Harlem Renaissance

New Orleans if known for its French influenced culture. San Francisco is known for the Golden Gate. Harlem...it's the renaissance. Have you ever wondered why certain cities are known for what they are? Well, my main focus today is the city of Harlem. After thorough research, I have found numerous reasons why Harlem was a hotbed in the roaring 20's. Harlem, not any other city, is known for its renaissance, and it is these papers in your hand that will tell you why.

The years between WWI and the Great Depression were boom times for the United States, and jobs were opening up everywhere. The United States was called upon to manufacture munitions and other supplies for the war effort. Many immigrant workers had returned to fight in their native lands and the war halted the flow of new immigrants. The shortage of workers was filled by the black citizens in the South. There was over a million and a half black people from the rural south that moved to the industrial north hoping to snag one of the many opening jobs. Many, including 50 thousand blacks from the West Indies, settled in Harlem.

The development of Harlem came at a perfect time. At the turn of the century, Harlem had been overbuilt with new apartment houses. Philip A. Payton, a black man in the real estate business, helped out in the movement of black people into Harlem by proposing the landlords to fill those empty apartments with black tenants. It was the first time in the history of New York that black people were offered new housing, and with wages from the newly created industry jobs there was money available for renting and buying. When white neighbors tried to halt the flow of black tenants, Payton created a stronghold by forming the Afro-American Realty Company for the purpose of buying and leasing houses to be let to black tenants. White flight further reduced the housing costs and in this two square-mile neighborhood their lived more than two hundred thousand blacks, which was the highest concentration of black people anywhere on earth.

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