A New Song By Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was the leading voice of African American people in his time, speaking through his poetry to represent blacks. His Influence through his poems are seen widely not just by blacks but by those who enjoy poetry in other races and social classes. Hughes poems, Harlem, The Negro speaks of rivers, Theme for English B, and Negro are great examples of his output for the racial inequality between the blacks and whites. The relationship between whites and blacks are rooted in America's history for the good and the bad. Hughes poems bring the history at large and present them in a proud manner. The injustice that blacks face because of their history of once being in bondage is something they are constantly reminded and ridiculed for but must overcome and bring to light that the thoughts of slavery and inequality will be a lesson and something to remember for a different future where that kind of prejudice is not found so widely.

Langston Hughes is an extremely successful and well known black writer who emerged from the Harlem Renaissance (“Langston Hughes” 792). He is recognized for his poetry and like many other writers from the Harlem Renaissance, lived most of his life outside of Harlem (“Langston Hughes” 792). His personal experiences and opinions inspire his writing intricately. Unlike other writers of his time, Hughes expresses his discontent with black oppression and focuses on the hardships of his people. Hughes’ heartfelt concern for his people’s struggle evokes the reader’s emotion. His appreciation for black music and culture is evident in his work as well. Langston Hughes is a complex poet whose profound works provide insight into all aspects of black

Langston Hughes is one the most renowned and respected authors of twentieth century America not simply one of the most respected African-American authors, though he is certainly this as well, but one of the most respected authors of the period overall. A large part of the respect and admiration that the man and his work have garnered is due to the richness an complexity of Hughes' writing, both his poetry and his prose and even his non-fictions. In almost all of his texts, Hughes manages at once to develop and explore the many intricacies and interactions of the human condition and specifically of the experience growing up and living as a black individual in a white-dominated and explicitly anti-Black society while at the same time, while at the same time rendering his human characters and their emotions in a simple, straightforward, and immensely accessible fashion. Reading the complexity behind the surface simplicity of his works is at once enjoyable and edifying.

Nearly every dictionary defines compassion as a sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others; but this locution goes deeper than a monotonous and heartless rendition. In Langston Hughes's prominent short story, ¨Thank You Ma'am¨, the newly formed relationship between a skinny and ragged boy named Roger, and a large, strong woman by the name of Mrs. Jones, begins to unfold. On the way from work, Mrs. Jones feels a wrench on her purse, and sees a teenage boy-Roger. At this point, the strap was beginning to snap from the boy´s weight, sending him to the ground. Within a matter of seconds, Mrs. Jones commences on gripping Roger by the front of his shirt, dragging him behind her, ignoring his cries to be released.

In the fight for equality, people of color often feel isolated and separated from those whose privilege reinforces their oppression. However, there are and always have been white people who see the inequalities that are practiced in society and speak out against them in hopes of reaching equality for all. Langston Hughes used his voice in poetry to express his experience as a black man in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement, and his is a household name. There is no doubt that his words have power. The reader expects to feel his experience and gain empathy and understanding through his poetry. In his poem, “Let America Be America Again,” Hughes presents his experience of American life in a powerful contrast to the experience

In the poems “Frederick Douglass” by Robert Hayden and “I, Too, Sing America” by Langston Hughes, both authors engage in the common themes of race, oppression, and freedom, but Hayden contextualizes the theme in a wider mindset instead of narrowing it down to just black oppression, while Langston contextualizes the theme with a direct approach to black oppression and freedom. Not only are the approaches to the topic different, but they also relate through the messages that they are conveying about freedom. Both authors’ way of engaging with the themes alters and enrich the understanding of the issues at hand. They broaden the reader’s scope on race, prejudice, and freedom while informing the reader that it will take time.

Langston Hughes exposes the horrors of segregation and lays a direction for the future of our nation in his poem “I, Too.” The poem, however, is so much more than a call to end racism in the nation. In reality, it delivers a message to forge a partnership between the “black race” and the “white race” for a more beautiful America in the future. Hughes conveys this message throughout the poem on multiple levels through his use of diction which resonates with a divergent group of audiences.

