A major factor leading to the rise of the Harlem Renaissance was the migration of African-Americans to northern cities. Between 1919 and 1926, large numbers left their rural southern homes to move to urban centers such as New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Prominent figures to emerge from this era were writers Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, musicians Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois.