Despite the promised guarantee of equality for African Americans following the end of the Civil War in 1865, Southern states continued to deprive them of social freedoms, political power, and cultural identity. The conditions, as well as economic decimation in the South, led to a mass migration of African American northward and to Harlem, where an explosion of art and expression led by various writers, musicians, and artists emerged. Those pioneers crossed the rigid frontiers predefined to their race, promoting cultural pride and cross-cultural interaction, empowering African Americans to spread their newfound culture and to use that strength to start powerful movements.
"I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it."
~ Zora Neale Hurston