The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. During this period Harlem was a cultural center, drawing black writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars. Throughout the 1900s,
Harlem was flooded with African American people. Families fled to New York City from the
Caribbean and the South to escape racial violence and lynchings. The first wave
of communist women were passionate about spreading their disgust of American
racism internationally and traveling to the Soviet Union to observe its
socialist society. This trip cultivated black left feminism and strengthened
their fight for black freedom, black women’s dignity and rights, and socialism.