This Saturday, September 7, marks the 26th anniversary of the Harlem Book Fair, the United States’ most famous African-American book festival. Held every year in the Harlem neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City, New York, the book fair gathers Black authors, publishers, artists, and more and attracts thousands of readers in a celebration of African-American literature and the long literary history of Harlem.
This year’s event is especially important because it marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement within the city that made many Black authors, artists, musicians, and other creators cultural icons whose legacies are still felt today. Let’s dive into the history of the Harlem Renaissance and the Harlem Book Fair and look at the literary wonders this year’s event will bring.
The Harlem Renaissance
The major cultural and creative movement known as the Harlem Renaissance resulted in part from the Great Migration. Between the end of the Civil War and the 1940s, millions of African Americans moving from the South to industrial cities all across the North to escape oppressive Jim Crow laws and seek economic opportunities. Over 175,000 African Americans moved to Harlem by the time the 1900s began, making the neighborhood the place with the highest concentration of Black people anywhere in the world.