Shaikh 1

Shahzad Shaikh Prof. Donnel English 1B 19 November 2012

Harlems Prodigy

Culture is something that every human being posses and practices. Without culture, one has no identity. Culture is created by ideas, by struggles, by understanding, and by unity. One man put these characteristics into place. A man that shaped the connotation of the words, freedom and American. This man was Langston Hughes. Using the depth in his poetry and literature, Hughes redefined what it meant to be black in the early 1900s when the emancipation proclamation, was just under a hundred years old. African Americans were still fighting for simple rights and being treated equally was a far-fetched idea. This paper explains that Langston Hughes was one of the dominant artists responsible for the development of African-American literature, known as the Harlem Renaissance, which was responsible for the increase of self-identity of the black culture in the United States.

Prior to there even being a hint of the Harlem Renaissance, African Americans were on two sides of the line. Some supported the idea of integration with the whites and living alongside the white Americans. While others, opposed

Shaikh 2

such madness and sought to stay separated and thrive amongst themselves (Rhynes 16). Post Civil War African Americans had bright dreams of liberty and equality. President Abraham Lincoln gave the blacks a sense of hope and issued the emancipation proclamation to free all slaves in rebellious states during the bloody American Civil War. In addition to the proclamation, the Union armys Major General William Tecumseh Sherman issued a special field order to provide arable land to black former slaves who had become free as a result of the advance of the Union armies (Giovanni 41). The term 40 acres and a mule was coined from this order.

Although these gestures looked as if though they would be a turning point for blacks in the United States, they were harshly rejected in just a matter of time. General Shermans order was reversed when Lincoln was assassinated. President Andrew Johnson, Lincolns successor, returned the land given to the freed blacks, back to the previous White owners. As for the Emancipation Proclamation, it was still legally in effect, but blacks were still treated dishonorably, nothing much had changed. Blacks lived under the radar and oppressed, until a heavy push for equality surfaced in the 1900s.

Before Langston Hughes, there were very dominant accomplishments that began the movement to equality and starting forming the self-identity for African Americans in the United States. From 1900 to 1905 alone, twenty-eight black owned banks were formed, The Atlanta Life Insurance Company, the first black

Shaikh 3

insurance business was founded, Numerous African American Newspapers were founded

Including: Bostons Guardian, and Chicagos Defender. By Virtue of their existence, these organizations and many others exploded the old stereotypes. How could anyone this of an African American as ignorant Southern laborers when they were running banks and insurance companies, organizing social agencies and political parties, and publishing newspapers across America. Class, education, or geography could no longer limit blacks(Giovanni 9-10).

Langston Hughes, Harlems Prodigy, was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. His family was well off and he was able to attend school with no financial roadblocks. Hughes wrote poetry and literature throughout his life. In middle school he received an award for poetry. He enrolled in Columbia Universitys engineering school because his father stressed him that writing was not something one can make a living off of. Hughes was always a strong believer in fighting for his rights as a black man, but he wanted to do it with his pen. Hughes dropped out of Columbia, although he had exceptional grades, and deciding to pursue writing (Rhynes 43). His first published poem was very informal and written on an envelope on his way to Mexico. Hughes was inspired to write this while crossing the Mississippi River to St. Louis (Rhynes 51). The poem was called The Negro Speaks of Rivers. The poem is very emotional, and in a sense, sets the

Shaikh 4

foundation to the rest of Hughes career: I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and Ive seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. Ive known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers (Hughes 1919). One can immediately start to see Hughes interest and passion in his race through this poem. He speaks of Abe Lincoln, the president that freed the slaves. He shows the reader the transformation of things that is possible. The Mississippi river that turns golden in the sunset can represent a black man. The way his knowledge is so valuable and he is capable of so many things, but he is oppressed and remains with a muddy bosom. As he writes each word of this poem, he constructs each building block necessary for his path to achieve equality for the blacks in the United States. Later in 1926 Hughes wrote an essay. This essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, served as an uplifting for the Negro race:

One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, "I want to be a poet--not a Negro poet," meaning, I believe, "I want to write like a white poet"; meaning subconsciously, "I would like to be a white poet"; meaning behind that, "I would like to be white." And I was sorry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself. And I doubted then that, with

Shaikh 5

his desire to run away spiritually from his race, this boy would ever be a great poet. But this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America--this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible (Hughes 1926). The essay shows how Hughes strives to create an identity for the African American. He generates and supports the idea that started and thrived around the Harlem Renaissance. Later in the essay, Hughes states:

Most of my own poems are racial in theme and treatment, derived from the life I know. In many of them I try to grasp and hold some of the meanings and rhythms of jazz. I am as sincere as I know how to be in these poems and yet after every reading I answer questions like these from my own people: Do you think Negroes should always write about Negroes? I wish you wouldn't read some of your poems to white folks. How do you find anything interesting in a place like a cabaret? Why do you write about black people? You aren't black. What makes you do so many jazz poems (Hughes 1929).

