Social Studies Programs - Americans through History

Economic Change, Reconstruction / Industrialization: William Johnson

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Similar content addressed in SOLs: VS.1a-i; USII.1a-h; USII.5c

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement among African Americans during the early 1900s. Writers, musicians, and artists, based in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, sought to express their cultural experience and heritage in new ways. In this period, people like Langston Hughes (writing) and Duke Ellington (music) became famous for their innovative art.

• One visual artist associated with the movement was William Henry Johnson, a painter whose vivid colors and narrative images showed a variety of aspects of African-American life. This piece, entitled “Blind Singer,” depicts two African-American street musicians using bright colors and simple shapes, two hallmarks of Johnson’s painting.
• This picture details an African-American soldier leaving his family and going off to war. African-Americans fighting during the World War I and World War II was a major issue within the community, as the African Americans were expected to fight for their country even though the lived in unequal segregation at home.
• Segregation of housing was an important part of the Harlem Renaissance era through much of the 20^th century. Although this court case made it illegal for a city to tell African-Americans where they had to live, it was still legal for regular people to decide not to sell houses to African-Americans on the basis of race. As a result, many cities kept African-Americans and other non-white people segregated in separate neighborhoods. So although places like Harlem, which embodied the cultural backdrop behind much of Johnson’s work, were communities where African-Americans could come together to live together, oftentimes such neighborhoods in the inner city were the only areas where African-Americans could find housing they could afford or purchase.
• The image displays a Harlem dance club in the 1940s. The Harlem Renaissance was not limited to the work of artists such as Johnson, as it also included poetry, literature, music, and dance.
• In this letter, Countee Cullen thanks the Harmon Foundation for bestowing upon him their literature award. The Harmon Foundation was one of several numerous organizations to promote African-American communities – they funded public works projects, offered scholarships, and granted awards for outstanding achievement in various fields. William H. Johnson received one of the prestigious Harmon Foundation awards for his art in 1929.