What social conditions led to the birth of the harlem renaissance?

African-American culture in the United States was first formed and developed under a brutal system of slavery.  After abolition, that same culture was forced to survive and develop in the age of Jim Crow segregation and institutional racism.  Every time in their American history, African-Americans had to form their ethnic and historical identities under the thumb of white rule and oppression.
It was the result of wanting to express themselves and culturally define themselves on their own terms