5. Cultural Impact of African American Migration

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we examine the cultural impact of African American migration to the North. African American migration fundamentally changed US popular culture as African American found more freedoms in northern cities. African Americans created new innovative music and dance styles that became widely popular, while also influencing art, literature and academia. These developments are perhaps best displayed by the prevalence of the Harlem Renaissance which saw African Americans group together to celebrate and protect their shared culture.

Course

In this course, Professor Susan Curtis (Purdue University) explains the causes and effects of international and internal migration patterns during the 1920s and what effects this had on popular culture in the United States. We start by examining the two movements of peoples into and within the United States, these were: (i) New Immigration; and (ii) the Great Migration. We then turn in the next two modules to examine the response to both New Immigration and the Great Migration. In the next two modules we explore the impact these new groups had on culture within the United States. Finally, we offer some concluding remarks on the period and topic as a whole.

Lecturer

Susan Curtis in Emeritus Professor of History and American Studies at Purdue University. She specialises in the History of American culture, religion, and race relations; and is the author of four books - A Consuming Faith:  The Social Gospel and Modern American Culture (1991): Dancing to a Black Man's Tune:  A Life of Scott Joplin (1994); The First Black Actors on the Great White Way (1998); and Colored Memories:  A Biographer's Quest for the Elusive Lester A. Walton (2008).