why do you think so few african americans had achieved literacy success before the harlem renaissance

Most of Afro American were slaves until the end of civil war. After that they were struggling to have civil participation. The Civil Rights Act in 1821 encouraged many Afro American crongressman to talk about it. However, In the south the white Democrats terrorized black Americans with lynch mobs and instituted a convict system in which many Afro-Americans were forced to work free in mines, plantations, public work projects. Few Afro American had their own land. They were exploited as sharecroppers.

The renaissence came after a great migration from the south into the African American neighborhoods of the Northeast and Midwest.