The 1920s and 1930s form an important period in our cultural history that is famous for its legacy of creative work focusing on the lives and concerns of African Americans. This flowering of art and literature is variously referred to as the Harlem Renaissance, New Negro Movement, or New Negro Renaissance. Among the many outstanding black writers associated with the period are Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Claude McKay, and Zora Neale Hurston. The enduring value of the work produced by black artists from this era has prompted literary scholars to recognize the Harlem Renaissance as “the one period in black letters that stands out above all others” (Harris and Davis, Afro-American Writers, xi) and theatre scholars to acknowledge the contemporary development of a serious theatre that could “speak to and for African Americans” (Hatch and Hamalian, Lost Plays 18).

Although the Harlem Renaissance is so named because of the great number of black artists who flocked into Harlem, making it the black cultural capital of the world, significant artistic activity was also occurring in cities such as Washington DC, Chicago, and Boston. Just as the movement cannot be limited to one location, neither is it easily reducible to exact dates, but it is generally conceded that an unprecedented surge in activity among African American artists, reflecting a renewed race consciousness and pride, began around World War I and extended into the decade of the the 1930s.