Encyclopedia of the Harlem Literary Renaissance

At the end of the First World War, a new political awareness emerged among African American activists and intellectuals. This awareness promoted the concept of the “New Negro”, the idea that an older generation of Black leaders, shaped by pre‐war politics and culture, were unprepared for the challenges the post‐war era presented. These challenges, they argued, called for a “new radicalism”. According to James Weldon Johnson, “It was something different from the formal radicalism of the pre‐war days; it was radicalism motivated by a fierce race consciousness”. The New Negro movement, also known as the Harlem Renaissance, prompted a flourish...