Pasadena Black History Month Magazine - February 2023 | Pages 43 & 44
'BLACK MECCA' WILL CAPTURE THE MUSIC, DANCE, AND ART OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE - A BLOSSOMING OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE
Discover great legends of music, dance, poetry, theatre, fashion and art from a significant era in Black American History
Pasadena nonprofit Clazzical Notes aims to enlighten audiences with the significance of the Harlem Renaissance with a special experience called "Black Mecca" on Friday, Feb. 10.
The Harlem Renaissance was a significant period of growth and development for the African American community that flourished from the 1910s throughout the 30s — it was hailed as the Cultural and Artistic Revival of Black America.
The movement was centered in Harlem, Manhattan, and other boroughs of New York City, earning Harlem the title of the "Black Mecca" at the time.
The period saw intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship.
With "Black Mecca," Clazzical Notes intends to inform and remind people of some periods in U.S. history that were part of the Harlem Renaissance.
"Between the 1920s through the 1930s, that era is known as Black Mecca, because it basically indicated the great migration of many African-Americans leaving the South, where there was so much violence and discrimination and everything that we know about at that time, and moving north for better jobs and just a better way of life," said Jerri Price-Gaines, Founder and Executive Director of Clazzical Notes.
"Many of these people turned out to be or became the great legends of music and intellectuals and artists and poets. And this is what became Black Mecca.