A New Era 

In the 1930s, racial tensions between African-Americans and Whites diffused through the celebration of an innovation created by Black Americans, used to distract the grotesque reality of the great depression. By 1933, the unemployment rate reached to 24.9% and jazz was the primary positive influence, that relieved those who were suffering from the stock market crash. Segregation was still a massive problem but started to alter after Black musicians could perform at theaters and entertain. The 1930s’ Harlem Renaissance challenged barriers of racial integration by honoring African American voices during a time of racial exclusion with politics and suppressed in economics.  

Throughout the 1930s consumerism and employment rates took a dramatic decline after the market crash of October 1929. Over the next several years, classism in America became the new normal in which the middle-class population went to becoming non-existent. David Kennedy describes this period as an “episode that revealed deeply-rooted structural inequalities in American society’, clearly not a moment that can be seen as anomalous interlude between eras of uncomplicated economic progress”. 1For the vast majority this decade was a time of despair and had high rates of suicide.  F. Scott Fitzgerald defines classism as “the rich are born into wealth, it shapes their worldview — gives rise to an air of superiority and confidence — so that even if they do fall upon hard times or “sink below us,” they still manage to think that they are better,”.2 However, music specifically ragtime brought people from different economic classes together allowing them to escape their reality. Jazz percolated in and became the mainstream sound throughout the 1930s. Carnegie Hall was a venue known for honoring ” spirituals to swing, integrating swing, jazz, blues and gospel in a celebration of African-American music as the potential basis for ’a new American culture’ of racial harmony". 3This genre often was played at speakeasies that allowed White people discover Black culture and sip illegal liquor.  

The preeminent African-American literary and artistic movement of the 1920s and '30s also known as the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ gave African-Americans a chance to escape their financial struggle caused by racism and economy. By 1932 approximately half of the African-American population had zero opportunity of getting work. David Kennedy defines the era of the Great Depression as “an episode that revealed deeply-rooted structural inequalities in American society’, clearly not a moment that can be seen as an anomalous interlude between eras of uncomplicated economic progress”.4 Some of the leading causes of this were companies prioritizing white employment by firing black employees to have more room to hire.  Additionally, contributing towards racial tensions amongst the North and South regions. Due to racial injustices, many narratives in music used conflict as a theme.  In 1935, a race riot broke out into the streets of Harlem because of an unarmed African American getting shot for shoplifting. Decades after Emancipation, African-American vernacular spread like wild fire and laid “the groundwork for the spectacular success of ragtime, blues, jazz, gospel, and other African-American idioms in the twentieth century”.5 

Back in Chicago, Louis Armstrong started his journey into music after facing consequences of shooting his step-father's gun on New Year's. At age 13 he continued to do odd jobs and was a street performer that helped him earn his title as the “blues man” in his community. “Jazz and the blues proved to have an appeal that transcended racial barriers, if not generational ones".6 By the end of the 1920s, Armstrong started to perform with the highest-paid black performer of her day also known as the “Empress of the Blues”, Bessie Smith. Her rich, powerful voice influenced this era of jazz and broke down race-based stereotypes. After leaving the South, “her radio broadcasts drew a diverse audience, momentarily blurring the racial lines that so heavily marked the region”.7 “It’s Dirty but Good” from 1930 was a song, sung by Bessie Smith and former band mate Ma Rainey that was full of explicit lesbian content.  Smith would frequently get into trouble with her husband, Jack Gee over accusations of her affair with Lillian Simpson.   

The Harlem Renaissance established an importance for African American culture and considered as the golden age of Harlem. After the great migration to Harlem, local entrepreneurs hired African American to perform at night clubs catered to white people who were interested in experiencing black culture without interaction. This was a step forward away from minstrel shows but started the next chapter towards racial integration. Rag time became a phenomenon in youth culture, that represented ‘voice of youth striving to be heard in this fast-moving world’. 

Bibliography 

Brothers, Thomas David. Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2015. 

Eldridge, David. American Culture in the 1930s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010. 

Warner, Jennifer. Queen of the Blues: The Life and times of Bessie Smith. Anaheim, CA.: BookCaps, Golgotha Press,, C, 2014. 

Wellington, Sam. "Staggering Along the Periphery: Classism in America." Dissident Voice: A Radical Newsletter in the Struggle for Peace and Social Justice.