Swing dancing took the world by storm in the 1930's, reaching its peak in 1937, but the real birth of swing was in the 1920's, during the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a time of great creativity and innovation for African American writers, artists, and musicians, and swing was just one of many art forms to prosper at that time.

New York

	  The center of all the excitement was New York.  Due to economic troubles after the 

Reconstruction and World War I, many African Americans were forced to leave the farms and 

small towns of the south, moving to urban centers to find employment and a new life.   Many 

went to north to St. Louis and Chicago, others west to Kansas City and Los Angelas, but for many,  

the housing boom in New York's Harlem district was the real draw.  

	Until the 20's, Harlem was home mostly to Irish immigrants.  When they moved to the 

upper tip of Manhattan in the Inwood Section, however,  the plentiful housing was made 

available cheaply, and became a magnet for the migrating blacks.  Though racism subsequently 

caused the monthly rent rates to rise unfairly, Harlem was now a metropolis for blacks.  To deal 

with the poverty that was very real even before the Depression, Harlem neighbors would often 

host house rent parties in their railroad flats.  Hosts would set eye catching invitation cards in 

the windows, and for a small fee their neighbors would enjoy an evening of food, bootleg 

liquor, piano entertainment, and dancing.  For a tour of Harlem, click here.

Harlem Culture	

Harlem soon became a rich fabric of black culture. While F. Scott Fitzgerald was dancing the Charleston with the flappers uptown, on Broadway, the first black theater was being born in a lecture hall with a play called Shuffle Along. It became a hit, and many middle class whites started coming to Harlem in search of the exotic. A 1980 Newsweek called the times "the almost forgotten era: the exuberant Black Broadway of the 1920's-a bubbling cauldron of creativity, a melting pot of black and white,

old and new, vaudeville and operetta, burlesque and musical comedy."

Clubs and Nightlife	

As a shorter term outlet, the entertainment in the various night clubs and dance halls of New York offered some relief from the problems of the day. Much of the evolving culture of Harlem originated in clubs, whether at the small "jooks" or the large Savoy Ballroom. In 1926 swing dancers took their first steps at the Savoy on Lenox Avenue. The

ballroom itself took up the second floor of a building running the whole block from 140th to 141st Streets. It became known as "The World's Most Beautiful Ballroom" and later, "The Home of Happy Feet." Unlike segregated clubs like the Cotton Club, the Savoy was a place where race faded into the background and the only question on the mind of a dancer was whether a prospective partner could dance well. During the 20's, owner Charles Buchanan introduced the first "Battle of the Bands." One of the biggest showdowns during the Swing Era was between the house band of Chick Webb and the Benny Gooodman Band of Chicago. The audience judged Webb to be their winner.

Writers and Artists

	Meanwhile, many young black artists were emerging, writers like Langston Hughes, 

Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Rudolf Fisher, and Jean Toomer.  

Musicians Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, Fletcher Henderson, and 

Count Basie were becoming popular, both live in clubs and on recordings.  The visual arts also 

prospered, with artists such as William Johnson, Lois Mailon Jones, Hale Woodruff, Aaron Douglas,

Edward Buria, John T. Biggers, Jacob Lawrence, and James Van Der Zee.  For them, racial issues 

could not just fade away.  Through poetry, prose, and plays, spirituals, the blues and jazz, or 

the sphere of visual art, each of these artists sought to shape an identity and a future for African 

Americans with a troubling past.  To learn more,

hhhhhhhhh  Click here to go to the Writer's Gallery

Patrons and Support

Black artists during the Harlem Renaissance gained the encouragement of many in the

intellectual community, as well as the financial support of patrons.  The most important black 

promoters were James Weldon Johnson, Alain Locke, and Charles S. Johnson.  

James Weldon Johnson was a politically involved writer who worked well as a black-white intermediary. Serving as the field secretary for the NAACP and later as writer-in-residence at Fisk University, Johnson was a conservative,

fairly formal father figure to many of the younger writers. He supported the protest poetry of

the Renaissance, though he was able to work peacefully between the differing opinions of

the civil rights leaders of the day, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois.

