"From 1920 until about 1930 an unprecedented outburst of creative activity among African-Americans
     occurred in all fields of art.
Beginning as a series of literary discussions in the lower Manhattan
(Greenwich Village) and upper Manhattan (Harlem) sections of New York City, this African-American
cultural movement became known as "The New Negro Movement" and later as the Harlem Renaissance.
 

More than a literary movement and more than a social revolt against racism, the Harlem Renaissance
     exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression.
     African-Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to become "The New Negro," a term
     coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke.

     One of the factors contributing to the rise of the Harlem Renaissance was the great migration of
     African-Americans to northern cities (such as New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) between
     1919 and 1926. In his influential book The New Negro (1925), Locke described the northward migration
     of blacks as "something like a spiritual emancipation."

    Black urban migration, combined with trends in
     American society as a whole toward experimentation during the 1920s, and the rise of radical black
     intellectuals — including Locke, Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement
     Association (UNIA), and W. E. B. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis magazine — all contributed to the
     particular styles and unprecedented success of black artists during the Harlem Renaissance period."
     [from http://encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/harlem/harlem.asp] 

http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/harlem_intro.html january 12, 2004.