uset, a close friend of Du Bois and fellow editor of The Crisis, wrote mainly about upper class blacks, but is perhaps best known as the mentor of Jean Toomer. Toomer was a sensation with his early works in The Liberator and The Crisis, but following the 1923 publication of his novel, Cane, Toomer quickly faded to obscurity. Zora Neale Hurston, possibly the best known female poet of the time, based many of her works on folklore and won many literary awards. Langston Hughes, the most famous overall poet of the Harlem Renaissance, was known for his creativity and expression. He won numerous awards and was able to sustain his literary career even after the movement had ended. As the Depression came, the Harlem Renaissance gradually ended. However, the ongoing effects of the movement are the reason the Harlem Renaissance has been described as revolutionary. The literature of the movement was one of its main accomplishments. One thing it immediately accomplished for American literature was to create a platform for new ideas. Although the Renaissance’s literature was not intended to be primarily political, it did boldly confront political themes in its poetry and fiction. Renaissance authors “addressed issues of race, class, religion, and gender” (The Harlem Renaissance 2). One example was McKay’s response to race riots, which he voiced in his 1919 poem “If we Must Die.” James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Arna Bontemps also wrote protest poems. Hughes’ poems of protest in the 1930’s went as far as to rally behind the communist societal ideals of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Racial themes were a constant in the literature of the Harlem writers, and black nationalism swept the Harlem culture. Magazines such as Opportunity and The Crisis endorsed black political forums and addressed voting issues in the African American community. Religion was also a theme in writings...
