By 1914, there were 50,000 African Americans living in Harlem, and black institutions began to move there, including famous ones like Abyssinian Baptist Church and St. Philip's Episcopal Church. Meanwhile, the number of whites in Harlem began to decline. It had been a Jewish neighborhood—by some measures, in New York in 1910, the second-largest Jewish neighborhood, the Lower East Side being the largest. The Jews left Harlem, most of them to go to the Bronx. The wealthy ones tended to move south, to the Upper West Side. By 1930, Harlem had a black population of 200,000. A lot of famous writers congregated there, leading to what came to be called the Harlem Renaissance. The NAACP was founded there. Harlem became the most famous black neighborhood in the world, and the capital of black America. Adam Clayton Powell, Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X are associated with Harlem. Even today, Harlem is the most famous black neighborhood in the world, even though it is no longer the largest black neighborhood in New York City, let alone in the United States. But its name has instant recognition around the world.

A street scene in Harlem (c. 1920).

© Brown Brothers