The center of this explosion was located in
Harlem. Famous personalities such as Claude McKay, Langston
Hughes, Paul Robeson, James Weldon Johnson, Duke Ellington, and
Louis Armstrong either moved to Harlem or visited it frequently
in order to participate in the vigorous cultural exchange which
took place there. The artists of the "Negro Renaissance", as
important as they might be themselves, were merely symbolic of
the new life which was electrifying the Afro-American community.
This new life was also evident in the large urban centers of the
North and particularlyin Harlem.
Locke pointed out the significance of the great northward
migration when he said that the Negro "in the very process of
beingtransplanted," was also being "transformed." This migration
was usually explained either in economic terms--jobs pulling
Negroes northward--or in social terms--discrimination pushing
them out. In both cases, the Afro-American was represented as the
passive victim of external socioeconomic forces. Locke insisted
that, to the contrary, it was more accurate to understand this
migration as a result of a decision made by the Negro himself.
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