Blacks In The Harlem Renaissance

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Although African Americans were free from slavery by the 20th century and had what is considered freedom, they still faced racism, Jim Crow disfranchisement tactics, and unequal obstacles in America. They had been struggling for equality, freedom, a heard voice, and a matter of simply being able to live their life just as everyone else (whites to be exact). The most affected area was southern America. During this time in southern America, African Americans- especially the offspring of those who had lived through enslavement and failure of the Reconstruction era- were trying to migrate to the northern area for a better lifestyle in work, labor, education, and family. Through this migration from the country to the city in the 1920’s, a “New Negro” …show more content…
The big “C”, which is Culture that created the best and the finest of the African American Harlem community. The most important aspect of this new culture was music, which expressed that African American culture should be lifted and refined . Blues music, which was considered African American southern folk music, became the anthem genre for this new African American culture, and through this emerged the blues women. Blues can be defined as music written by professional songwriters and performed by professional female blues singers. The blues women were Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith; and they sang about the issues of racism and poverty in 1920’s America creating significance to the migrants from the South coming to the North by allowing them to create a new African American Culture for themselves through blues …show more content…
She toured with Ma Rainey through T.O.B.A. and performed in several vaudeville shows as well. Bessie Smith was well known for her soulful, bluesy, jazzy, and grand voice. She justified a more jazzy sound than Mamie Smith and Ma Rainey. This jazz input clarified the soulful and lively sound that the African American community identified themselves with. This new sound and approach allowed them to see and create a more vibrant future in America and an escape of all the troubles their relatives, ancestors, and themselves have gone through as colored people in America. Bessie Smith recorded about two hundred songs that include, “Backwater Blues” (1923), “Taint Nobody’s Bizness If I Do” (1923), “St. Louis Blues” (1925, which she recorded with Louis Armstrong), and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” (1929). Her songs and voice had a raw, country bluestone to it that pictured the hardship life in the South. She was considered fierce, and a great example of challenging issues with race, gender, and sexuality, in which she scared the Klu Klux Klan after one of her performances. Her songs also created a sense of power for women, allowing them to liberate from men, as well as society. Despite her fair fame as a female blues singer, Bessie Smith was in a car accident in Mississippi. Because she was of colored skin,
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