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Langston Hughes -

Langston Hughes, born February 1, 1901, in Joplin, Missouri, would become a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes lived a full and turbulent life before settling in Harlem, living all around the country, working as a sailor on voyages to Africa and Europe, and as a busboy in a Washington, D.C. hotel.

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Langston Hughes -

Once he settled in Harlem in 1924 and began writing in earnest, he was quickly recognized as the harbinger of a new style of poetry in the African-American community. Hughes' poetry and literature is characterized by its purity, its accessibility, and its powerful expressions of joy, anger, peace, and struggle.

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Zora Neale Hurston -

Claiming Eatonville, Florida, as her home, Zora Neale Hurston moved north to Harlem in the early 1920s and quickly found herself at the center of a dynamic and thriving group of like-minded Black artists, writers, and thinkers. Hurston was dear friends with Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, and the three of them are often seen as the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance.

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Zora Neale Hurston -

While Hurston is most well known for her novels such as 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' and 'Jonah's Gourd Vine,' both of which are considered the beginnings of an entirely new genre of literature called folk fiction, she was also an accomplished anthropologist, and dedicated much of her life to collecting the stories and traditions of the Black south and the Caribbean.

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Countee Cullen -

Gifted and prolific poet and playwright Countee Cullen was one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. After being orphaned at a young age, Cullen was adopted by Reverend Frederick A. Cullen, a massively popular and renowned pastor in Harlem.

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Countee Cullen -

Cullen found success and recognition astoundingly quickly after being taken under his adopted father's wing at the age of 15. By the time he graduated from high school, Cullen was already an award-winning poet, and went on to publish numerous nationally renowned collections of poetry, most notably 'Color' from 1925.

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Louis Armstrong -

One of the most famous jazz musicians in history, Louis Armstrong is often cited as being responsible for turning jazz into the transcendental genre that we know it as today. Like many contemporaries during the Great Migration, Armstrong was born in the South, New Orleans to be exact, and made his way up north as a young adult.

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Louis Armstrong -

Already a nationally respected jazz musician by the time he reached Harlem in 1924, the performances and sessions that took place in Harlem cemented him as one of the most important musicians in the country, if not the world, and a true pioneer of jazz.

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Bessie Smith -

From her humble beginnings as a street singer in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Bessie Smith would go on to become the highest-paid Black entertainer of her day, and be crowned the "Empress of the Blues." Before moving to Harlem, she had been mentored by the legendary blues singer Ma Rainey.

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Bessie Smith -

A record deal with Columbia Records brought Bessie Smith to New York, and she became entwined in the Harlem creative scene in the process. Numerous collaborations with jazz greats like Louis Armstrong garnered her widespread acclaim and popularity at the height of the Harlem Renaissance.

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Marcus Garvey -

One of the earliest and most influential residents of the neighborhood during the Harlem Renaissance was Jamaican-born activist and leading advocate for Pan-Africanism, Marcus Garvey. Garvey went to work organizing and supporting other Black folk immediately after arriving in New York in 1916.

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Marcus Garvey -

From the publishing of his newspaper Negro World to the foundation of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a Pan-Africanist organization that consisted of more than 700 chapters at its height during the 1920s, Garvey's influence and dedication was undeniable. His work and activism made him a top priority for the FBI, and he was eventually imprisoned and finally deported back to Jamaica.

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Billie Holiday -

Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan, is arguably the most famous jazz singer of all time, Her story and sound were definitive of the Harlem Renaissance. From her poverty-stricken childhood in Baltimore, to her years of struggling to keep her head above water upon her arrival in Harlem, her journey was not an easy one, but through her pain she helped give voice to a generation.

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Billie Holiday -

Her recordings with other Harlem heavyweights such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and especially the saxophonist Lester Young, with whom Holiday wrote and recorded her somber, enduring masterpiece 'Strange Fruit,' would make her one of the most popular acts of the 1930s. Unfortunately, despite her fame and gifted voice, life was not kind to Holiday, and she succumbed to an early death thanks to addiction, this in 1959 at the age of 44.

