During World War I, many working-class employees left the public sector to join the armed forces in combat. These vacancies meant more economic opportunity for African-Americans, as employers -- despite many offices' racial prejudice -- became increasingly willing to hire non-white employees. African-Americans served in the war effort as well. The 369th Infantry, which deployed nearly 400,000 African-Americans, was well-known in the U.S. and Europe for its bravery and intelligence. A total of 171 members received awards of distinction.
As northern industrial cities continued to lose workers to the war, and as new wartime industries emerged, African-Americans began migrating from rural southern areas to northeastern and Midwestern cities. Between 1919 and 1935, African-American populations in many cities -- including Detroit, Chicago and New York -- nearly doubled. African-Americans created thriving but largely segregated communities and enclaves. Political figures including labor organizer A. Philip Randolph, Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey and Black Nationalist Malcolm X were active in the Harlem political scene during this time.
Due chiefly to the effects of World War I and the Great Migration, the black middle class rose and expanded during the 1920s. Middle-class blacks explored economic, political and cultural possibilities that had not been available to their previous generations. The experience of serving in integrated troops with the French in World War I profoundly affected many black soldiers and the African-American community at large. The concentration of artistic individuals in communities like Harlem and Greenwich Village led to an explosion of artistic and political expression.
Black Americans of the Harlem Renaissance had a safe distance of two to three generations from slavery. Many of them discussed slavery with older relatives and heard stories about abolition and the Reconstruction Era. Yet, despite rising in economic status, African-Americans remained socially, politically and economically marginalized due to Jim Crow laws of legal segregation and racial discrimination in the North. In the Harlem Renaissance, this new generation of black Americans reviewed their nation's inconsistencies and laid the groundwork for America's radical civil rights reform decades later.