In April 2009, grade seven students at Higgins Middle School participated in HARLEMANIA, an interdisciplinary unit highlighting the Harlem Renaissance.  Students read Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes; created Civil Rights timelines in Technology; discussed basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s biography On the Shoulders of Giants in Physical Education; performed Jazz orchestral and vocal music in Band and Chorus; shared poetry via Poetry Slams; and, in Art Class, students created works for this exhibit.

Students is Mrs. Nelson’s Art class prepared Collages in the Style of Romare Bearden (1911-1988). His family moved from North Carolina as part of the Great Migration north (1916-1930) and ended in New York.  He was an artist who lived during the Harlem Renaissance, and was inspired by the music of Duke Ellington.

Students in Mrs. Castellano’s class viewed works of art from the Harlem Renaissance period by Aaron Douglas (1889-1979).  They also learned of a collaboration project created by Douglas and poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967) called Opportunity; it was a series of poems written by Hughes and illustrated by Douglas in 1920.  Together they created a body of work that epitomized the struggle and oppression felt by African Americans at that time.  Students chose a poem by Hughes or wrote their own to illustrate with emphasis placed on creating illustrations in the style of Douglas, using positive and negative space design.

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Peabody Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.