Chapter Overview

As in white America, the 1920s was a decade of profound artistic growth in the African American community due in part to the invention of the radio and phonograph and due in part to the development of more sophisticated marketing and distribution processes for artistic products. The "New Negro" saw the artistic arena as a level field of competition with whites. In fact, the 1920s saw corporate America finally acknowledge and begin to aim advertising at black consumers. It was the Roaring Twenties and the Age of Jazz (an African American musical tradition) was in full swing. Modernism was the leading style in the visual arts and it allowed black artists to borrow freely from African motifs of representation. Through the arts, many in the African American community saw a way to rebuild the shared image of what it meant to be black in the minds of mainstream America.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter you should understand the following:

• The impact of technological developments, such as sound recording and radio, to the arts in terms of how they were consumed
• The origins of jazz music in America as an African American tradition and its subsequent routes of development
• The role of motion pictures in solidifying American concepts of African American men and women
• The development of black theater in 1920s America
• The importance and delineations of the Harlem Renaissance
• The impact of France as an artistic center and outlet for African Americans
• The contributions of African American visual artists of the era
• The dynamics of how artistic values would often clash in the same 1920s African American communities