The Harlem Renaissance Uncovers a Two Sided America
The Harlem Renaissance was an explosion of cultural pride among the black community during the late 1890’s to 1930’s. Thousands of African Americans residing in the south migrated to the north in order to escape the racism and white supremacy that remained prevalent after the abolishment of slavery. They suffered much and many hate crimes were imposed upon them. It was a very difficult time for African Americans as a whole, but they pressed on and migrated to the north to cities like Harlem, in New York City, in hopes for a better life. However, they were not exactly welcomed. They still faced prejudice almost as if they never left the south. White laborers accused African Americans of disrupting…show more content… He uses the words “black veil” to point to the obvious darker skin of Blacks, which is a physical feature of difference from whiteness. The veil suggests white people’s lack of clarity and their lack of willingness to see Blacks as Americans. Lastly, the veil refers to Blacks’ lack of clarity to see themselves as anything other than just “Negros” or anything else that they were condemned to by white americans. Even though the veil disrupts the views of both Blacks and Whites, Blacks traditionally have a better understanding of whites because of this “two-ness” that they have been living thru and enduring for years. Black people have long known how to operate in these two Americas. The one that is white and one that is Black. DuBois describes this as “double-consciousness”, of being an “American” and also being an “African-American”, and the unconscious movement between the these two identities when…show more content… Du Bois also expresses the face of double-consciousness through his poem called, “The Souls of Black Folk” (1903). Du Bois expressed double consciousness as a theoretical model for understand the psycho-social existing within the American people. He understood that people often internalize their oppression. He called that having a double consciousness. “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one-self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pit.” He saw the prejudiced and stereotypes of people that divided America.