• The struggle for racial and gender equality and for the extension of civil liberties.
• Influences on African-American culture during the 1920s (e.g., the Harlem Renaissance).
• The economic boom and social transformation of post-World War II United States.

• Narrative, The Second Great Migration
• Image of Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington and his band located at: http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/text/ellington_slide.html.
• Recording of a sample of Duke Ellington's music, for example "Take the A Train" or "Mood Indigo," or lyrics to "Drop Me Off in Harlem"

1. Show students the photograph of Duke Ellington (either photocopied or as a transparency) and ask them what kind of music they think the Duke Ellington Band performed.
2. Either play a sample of Duke Ellington's music or provide students with a copy of the lyrics to "Drop Me Off in Harlem." Lyrics can be found at http://www.thepeaches.com/music/composers/duke/DropMeOffInHarlem.txt
3. Ask students to characterize the tone or mood of the samples of Duke Ellington's music that they examined. Is the tone more one of "novelty, excitement, and creativity" or "deterioration, lament, loss, and despair?" What about the music and lyrics makes the tone clear to them?

1. Ask students to read the narrative The Second Great Migration
2. Explain that they will be testing the author's statement that, "The novelty, excitement, and creativity of black urban life that figured so prominently in the literature and art of the Harlem Renaissance, for example, gave way to themes of deterioration. The visual and literary images were now accented in emotional tones of lament, loss, and despair." Have each student select two works by African-American artists in the same genre (prose, poetry, drama, painting, sculpture, or other visual arts; instrumental music; vocal music; dance; or film), one from the Harlem Renaissance and the other contemporary.
3. Have each student study both works, analyzing each for tone, comparing and contrasting the tones of the two works, and evaluating the author's thesis based on the sample pair they analyzed.
4. Ask students to share their findings in a five-minute oral presentation in which the student:

   1. Shows both samples, either in their entirety or as illustrative segments that total no more than one minute.
   2. Analyzes the tone of both samples, explaining how the artists conveyed the tone.
   3. Determines whether the two samples have similar or differing tones on the whole.
   4. Evaluates, in respect to the pair of works analyzed, the accuracy of the thesis that African-American art of the 1920s conveyed the feeling of the Renaissance (rebirth, creativity, excitement), whereas African-American art of the late twentieth century or contemporary era conveyed the feeling of deterioration (lament, loss, despair).

5. At the conclusion of the presentations, ask students whether, based on the overall class analysis, the thesis was supported or not.

Classroom presentations may be evaluated on a 20-point scale (which may be multiplied by 5 to convert to a 100-point scale or to letter grades) using the following rubric:

• The Schomburg Center's Digital exhibit Harlem 1900-1940: An African-American Community provides not only images and text, but also an illustrated timeline, teacher materials, and links to other websites at: http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/.
• The Duke Ellington Society's website provides music and audio files of the legendary musician's works and commentary by artists who performed his music at: http://museum.media.org/duke/essence/index_ie.html.
• The Library of Congress' American Memory Collection features over seven million online digital documents. Its "Journeys and Crossings" research site provides links, audio files, and bibliographies about the poetry of Langston Hughes, as well as links to many other art and literature websites for the Harlem Renaissance at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/journey/hughes.html.