Document 3

Howard Johnson was an African American newspaper editor.

…The time was ripe for a renaissance back then. After the defeat of the kaiser in Germany [in

World War I], a spirit of optimism and positive expectation swept across Harlem. The Allies won

the war for democracy, so now it was time for something to happen in America to change the

system of segregation and lynching that was going on. In Europe, the black [African American]

troops were welcomed as liberators; so when they came back to America, they were determined

to create a situation that would approximate the slogans they had been fighting for. They wanted

democracy at home in the United States. And this general idea helped feed the concept of “The

Renaissance.”…

A lot of people wonder how there could be joy and optimism in a community under the

conditions of segregation and discrimination. But the black community had two very important

forces that enabled it to survive and grow. One was the church, where you had the gospel and

the spiritual, which were inspirational in their basic content. And the other was the

entertainment world, where you had the music of the secular side, expressed in jazz.…

Source: Howard Johnson, interviewed in Jennings and Brewster, The Century, Doubleday, 1998

According to Howard Johnson, what was one effect of World War I on the black community?

According to Howard Johnson, what was one factor that helped the black community during the 192os?