The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s is a term used to describe the growth of African American literature and arts. The center of the movement was Harlem, New York, where many African Americans resided at the time. Southerners brought jazz to Harlem along with, sculpting, photography, and writings such as poems and short stories,
"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others. . . . One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warrings ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
The Souls of Black Folk (1903)