Problem

1) What was the "New Negro" and what role did the Harlem Renaissance play in redefining how blacks perceived, defined, and presented themselves through music, scholarship and the arts to the world? Why was this necessary in dealing with racism?

2) How did the differing literary styles and techniques of Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and Zora Neale Hurston help white audiences to understand the damaging effects of ideological and institutionalized racism during the era of Jim Crow, and empowered African Americans to find their own self-worth in a world that consistently invalidated them?