I Ain’t Misbehavin’ Lyrics

No one to talk with, All by myself,No one to walk with, But I'm happy on the shelfAin't misbehavin', I'm savin' my love for you

I know for certain, The one I love,I through with flirtin',It's just you I'm thinkin' of.Ain't misbehavin', I'm savin' my love for youLike Jack Horner in the corner

Don't go no where, What do I care,Your kisses are worth waitin' forBe-lieve meI don't stay out late, Don't care to go,I'm home about eight, Just me and my radioAin't misbehavin',I'm savin' my love for

The Harlem Renaissance

“Harlem is indeed the great Mecca for the sight-seer; the pleasure seeker, the curious, the adventurous, the enterprising, the ambitious and the talented of the whole Negro world.”

-Alain Locke

Duke Ellington

“Sweet Jazz O’ Mine”

What Was It?• Time period: After WWI to mid-1930s.• “It was the period when the Negro was in vogue.”

–Langston Hughes• “It’s spiritual center…was not a place on the map

but a place in the consciousness of a people whose gifts had long been ignored, patronized as ‘quaint,’ or otherwise relegated to the margins of American culture.”

• African heritage and roots were embraced by the movement’s young writers, artists and musicians.

• The movement altered not only African American culture, but American culture as a whole.

Migration

• Thousand of blacks migrated to the North from the South, the Midwest, and even the West Indies in order to:

1. Flee poverty and look for better employment opportunities

2. Find more economic and personal freedom

3. Escape growing racial violence, particularly in the South

Harlem

• In the early 1920s, African American artists, writers, musicians, and performers were part of a great cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.

• Harlem – the place to finally establish themselves in wider, American society.

• The huge migration to the North after World War I brought African Americans of all ages and walks of life to the thriving New York City neighborhood called Harlem.

1930

1920

1911

The “New Negro” (Alain Locke)

• “‘New Negroes’ rejected beastlike or sentimental stereotypes, claiming the right to define themselves and defend themselves against attack. ‘New Negroes’ felt a collective identity…at the same time, they possessed an international consciousness, recognizing kinship among blacks in the United States, West Indies, and Africa.”

• From The Language of Literature

Themes of HR

• Key themes:• alienation, • marginality, • the use of folk material, • the use of the blues tradition, • the problems of writing for an elite audience.

• They also confronted the issue of “two-ness” (coined by W.E.B. Du Bois in 1903), which confronts the conflicting identities felt by African Americans at the time - to be both “an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled stirrings: two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone

keeps it from being torn asunder."

The Writers

“I had an overwhelming desire to see Harlem. More than Paris, or

the Shakespeare country, or Berlin, or the Alps, I wanted to see Harlem, the greatest Negro city in

the world.”

- Langston Hughes

Zora Neale Hurston 1891-1960

• Moved to Harlem in 1925• Graduated from Columbia

University in 1928• Most famous book, Their Eyes

Were Watching God was published in 1937.

• Traveled through South, collecting folk tales from African American oral traditions.

• Never addressed white racism in her writing.

• Focused on belief that blacks could be free from American racism.

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.” (Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942)

Langston Hughes 1902-1967

• Discovered at twenty-three.• “If anything is important, it is

my poetry, not me.”• One of the first African

Americans to support himself solely as a writer.

• Blended the sounds of jazz into his poetry.

• Emphasized lower-class Black life.

• Wrote in free verse but also used conventional forms.

The Musicians

(When asked what jazz is)

“Man, if you gotta ask you’ll never know.”

Louis Armstrong

Duke Ellington• One of the most famous names

in Jazz.

• Created big band: orchestra of jazz musicians.

• Changed sound of jazz by incorporating African elements.

• During the Harlem Renaissance, he and his band played at the hip Cotton Club, which only allowed white patrons.

• During the late 1920s, he was everywhere: touring, on Broadway, and in the movies.

Louis Armstrong

• Born in New Orleans in 1901.

• Inventive trumpet player.• Helped to transform jazz

from an ensemble entertainment to a solo art.

• Used scat singing.• Highly visible musician,

respected by both the black and the white community.

The Art

Jeunesse by Palmer Hayden

Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”

Palmer Hayden, The Janitor Who Paints

William H. Johnson, Chain Gang

Why did the Harlem Renaissance end?

• Natural end; it had run its course

• The economic problems of the Great Depression

• In the end, HR helped Harlem transform from a deteriorating area into a thriving middle class community

Before After

Poetry ActivityRead your assigned poem:

1.“Tableau” page 745

2.“Incident” page 747

3.“Harlem” page 754

4.“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” page 758

5.“The Weary Blues” page 751

6.“the mississippi river empties into the gulf” page 761

On a sheet of paper, complete the following:

1.Identify and explain the theme: What is the main message of this poem?

2.What characteristics in the poem reflect that of the Harlem Renaissance?

3.Create a 12 line found poem, capturing the theme of the original.