Alain Locke wrote about the migration in the March 1, 1925 issue of Survey Graphic that "neither labor demand, the boll weevil nor the klu klux klan is a basic factor, however contributary any or all of them may have been. The wash and rush of this human tide on the beach line on the northern city centers is to be explained primarily in terms of a new vision of a spirit to seize, even in the face of an extortionate and heavy toll, a chance for the improvement of conditions. With each successive wave of it, the movement of the Negro migrant becomes more and more like that of European waves at their crests, a mass movement toward the larger and more democratic chance -- in the Negro's case a deliberate flight, not only from countryside to city, but from medieval America to modern."

William H. Johnson. Self-Portrait with Pipe, c. 1937. Oil on canvas, 35 x 28 in.

Whether one considers Locke's text here as excessively poetic and factually off the mark or as rightfully expressive of an underlying vivre to the migration, it is undeniably self-conscious, concerned with an active re-creation of racial identity. Locke's notion of a move "from medieval America to modern" hinged heavily upon a new racial self-consciousness, one which for Locke included some degree of European influence. Culture was being shaped as African Americans moved to the first large urban African American community, a community bordered and in constant contact with whites further downtown.

William H. Johnson. I Baptize Thee, c. 1940. Oil on burlap, 38.25 x 45.5 in.

Locke's notion of the "New Negro" centered upon art as a means for re-creation of identity, a self-consciousness that would free the race from the bounds of subjugation. Calling Harlem the "home of the Negro's 'Zionism,'" Locke sought after the possibility of a "fuller, truer self-expression" of racial identity. Thus, the art of the time (and after) appears strongly influenced by the intellectuals' idea of self-recreation. Looking at the art from the period, one is struck by the diversity of forms and mediums. William H. Johnson is perhaps the paradigmatic artist of the period: Having studied painting in Europe, Johnson's oeuvre includes both impressionist self-portraits and works strongly rural, southern, and African American in iconography and style. Romare Bearden, another

Renaissance painter who studied for a time in Europe, follows much of the same pattern. Jacob Lawrence, a later artist chronologically, employs a distinct self-consciousness of style and iconography that defines much of his work. In short, it seems that art is largely indicative of cultural attitudes and philosophies and works fundamentally to move and push the restricting bounds of cultural self-definition. The dialogue continues.

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