He accepts that his mode of writing is racially themed, and in a sense, officially labels himself as a black representative for literature and poetry. Hughes splits up the two groups of blacks. The ones that follow Booker T. Washington, who think that they should integrate with Whites and be like them, and the ones that

Shaikh 6

follow Du Bois, who think that blacks should have their own identity and not try to mingle with Whites. Hughes takes Du Bois standpoint on this issue. (Meltzer 68) A poem that is one of the most famous of Hughes is, I, Too, Sing America. In this poem Hughes sets out to define what it means to be black, and the struggles that come along with it. He also defines and explains what it means to him to be American:

I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh And eat well, And grow strong (Hughes 1927).

Hughes relays the idea of the Harlem Renaissance. The idea being, blacks are American too! This poem is written to show his fellow blacks that they are as much of a part of America as any white man is:

Theyll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed- I, too, am America..(Hughes 1927).

Shaikh 7

He concludes with a statement saying that in time all of America will see how beautiful the black race really is, and everything that their capable of. Hughes compiled many poems through his life that stressed one topic in different forms: black equality. The center for this idea, Harlem, was Langstons home from 1948 to his death. (Medina 26). He came there on and off throughout his life, and derived most of his inspiration from this area. Thus, being a major part of the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem was often called, Nigger Heaven(Vechten 12). In 1953, senator Joseph McCarthy started an investigation on Langston Hughes due to him being a very influential person in the black world. McCarthy believed that Hughes was involved in conspiracy and treason. He thought of the poet as an enemy to this country because he spoke against White Americans. During the trial Hughes stated:

I never read the theoretical books of socialism or communism or the Democratic or Republican Party for that matter, and so my interest in whatever may be considered political has been non-theoretical(Hughes1953).

Defending himself against the allegations of him being a national enemy affiliated with one of the trouble or dangerous parties. He also began to back up his original argument on why he wrote poetry and stood up for his people in the first place:

Shaikh 8

Segregated, poor, colored, and how I can adjust to this whole problem of helping to build America when sometimes I can not even get into a school or a lecture or a concert or in the South go the library and get a book out.(Hughes 1953). At the end of it, he was dismissed and not charged with any crimes, but still, at the age of 51, Hughes relayed what he stood for all his life. (Rhynes 61).

In May of 1967, Hughes died from complications of abdominal surgery related to prostate cancer. Although the man was gone, Hughes legacy lived on. It reached as far as the twenty-first century with films and works of literature still referencing Hughes and using his ideologies. Hughes says:

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line(Hughes 1941).

Despite the censorship and difficulties that Hughes faced, he came out to be one of the most unique and intelligent influences on Americans. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted Mr. Hughes in one of his speeches to the American people. This shows how influential James Langston Hughes really was. Hughes re-defined what it is to be American, what it is to be free, and what it is to be an African American. He not only fought for the equality of his people, he showed all Americans what being an American means. The Declaration of Independence promises, ...the

Shaikh 9

right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Langston Hughes worked all of his life to uphold those promises to his people, and succeeded.

Annotated Works Cited

Meltzer, Milton, and C. Eric Lincoln. A Pictorial History of African Americans. 6th. New York, New York: Crown Publishers, 1995. Print. This book provides information and details on the social, economic, political, and cultural influence on African American society. Edition 6 includes in-depth studies on how Langston Hughes and other Harlem Renaissance authors influenced and shaped the American persona today.

Rhynes, Martha. I, Too, Sing America. 1. North Carolina: Morgan Reynolds Inc., 2002. Print. This piece provides an overview of the life of Langston Hughes. It also shows his progression to becoming a very well known and influential poet.

Tony , Medina. Love To Langston. 1. New York, New York: Lee and Low Books Inc., 2002. Print. This book shows each of the poems written by Hughes, and poems written pertaining to the same movement that Hughes was involved in. It also provides an analysis of the poems and what period of time in Langston Hughes life the poem was written in.

Shaikh 10

Nelson, Cary. "Hughes's "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926)." Illinois.Edu. University of Illinois, n.d. Web. 17 Nov 2012. <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hughes/mountain.htm>. This webpage showed the entire essay that Langston Hughes wrote in 1926, titles The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.

Giovanni, Nikki. Harlem Stomp. 1. New York, New York: Little Brown, 2003. Print. This book informs the reader of different figures of the Harlem Renaissance. It also examines different literary pieces and artwork of the period.