated during that time. Well, today, in 2019, many of our public schools are even more segregated than in previous decades. Economic and racial segregation are deeply entrenched and pervasive in our schools. Information technology is horrific," she said, while reminding the audience that everyone must continue to collectively piece of work toward equality and justice.
Shankar-Chocolate-brown, also a Board fellow member of the National Coalition for the Homeless, organized the panel word on Friday night, Feb. 8. Joining her were Stetson English Professor Joel Davis, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor of Instruction and STEM specialist Vernita Glenn-White, Ph.D.; and Assistant Director of Bands Patrick Hennessey, Ph.D., as well as the museum's Curator of Instruction Pam Coffman, who regularly collaborates with Shankar-Brown on diverse customs date and activism projects.
Black artists thrived during the Harlem Renaissance, but today, the challenge is for the blackness community to thrive in Stem fields (Scientific discipline, Engineering science, Engineering science and Mathematics), said Education Professor Glenn-White, a former district math specialist for Orange County Public Schools.
"My push is to develop that and have a technological Stalk renaissance, every bit you would say, for the blackness community because before STEM was a term, we had black Americans in all of those fields before they merged to Stalk," she told the audience.
"If you expect at Silicon Valley, black Americans only correspond two per centum of their entire population, but a lot of the black Americans were the foundation of those technological movements," she said.
Professor Davis, who teaches an African-American poesy course at Stetson, said Harlem's artists and large blackness centre course flourished in the Roaring '20s, which saw the biggest concentration of wealth in history happening in America. This supported the arts, including African-American poets and novelists.
"All of it jells at this particular time," Davis said. "The vocalism and the voices of the Harlem Renaissance were able to dilate African-Americans' voice. It was an inflection point in American civilization. … and near of the things we write nigh American popular culture, we tin trace back to the Harlem Renaissance in one way or another."
Hennessey, as well director of the Stetson University Jazz Ensemble, recounted how Duke Ellington and his jazz orchestra played for 5 years at the Cotton Club, a white-owned speakeasy built in a plantation-manner for a whites-only wealthy clientele.
Although the black performers entertained white audiences, they gave vox to the black experience through the titles of their music, such as "Black, Dark-brown and Beige," composed by Knuckles Ellington and performed at Carnegie Hall, which tells the story of African-Americans from slavery times through the present, Hennessey said.
Other experts accept noted that this new racial pride laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Motion in the 1950s and 1960s, and continues to influence America today.
"History is real. Information technology'due south still vibrant today," said Hennessey, who teaches courses in jazz history. "Then when we talk about the Harlem Renaissance, the Harlem Renaissance kicked off something for the states that we all accept learned from and go along to grow from."
If You Get:
The Museum of Art-DeLand is open Tuesdays through Sundays. For more info about the museum and the showroom, "African American Art: We Too Dream America," visit the museum'southward website or call, 386-734-4371.
Source: https://www2.stetson.edu/today/2019/02/lessons-today-from-the-harlem-renaissance/
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