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20.3- African American Culture of the 1920’s The Great Migration: millions of African Americans relocated from the South to the urban North during WWI and the 1920’s in hopes of a better life and better future. Thousands of them moved to upper Manhattan, New York City, in the neighborhood of Harlem. It was here that African Americans created an environment with the use of art, racial pride, sense of community, and political organization known as the Harlem Renaissance. Expressions of African-American culture like jazz, blues, and literature in which novelists, poets, and artists celebrated their black culture through their work. Claude McKay was a famous writer of this era (Harlem Shadows), and he was quite militant in his literature, focusing mainly on the issue of racial inequality. Langston Hughes (poet) was the most powerful African American voice of this time; he focused less on racial tensions and more on celebrating African American culture. African Americans gave the 1920’ the nickname “the Jazz Age.” Jazz music which combined different forms of music, such as blues and popular European music. Louis Armstrong became the leading figure of the Jazz Age. Duke Ellington was a composer, pianist, and bandleader who was also very influential during the Jazz Age. Ellington got his start at the Cotton Club, a very famous NYC nightclub. Blues, a soulful style of music that evolved from African American spirituals, became very popular throughout the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age. In cities such as New York and Chicago, African Americans had a growing political voice. Blacks in large numbers created quite a powerful voting bloc in northern cities. This was evident with the election of Oscar DePriest, the first black senator from a northern state (Ill.) The most prominent leader of the 1920’s was Marcus Garvey. He argued that blacks were oppressed in the U.S. and led a “Back to Africa” movement through his idea of “Black Nationalism.” He advocated the separation of the white and black races.