The Harlem Renaissance (c. 1918–1935) was a blossoming of African American creative arts associated with the larger New Negro movement, a multifaceted phenomenon that helped set the directions African American writers and artists would pursue throughout the twentieth century. The social foundations of the movement included the Great Migration of African Americans from rural to urban spaces and from South to North, dramatically rising levels of literacy, and the development of national organizations dedicated to pressing African American civil rights (the NAACP), “uplifting” the race and opening up socioeconomic opportunities (the National Urban League), and developing race pride, including Pan-African sensibilities and programs (the United Negro Improvement Association and the Pan-African conferences).
Until the end of the Civil War, the majority of African Americans had been enslaved and lived in the South. Immediately after the end of slavery, the emancipated African Americans began to strive for civic participation, political equality and economic and cultural self-determination. By the late 1870s, conservative whites managed to regain power in the South. From 1890 to 1908 they proceeded to pass legislation that disenfranchised most Negros and many poor whites, trapping them without representation. They established white supremacist regimes of Jim Crow segregation in the South and one-party block voting behind southern Democrats. The conservative whites denied African Americans their exercise of civil and political rights. The region's reliance on an agricultural economy continued to limit opportunities for most people. Negros were exploited as share croppers and laborers. As life in the South became increasingly difficult, African Americans began to migrate North in great number.
Most of the African-American literary movement arose from a generation that had lived through the gains and losses of Reconstruction after the American Civil War. Sometimes their parents or grandparents had been slaves. Their ancestors had sometimes benefited by paternal investment in social capital, including better-than-average education. Many in the Harlem Renaissance were part of the Great Migration out of the South into the Negro neighborhoods of the North and Midwest. African Americans sought a better standard of living and relief from the institutionalized racism in the South. Others were people of African descent from racially stratified communities in the Caribbean who came to the United States hoping for a better life. Uniting most of them was their convergence in Harlem, New York City.
Facts About the play and playwright
- Marita Bonner was born in Boston,MA
- In 1918, she graduated from Brookline High School and enrolled in Radcliffe College where she majored in English and Comparative Literature.
- While living in Washington, Marita met William Almy Occomy. Bonner and Occomy got married and moved to Chicago where Bonner's writing career took off.
- The Purple Flower was first published in Crisis magazine in 1928
- It’s generally considered her masterpiece
- The play was never performed in her life time
- She died in 1971
- Bonner contributed a variety of things to the Harlem Renaissance. Her writings addressed the struggles of people that lived outside of Harlem
- 1. The White Devils live on the side of the hill “Somewhere”, the Us’s live in the Valley of the hill between somewhere and nowhere. What does the valley represent and why are the Us’s so determined to make it “Somewhere” where the purple flower grows? What does “Somewhere” represent and what does the Flower represent?
- 2. In the Setting of the play a thin board named “ the skin of civilization” divides the stage in half horizontally so that the white devils are in the back ground and that the Us’s are in the foreground. The white devils mimic the us’s and dance about playfully. And if an “us “breaks through the skin of civilization they become disfigured and twisted into a pile? What does the Skin of civilization represent and why do us’s become deformed when they break through it. Also why do the white Devils mimic the us’s?
- 3. Do you believe that the name of the characters such as Finest Blood, Sweet, Cornerstone, Etc. reflect characteristics of certain individuals in all societies or are the names exclusive to “People with a history of being oppressed? What characteristics does the name give to the person bearing it?
- 4. The play gives the impression that no matter how long and hard you work, unless you take a stance and make a bold move, you will never make it to where you want to be if there are people that don’t want you there. Do you find this to have any truth at all?
- 5. The Servant of God is starting to create a new man out of Gold, dust, Books, and lastly blood. Why does this new man need all of those things to defeat the white devils and why does a new man need to be created? Couldn’t the Us’s take the things they wanted to use for the new man and defeat the white devils themselves?
- 6. The young Us’s Rely on action to make it to somewhere while the Old us’s rely on faith. Is this an issue that we still see today in society? The young impatient who see faith as nothing more than confidence versus the old and patient who have confidence that there faith will guide them.
- 7. In general do you think some groups of Americans are disenfranchised because of prejudice disguised as moral issues are is that just the rhetoric of liberal media?
