With a Jim Crow south alive and well, many black Americans migrated north. This migration resulted in the formation of a creative urban hub in Harlem, New York, and the Harlem Renaissance became a time where black Americans flourished creatively.

From writing to art, blues to jazz, a once suppressed black community greeted this newfound freedom by cultivating artistic expression in ways they were prohibited from doing before. Visionaries like Duke Ellington and Zora Neale Hurston thrived during this cultural revolution, and the Harlem Renaissance symbolized the power of the freed black mind in America.

In this episode of Black History in Two Minutes or So hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. — with additional commentary from Farah Griffin and Brent Hayes Edwards of Columbia University, and author and journalist Isabel Wilkerson — we look at a new generation of black people whose bold commitment to artistic expression will forever live on.

Archival Materials Courtesy of:

Alamy Images
Everett Collection, Inc.
Getty Images

Executive Producers:

Robert F. Smith
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Dyllan McGee
Deon Taylor

Music By:

Oovra Music

Be Woke presents is brought to you by Robert F. Smith and Deon Taylor.

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