... both the changes that occurred within the African community and the cultural shifts that took place in American society as a whole during the 1920's. For blacks the years during and after World War one were ones of increased militancy and racial pride. Phillip Randolph was struggling to organise black workers and a national campaign was actively promoting federal antilynching legislation. Although white society did not take these political movements particularly seriously, it did give considerable recognition to the large number of black writers, musicians and scholars who were emerging simultaneously. These figures being people like, Countee Cullen, James Weldon, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman and Jean Toomer. All lived in Harlem and Langston Hughes described the area as a "great magnet for the negro intellectual, pulling him from everywhere." Yet Harlem was a magnet not only for blacks, but also for whites eager to experience for themselves the glamour ...

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