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Duke Ellington -

One of the most prolific songwriters and bandleaders in the history of jazz, Duke Ellington was one of the busiest artists in Harlem. A professional ragtime musician by the time he was 17, Ellington penned over one thousand compositions in his lifetime.

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Duke Ellington -

He is considered by most to have invented what's now called "big band swing," but Ellington himself prefer the elegantly simple term "American music." At the end of his long and mostly happy life, Ellington's funeral was attended by more than 12,000 friends, family members, and supporters.

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Aaron Douglas -

Known today as the "father of Black American Art," Aaron Douglas was the leading painter during the Harlem Renaissance. An elder of the Harlem scene, Douglas was a contemporary of iconic Black thinker W.E.B. Du Bois and helped inspire a generation of African-American visual artists to pursue their talents despite their common exclusion from the mainstream, white-dominated schools of art.

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Aaron Douglas -

Douglas' work was commonly featured on the covers of his peers' novels and poetry collections, and his four-panel mural 'Aspects of Negro Life,' completed in 1934, is an iconic landmark of Harlem to this day.

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Alice Dunbar Nelson -

Another elder and patron of the Harlem Renaissance, Alice Dunbar Nelson was at one time or another a renowned poet, respected critic, public school teacher, dedicated social worker, and fearless suffragette. Few individuals in the late 19th or early 20th century accomplished as much as Nelson.

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Alice Dunbar Nelson -

Nelson was a published and respected poet by the time she was 20. In Harlem, she helped found the White Rose Mission, a nonsectarian Christian home for at-risk African-American women and girls.

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Claude McKay -

Claude McKay was a celebrated Jamaican poet who moved to Harlem in 1914 and became a massive inspiration for the young writers and artists who came to the neighborhood after he had already established himself as a formidable creative force.

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Claude McKay -

Most famous for his sonnets, such as the militant call to arms 'If We Must Die,' McKay's art and ideas were incredibly influential on those who came after him. After establishing himself in Harlem, he spent some years traveling throughout Europe and Russia before returning to Harlem and dedicating himself to strengthening his community.

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Augusta Savage -

Sculptor, activist, and educator Augusta Savage had been entranced by the possibilities of clay and sculpture from a very young age. During her childhood in Florida, despite the best efforts of her conservative father, Savage dedicated almost all of her free time to sculpting animals and figurines out of the natural clay found in her surroundings.

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Augusta Savage -

This obsession soon cultivated itself into an immense talent, and Savage went on to become one of the most prominent artists in New York. Her bust of W.E.B. Du Bois put her on the map within the Harlem scene, and in 1939 she created her magnum opus, 'The Harp' (pictured), for the New York World's Fair.

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Alain Locke -

The influential philosopher and social critic Alain Leroy Locke was a bit removed from the center of the Harlem Renaissance by age and profession, but was nonetheless one of the movement's most avid supporters, and consistently published positive and uplifting pieces on the artists and authors of the neighborhood.

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Alain Locke -

Locke led an impressive life in his own right. The Philadelphia native graduated from Harvard University with degrees in literature and philosophy, and became the first ever African-American Rhodes Scholar. He is most well known for his work 'The New Negro,' which is largely a study in the psyche of the independent, outspoken, and dignified members of the Harlem Renaissance.

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Hallie Quinn Brown -

A progenitor of the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement, Hallie Quinn Brown was a massively influential and productive activist and orator during the late 19th and early 20th century.

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Hallie Quinn Brown -

Hallie Quinn Brown was deeply involved in the women's suffrage movement and was a staunch promoter of women's organizations, especially African-American women's organizations. She served as president of the Ohio State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs as well as the National Association of Colored Women, and made great strides in uniting like-minded groups across the nation.

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Josephine Baker -

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Josephine Baker would go on to become an internationally renowned singer and dancer, first on Broadway, and around the country, until her career brought her to France, where she would reside for most of her life.

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Josephine Baker -

Baker relocated to France at the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance, and became heavily involved in the French Resistance once the Nazis came to power in Europe. Baker not only worked with the French Red Cross, but also aided the resistance effort by smuggling messages on her person and in her sheet music between resistance leaders.

Sources: (Biography) (New York Public Library) (ThoughtCo)

See also: Rare vintage photos of New York City

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