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The Harlem Renaissance was an African-American literary and cultural movement that began after World War I and ended during the years of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The movement was influenced by the many black glbtq writers who contributed to it. |
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A portrait of Harlem Renaissance writer
Claude McKay by Carl Van Vechten.
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 James Richmond Barthé (1901-1989), a popular African-American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance, used his art as a means of working out internal conflicts related to race and sexuality. |
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 Countee Cullen (1903-1946) was heralded as the poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance. Though he wanted to be recognized as "a poet, not a Negro poet," he spent his life proving that a black poet could sing in a black voice. |
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 Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958) published plays and poems during the Harlem Renaissance, but stopped writing and fell into obscurity after the 1920s. Glbtq scholars who have recently rediscovered Grimké's work have found that her inability to act on her sexual desires inspired her writing--and contributed to her ultimately abandoning it.
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 Langston Hughes (1902-1967) left a long and varied literary legacy. Though he was closeted, his homosexuality was such an important influence on his literary imagination that many of his poems may be read as gay texts. |
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 Nella Larsen (1891-1964) was the first African American to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship. Constrained by the social conventions of her day, her novels address lesbianism covertly. |
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 Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) was a novelist, critic, and photographer who earned a reputation as Harlem's "most enthusiastic and ubiquitous Nordic." His articles in Vanity Fair and The New York Times introduced the New Negro Movement and Harlem Renaissance writers to many whites. |
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A'Lelia Walker (1885-1931), the "joy goddess" of the Harlem Renaissance, was a hostess who especially valued the company of black glbtq artists and writers, which gave her gatherings a distinctly gay ambience. |
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