The New Negro Renaissance

About
The first African-American cultural expression of Modernity.

The term "New Negro"--Black pubs in 1890s--referred to new sense of self-awareness, political self-awareness, aggressiveness, and dedication to the cause of Black citizenship and empowerment.

Accelerated process of secularization and acculturation--changes in collective/individual identity.

"chaotic conditions" of Modernism, but stemmed not from epistemological concerns but from the narrowing dissonance between constitutional guarantees and systematic political expression.

New Negros wanted full access and full inclusion, politically, culturally, and socially. Some writers saw the success (or failure) of American democracy by the degree of inclusion/exclusion of the African American. (Alain Locke, New Negro, 1925)

* as literal migration necessarily led to cultural transformation, older rural folk forms such as country blues, work songs, hollers, and spirituals, underwent radical changes that produced gospel music, urban blues, and jazz.

New sense of isolation/alienation, as well as access to mainstream culture and thus assimilation + impersonal urban environment.