W. E. B. Du Bois was a prominent African-American intellectual who played a crucial role in initiating and promoting the Harlem Renaissance. David L. Lewis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 (1994), offers a comprehensive account of this influential thinker and NAACP founder during the years leading up to the Harlem Renaissance.

During the 1920s and 1930s, black visual artists experienced a surge of creativity and innovation akin to that of writers of the era. Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance (1997) explores the achievements of African-American painters, sculptors, photographers, actors, and singers from this period. Edited by Richard J. Powell and David A. Bailey, the book features 150 color plates and 100 black-and-white illustrations.

Beginning in 1910, the NAACP published The Crisis, a magazine that played a pivotal role in giving emerging Harlem Renaissance writers the visibility and experience they needed to hone their skills. The Crisis Reader: Stories, Poetry, and Essays from the NAACP’s “Crisis” Magazine (1999), edited by Sondra Kathryn Wilson, is a collection of works from the magazine, primarily from the 1920s.

Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association advocated for the rights of black Americans but believed that true equality could not be achieved in a predominantly white society like the United States. This controversial figure, whose philosophies inspired the “back to Africa” movement in the early 20th century and influenced many black intellectuals and others during the Harlem Renaissance, is the subject of the biography Marcus Garvey (1987), edited by Mary Lawler and Nathan Huggins.

George S. Schuyler was an African-American writer during the Harlem Renaissance known for his satirical critiques of the movement’s leaders, artists, and ideologies. Readers of his work in the 1920s and 1930s found his writing to be sharp and provocative, though sometimes deemed harsh. Critics in the 1960s and 1970s, however, often labeled him a reactionary conservative. Schuyler’s 1931 novel, Black No More, which tells the story of a black man who uses a formula to turn himself white, caused a stir and was reprinted in 1999.