"".
The impact of the New Negro Movement was enormous. Politically, the decision to migrate in and of itself was an act of defiance against the social order and political constraints of the South, and a vote cast for the liberating possibilities of the North. The new sense of political activism was reflected in the massive shift in Black affiliation from the Republican to the Democratic party and in the increasing influence of Black organizations. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909 by W. E. B. Du Bois and was dedicated to securing full civil and political rights for Black Americans. The Urban League was founded in 1910 with the goal of acclimating recent migrants to the rigors of urban life. Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of the newfound sense of purpose and activism was the popularity of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Driven by the charismatic zeal of Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican who had migrated to New York, captured the grass-roots sensibility of the New Negro in much the same way the civil rights movement under the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., or the presidential bid of Jesse Jackson inspired hundreds of thousands of African Americans. The UNIA's goals were romantically ennobling (Lindsey, 1994). The association planned to raise money to buy a ship and return Black Americans to Africa, the land of their origins. The movement symbolized the militant ethnic pride of the New Negro, the fervent belief in the beauty and nobility of an African homeland, and the deep cultural cleft between Black and White America. The movement was instrumental in the founding of the African Republic of Liberia where nearly 13,000 blacks were settled in their homeland (Collier, 1985).
Literature of the Harlem Renaissance.
In the early 1920s, three works signaled the new creative African American energy in literature.