Published in 1949, Langston Hughes’s “Theme for English B” is about a young African American completing a homework assignment. In doing so, he contemplates his life, his status, and the difficulties that come with being “the only colored student in [his] class” (Hughes, 10). Living in the earliest years of the American Civil Rights Movement, our narrator understands that to be considered “truly American,” one must be Caucasian. Yet, he also understands that the world in which he lives and matures is in a state of rebellion and tumult; one that, he hopes, will itself mature into a place of peace and acceptance. His ideas, and the ideas of the poem, reflect a growing desire for societal change, which many up-and-coming African Americans yearned

Although Langston Hughes’ stories and essays were written almost 100 years ago, their messages are still relevant today. In his short pieces, “Who’s Passing for Who?” and “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” he describes the social and economic disconnect between white and black Americans that he observed and experienced throughout his life. Both essays highlight the strong feeling of “otherness” that black culture felt—there is a clear divide between black and white cultures. “Who’s Passing for Who?” tells the story of a white couple who are pretending to be part black in an attempt to experience an authentic night out in Harlem. “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” illuminates the internalized racism black people experience as a result of their pressure to conform to the standards of a white-driven culture. Both “Who’s Passing for Who?” and “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” reflect white culture’s continuous appropriation of black culture and the effects this has on the black community.

Have you ever been pressured into doing something? Not because you didn’t want to do it, but because the timing is just not right. Sometimes when people are forced to do something on someone else’s time, they’re unable to do so. In “Salvation,” Langston Hughes tells about being “saved from sin” (547) at a young age at his aunt’s church revival. Revivals are spiritual services that happen throughout the week or longer. He’s put under a lot of stress about the revival and shows many feelings throughout the essay. Hughes describes the experience he had while trying to be saved and his feelings of disappointment, peer pressure, and anger.

In Langston Hughes’ poem, “The Weary Blues”, a speaker comes across a depressed African American man who expresses his troubles through the music and song that are constantly running through his mind. Social and cultural context can be seen through a historical criticism of the work and shows what effect it had on the readers during the 1890’s-1930’s. The Blues were developed in the American south with ties to African American culture such as hymns, traditions songs, and spirituals. These songs were the embodiment of all the frustrations, violence, and oppression that this community had faced. Overall, the theme of this poem is that one has to reach a personal catharsis to be free of oppression and confinement rather than looking to their society

In “Dream Variations” the basic structure is 4 stanzas with each stanza representing a different time of the day. For example the first stanza is the daylight hours, the second transition is the transition to evening, and the final lines are the transition to night. This leads me to believe that the contrast of light to dark to central or important the the overall meaning of the poem. The theme of this poem just like many other Langston Hughes poems is dreams or dreaming. The entire poem is a metaphor of life or a dream compared to a bird. The only problem is the bird cannot fly so it must go a different path to fulfil its dream. Also throughout the end of the last few stanzas he compares night to himself.

In a time of great violence, great racial intolerance, injustice, and inequality in America at the time the writing of this poem was a real turning point as you see here Hughes addressed the point quickly by “Very quickly, very directly, Hughes moved beyond anger and resentment to expose the isolation that was the real tragedy of the mulatto in a racist society (Gale 2003). Also Hughes found and recognized when he was young were and why all this racism was happening here he says how he found out : “As Hughes developed his portrayal of the black lower classes and their ghetto environment, he became more and more preoccupied with the question of the Negro's racial identity. Hughes had begun his search for the meaning of the racial experience in America shortly after he graduated from high school (Gale 2003). In his first mature poem, "A Negros peaks of Rivers," he found an analogy between the river that flowed through his native Midwest and the ancient rivers that watered the lands where his race was born (Gale 2003). Even when the Blacks had no voice or any type of glow in the predominantly white society his voice and his poem somehow became the voice of all Blacks and the unofficial leader in the Harlem Renaissance he also backs this quote up by saying “African civilizations, and an "I" who speaks for the race, Hughes argues for the depth, wisdom, and endurance of the African soul (Gale 2003).

I know that you don’t know me, but hear me out a second. I’m Marisol Cruz, an eighteen year old college student heading to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. For the past eight years I’ve lived in Salem, arriving from the Dominican Republic at just the tender age of ten. I first attended Witchcraft Heights where I was placed in the ESL program to better assimilate with the culture and the language. Later, I moved on to Collins Middle School, and then to Salem High.

Life is about learning new things. In “Thank you Ma'am” written by Langston Hughes that is what happens. “Thank you ma’am” is about a kid who runs up to this woman at eleven o’clock and attempts to steal her purse. He tried to grab the purse and the strap broke causing him to fall. The woman picked him up and brought him to her house to teach him the right from wrong. The boy’s name was Roger and the woman’s name was Mrs.Luella Bates Washington Jones. After meeting Mrs. Bates Roger learned that stealing is wrong and he should try to be more trustworthy.