The New Negro Movement

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The New Negro Movement

• Evolution of black American thought 1895-1925
• New Negroes were African Americans who often
  demanded their legal rights as citizens but
  almost always wanted to create new images that
  would challenge old stereotypes.
• The New Negro stressed
• cultural awareness
• self-confidence
• assertiveness
• self defense.

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James Weldon JohnsonLift Evry Voice and Sing
(1901)
View segment from America
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Claude McKay (1919) If We Must Die If we must
die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in
an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad
and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our
accursed lot. If we must die, O let us nobly
die, So that our precious blood may not be
shed In vain then even the monsters we
defy Shall be constrained to honor us though
dead! O kinsmen we must meet the common
foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us
brave, And for their thousand blows deal one
deathblow! What though before us lies the open
grave? Like men we'll face the murderous,
cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but
fighting back!
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The Future as I See It, Marcus Garvey, 1923

• Black men, you were once great you shall be
  great again. Lose not courage, lose not faith, go
  forward. The thing to do is to get organized
  keep separated and you will be exploited, you
  will be robbed, you will be killed. Get
  organized, and you will compel the world to
  respect you. If the world fails to give you
  consideration, because you are black men, because
  you are Negroes, four hundred millions of you
  shall, through organization, shake the pillars of
  the universe and bring down creation, even as
  Samson brought down the temple upon his head and
  upon the heads of the Philistines.

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Aaron DouglasStudy of Gods Trombones (1926)
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Awakening of Ethiopia Lois Mailou Jones 1932
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Journal EntryWhat does the following quote
mean? Does it fit with the concepts put forth by
the New Negro Movement?

• Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
  measure. It is our light, not our darkness that
  most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to
  be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
  Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child
  of God. Your playing small does not serve the
  world. There is nothing enlightened about
  shrinking so that other people won't feel
  insecure around you. We are all meant to shine,
  as children do. We were born to make manifest the
  glory of God that is within us. It's not just in
  some of us it's in everyone. And as we let our
  own light shine, we unconsciously give other
  people permission to do the same. As we are
  liberated from our own fear, our presence
  automatically liberates others.
• Marianne Williamson (1994)