After 1915, during World War I, African Americans experienced a role change. The economy in the South was getting worse and the African American migrated North to look for work. The industries in the North needed workers in order to produce many goods quickly for the war. African Americans were also fighting in the war. After the war was over, there were fever jobs, and may workers were jobless. African Americans needed a common ground to relate to this new world. The result was the Harlem Reniassance. Many forms of music, literature, and art emerged. African Americans believed that if they could produce great art, people would pay attention to them. The only problem they had was funding. Wealthy whites, who were sympathetic to their cause, donated money. The Great Depression caused the Harlem Renaissance to end. The task of the Harlem Reniassance was to identify and articulate a community consciousness rather than to overthrow existing institutions.

The Harlem evolved from an "anatomized gathering of Negroes to a self-conscience black mecca, the crucible of racial identity-building" (Watson 12). Like many Renaissance figures who struggled with their identities, W.E.B. DuBois describes this feeling of twoness- an American, a African as"two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." From this thinking spawns the concept of double-consciousness as a "sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others." DuBois, aware of how whites perceive him in society, continually tries to conform himself into these two identities.