Against the Odds: The Artists of the Harlem Renaissance

Against the Odds: The Artists of the Harlem Renaissance tells how black artists triumphed over formidable odds. This documentary, narrated by actor Joe Morton, features more than 130 rarely seen paintings, prints, photographs, and sculptures by black artists, and even more rarely seen archival footage of those artists at work.

The period of the 1920s and '30s known as the Harlem Renaissance encompassed an extraordinary outburst of creativity by African-American visual artists. Racial prejudice and segregation, however, not only kept them out of the mainstream museums and galleries where they could show and sell their art, but threatened the very core of their personal artistic expression.

Rich archival footage, including newsreels and photographs, recalls the influential force of the exhibitions, the vibrancy of Harlem in the roaring twenties, and the many significant personalities that shaped the movement, such as William E. Harmon, W.E.B. DuBois, and Alain Locke.