Task -
Select one person from the chart below. For that individual, research her/his life and write a biographical essay discussing the following:
1. Challenges she/he faced as a black artist, writer, musician or singer
2. A description of one of their artistic endeavors (poem, song or artwork) that illustrates what life was like for black Americans during, that era.
3. Her/his contribution to the Harlem Renaissance and American society.
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Writers
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Musicians
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Singers
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Artists
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Langston Hughes
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Duke Ellington
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Ella Fitzgerald
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Romare Bearden
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Nora Zeale Hurston
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Louis Armstrong
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Billie Holiday
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Jacob Lawrence
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Guideline:
In your essay be sure to
- Develop all aspects of the task
- Support the theme with relevant facts, examples, and details from your research
- Use a logical and clear plan of organization, including an introduction and a conclusion that are beyond a restatement of the theme.
- Remember that a paragraph consists of 5 or more sentences.
The time was ripe for a renaissance back then. After the defeat of the kaiser in Germany [in World War I], a spirit of optimism and positive expectation swept across Harlem. The Allies won the war for democracy, so now it was time for something to happen in America to change the s>stem of segregation and lynching that was going on. In Europe, the black 'African American% troops were welcomed as liberators; so when they came back to America, they were determined to create a situation that would approximate the slogans they had been fighting for. They wanted democracy at home in the United States. And this general idea helped feed the concept of "The Renaissance."...
A lot of people wonder how there could be joy and optimism in a community under the conditions of segregation and discrimination. But the black community had two very important forces that enabled it to survive and grow. One was the church, where you had the gospel and the spiritual, which were inspirational in their basic content. And the other was the entertainment world, where you had the music of the secular side, expressed in jazz....
Source: Howard Johnson, interviewed in Jennings and Brewster, The Century, Doubleday, 1998
a. According to Howard Johnson, what was one effect of World War I on the black community?
b. According to Howard Johnson, what was one factor that helped the black community during the 1920s?