“Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of the creative industry that help human beings make sense of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives ” This was said by Aberjhani in the book Journey Through the Power of the Rainbow: Quote from a Life of Poetry. Poetry during the Harlem Renaissance was how African Americans made sense of everything, good or bad, that “contextualized” their lives. The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the Black Renaissance or New Negro Movement, was a cultural movement among African Americans. It all started roughly after the end of World War I in 1918. Black people were considered second class citizens and were treated as such. Frustrated, African Americans moved North to escape Jim Crow laws and for greater opportunity. This was known as the Great Migration. They migrated to East St. Louis, Illinois, the south side of Chicago and Washington, D.C., but another place they migrated to and the main place they focused on in the renaissance is Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance created two goals. “The first was that black authors sought to highlight the injustices of racism in American life. The second was to promote a more unified and positive culture among African Americans" (Charles Scribner's Sons). The Harlem Renaissance is a period. It was during that time that I first learned to appreciate the Harlem Renaissance, a period in which African Americans rose to prominence in the American scene. For the first time they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes and political thinkers” (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). African American writers in this period were capturing the beauty of black lives to be proud of their race. Racial pride was helping them achieve equality in society