Alain Locke was the primary leader and interpreter of the Harlem Renaissance. Born in 1885 in Philadelphia, Locke was an educated leader, attending Harvard, Oxford, and the University of Berlin. He was the first black Rhodes Scholar, and was interested in philosophy, art, music, political theory, sociology, and African studies. In 1925, as a professor at Howard University, Locke produced a work called The New

Negro. Dealing with issues of racial pride, The New Negro defined the changing role of blacks

in society.  Locke attempted to enhance social improvement  for blacks by selecting and 

promoting a few talented young educated blacks to serve as leaders and role  models.  He 

encouraged them do away with the myth that blacks were socially and intellectually  inferior.      

	Charles S. Johnson was a politician, aesthetic, and socialist.  Though not one of the greatest

intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance, Johnson's activities  were crucial to the full launching 

of the Harlem Renaissance.  Born in  1893 in Bristol, Virginia, he grew up in a fairly stable middle 

class family.  His father, a Baptist minister, educated him thoroughly in the classics of Western 

literature, theology, and history before sending him to the Wayland Academy in Richmond.  He 

then attended Virginia Union University, where he graduated in three years.   Johnson next 

went to Chicago to study sociology.  Though World War I interrupted his study, he afterwards 

helped with a study of the 1919 Chicago race riots.  After obtaining his PhD from the University 

of Chicago, Johnson became the Director of Research and Investigations for the Urban League 

of New York.


	In New York, Johnson took an active role in the Harlem Renaissance.  He is most known 

for hosting a dinner at New York's Civic Club which became a major literary event.  There 

black writers first became associated with white publishers, igniting the white readership for 

black literature.  Johnson was primarily a sociologiest.  He analyzed race relations based on the 

state of class and status differences, exploring the aspects of both the rural and urban cultural 

backgrounds that blacks had to assimilate in the city.  In 1923, Johnson became the editor of  

Opportunity,  the monthly journal of the Urban League.  Though the primary emphasis of the 

journal was on the publishing of scientific research on race relations, Johnson shifted the focus, 

preferring to make cultural evaluations of literature and the arts.  Johnson published the work 

of unknowns, reviewing every new black novel.  In 1927, he compiled Ebony and Topaz, an 

anthology of black literature and essays.  

  
	Johnson encouraged young writers, organizing literary contests and providing awards 

banquets to reward achievement.  He was praised by Langston Hughes for his dedication to 

making incentives for writers to excel.  Asserting black literature to be art, and not merely 

propaganda, Johnson saw cultural movement as a way to bridge the  gap of racism.  In 1927 

Johnson moved to Nashvillle, where he taught at Fisk University and eventually became the 

first black president of the intitution.

	Other supporters included Wallace Thurman, Jessie Fauset, Carl Van Vechten and 

A'Lelia Walker.  Except for Walker (the heiress of the Madam Walker hair straightener fortune),

they were writers as well as patrons.  Click here to learn more about Wallace Thurman.   

	Jessie Fauset came to New York in 1919.  She was well educated, having attended Cornell 

and the University of Pennsylvania.  A prolific novelist, Fauset edited the political magazine 

Crisis for a few years until 1926.  She was older than the writers at the core of the Harlem 

Renaissance, but she became like a conservative older sister to them.  

	Carl Van Vechten moved to New York from Ceder Rapids, Iowa in 1906.  The assistant 

music critic for the New York Times, his primary interest was in opera, but he became interested 

in promoting black artists and writers.  Van Vechten is well known for his extensive photographic 

portraiture, and his inflammatory novel Nigger Heaven, written in 1926.  To explore the portraits 

of Carl Van Vechten, click here. 

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HOT LINKS

Steve Watson Harlem Renaissance Page

Jill Diesman Harlem Renaissance Page (including more info on artists!)

Jean Toomer Page

Jazz Age link about flappers and fashion

UIC Black History Page (more biographies)