• Many musicians of the Harlem Renaissance defined blues and jazz music.saxophon image by Harald Soehngen from Fotolia.com
  
  The Harlem Renaissance was a time of incredible cultural achievement among African-Americans during the 1920s and 1930s. A number of "firsts" were met in terms of education, music, literature and arts. Despite the lynchings and violence still prevalent in many parts of America, the African-American experience was able to be conveyed to the world through the voices of numerous talented individuals.
  
  

Zora Neale Hurston

• Zora Neale Hurston was a writer who became the first African-American student to receive a bachelor's degree from Barnard College. While there in New York, she earned the patronage of Charlotte Mason, which allowed her to develop her writing career during the Harlem Renaissance. She earned a Guggenheim grant, allowing her to travel America and abroad for the purpose of studying black folklore. Out of this she was able to publish the novels Mules and Men, Jonah's Gourd Vine and Their Eyes Were Watching God.
  
  

Duke Ellington

• Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was responsible for over 2,000 jazz compositions in his lifetime, defining the sound of jazz not only during the Harlem Renaissance but beyond. He learned to play piano at the age of seven, which evolved into his Duke Ellington Orchestra performing for clubs, motion pictures, operas and ballets. His 1931 hit "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing" became pivotal in shaping swing music over the following decade.
  
  

Bessie Smith

• Bessie Smith is known as "Empress of the Blues" for her immersion into every style and storyline of blues imaginable. She performed vaudeville in the 1910s, but was signed to a contract with Columbia Records upon arriving in New York City, and became an instant star. She focused on the Blues with her celebrated deep voice, becoming one of the highest-paid African-American entertainers of the 1920s. One of her biggest hits, "St. Louis Blues," was recorded with famed musician Louis Armstrong.
  
  

W.E.B. DuBois

• William Edward Burghardt DuBois worked diligently as an educator and political activist to prove that the key to ending racism lay in education. His 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk scientifically analyzed racism in America, criticizing both blacks and whites in their shortcomings in solving this issue. He organized the Niagara Movement, which led to the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was also responsible for assembling four Pan-African Congresses, which brought together leaders of America, Africa and the Caribbean in discussing issues important to those of African descent.
  
  

Meta Warrick Fuller

• Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller was a sculptor who not only created works that exemplified ideals of the Harlem Renaissance, but also challenged the art world in her rejection of Neoclassicism. Meta preferred raw, rough and expressive materials that conveyed high emotion, as opposed to the polished and calm surfaces of Neoclassic works. Her sculpture Ethiopia Awakening achieved great renown. Made of bronze, it portrays an African woman unwrapping herself from the mummy shroud she is wearing, a symbol for the cultural awakening of African-Americans.