The New Negro had a newfound confidence and questioned traditionally white ” aesthetic standards. Self-expression, Black pride, and the opportunity for Black people to produce artistic and cultural phenomena were in the hands of New Negroes. We were no longer enslaved, so we could envision something more.
Philosopher and educator Alain Locke published The New Negro in 1925, an anthology featuring the early work of many famous Harlem Renaissance writers, including Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Zora Neale Hurston. The anthology gave the movement a name, but Harlem would take the movement even further.
The Harlem Renaissance flourished in the 1920s. The New Negro valued Black art, and Harlem became the epicenter of Black literature, music, and dance. Writer and activist James Weldon Johnson called it “The greatest Negro city in the world."
The Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s took heavy inspiration from the New Negro movement’s emphasis on Black pride and self-expression. Black artists and activists used their message of Black consciousness and empowerment to help our people collectively redefine Blackness in the U.S. on our own terms.
The New Negro Movement urged Black Americans to envision a better collective future for themselves. Their determination has been the blueprint for every movement since then. How can we envision a new Black future for our time?