Jim Crow laws were a set of laws that limited the rights of African American individuals, and the response to those laws was a movement toward equality. One of those campaigns was the New Negro Movement, the beginning of a civil rights movement that took place in the 1920s. The push occurred due to the movement of African Americans from rural areas to urban areas due to the pressure of Jim Crow laws. The act triggered a literary push and social and economic opportunities for black individuals and kicked off the new black culture. The literary and artistic movement created by the New Negro movement which was called the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was an artistic movement with close ties to civil rights. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement of the 1920s seeking a foundation for African American culture and civil rights. Artists during the Harlem Renaissance such as Archibald Motley helped paint the picture of a more refined black culture. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Archibald John Motley was born on October 7, 1891, in New Orleans, soon after his family moved to Chicago, what would become his childhood home. Motley's sister, Florence *Flossie* Motley, was born in 1895 a year after the move. Motley attended Englewood High School and received a full architecture scholarship to the Chicago Armor Institute, but turned it down to go to the School of Art Institute of Chicago. Motley's studies at the Art Institute focused on the human figure and art history. Motley after college “began to paint mostly portraits, and during that time he produced some of his best-known works, including Woman Peeling Apples (14), a portrait of his grandmother called Mending Socks (1924), and Old Snuff Dipper (1928. )” (Naomi Bloomberg). A successful piece she produced was Mending Socks, a portrait of her grandmother knitting socks with a portrait of her hanging on the wall behind her grandmother. The illustration was very well received by critics and even earned him an award from the Harmon Foundation. in 1924 Motley married Edith Granzo, a white woman he had secretly dated during high school. His wife inspired him to paint many portraits of her. In 1925 Archibald Motley starred in a one-man art show in New York City, the first African American to do so. In 1928 he began publishing his jazz-inspired works which received critical acclaim. In 1929 Motley received a Guggenheim Fellow and moved to Paris, where he began publishing jazz-inspired works that brought him fame like none of his works before. During the Great Depression Motley received government grants to paint people's conditions. In 1948, Archibald Motley's wife died and he stopped painting for eight years, working instead at a company that made hand-painted shower curtains” (Naomi Bloomberg). Motley's return to art after the assassination of Martin Luther King JR. The assassination inspired him to create his final work: The First Hundred Years, in which “Motley captured in a single painting how the optimism of the civil rights movement collapsed following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and race riots. "(Emily Shire). Archibald Motley died shortly after a screening of The First One Hundred Years on January 16, 1981 in Chicago. Archibald Motley's early artistic interests germinated at the Chicago Art Institute where he first studied the human form which, combined with nightlife and jazz inspiration, allowed the formation of a unique style Motley's grandmother is commonly focused on the figure, with two.