Chapter 27 / From Slavery Through Reconstruction

Aaron Douglas / 1934

The Harlem Renaissance movement emerged in the 1920s and lasted throughout the mid 1930s. This was a literary, artistic, and intellectual movement centered around the Black experience. Alain Locke described the movement, saying "negro life is seizing its first chances for group expression and self determination". Harlem became a central focus for this movement. The movement was not a political movement, as some think it was. It was simply a chance for the negro community to finally express themselves as individuals, and any political heat that resonated from the movement was secondary to its aesthetics. The movement was, as Langston Hughes put it, the "expression of out individual dark-skilled selves."

Aaron Douglas was an african-american painter and a major part of this movement. He was born in Topeka, Kansas, and was encouraged by his mother to pursue art. His paintings were influenced by the African culture he painted for, and he has even been referred to as the "Father of African American Arts". Throughout his life, Douglas sought out opportunities to expand and increase his knowledge about art. From 1928-1929 he studied African and Modern European art at the Barned Foundation in Merion, and in 1931 he traveled to Paris to study more traditional French painting and drawing techniques at the Academie Scandinave.

In 1934, Douglas painted From Slavery Through Reconstruction, which now is on display in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York. The painting depicts three events following the American Civil War. To the right, there is rejoicing at the news of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves. The man in the soapbox in the center represents the success of the black man, whose voice is now being heard. In the background, the Union army leaves the South, and the Reconstruction with its anti-Black backlash follows. The painting follows a jazz theme, and the rhythm of this design can be seen in the design of the circles.