Song For A Dark Girl By Langston Hughes

This poem focuses on the lynching of a African American male. The speaker of the poem appears to console a woman who appears to be distressed due to the events taking place. In the first four lines of stanza 1, the speaker says:

     Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes creative intellect was influenced by his life in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. Hughes had a very strong sense of racial pride. Through his works he promoted racial equality and celebrated the African American culture. It was in Lincoln, Illinois that Hughes started to write his poetry. In November 1924, he moved to Washington D.C. where he published his first book of poetry. Hughes is known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America. Langston is also known for his commitment to jazz. Hughes refused to distinguish between his personal and common understandings of black America. He

Harlem Renaissance was undoubtedly a cultural and social-political movement for the African American race. The Renaissance was many things to people, but it is best described as a cultural movement in which the high level of black artistic cultural production, demanded and received recognition. Many African American writers, musicians, poets, and leaders were able to express their creativity in many ways in response to their social condition. Until the Harlem Renaissance, poetry and literature were dominated by the white people and were all about the white culture. One writer in particular, Langston Hughes, broke through those barriers that very few African-American artists had done before this

As time has passed humanity still tends to separate each other based on our racial being rather than seeing each other as one human race. Langston Hughes’s, “A New Song,” published in 1938 introduces the idea of a new vision of social relations in American society. Hughes’s original version of this poem written in 1933, does not encompass his growing anger on this subject that is dwelled upon in his published version. However, with Hughes’s powerful tone and word choice throughout his 1938 rendition, his reader is able to understand his urge to transform America into an interracial culture. (Central Idea) His poem voices the importance of transforming society into a multiethnic unity and working-class established through cultural ties between whites and blacks. (Thesis) Hughes voices this crucial need to change through his emphasis on African American’s past struggles as opposed to the new dream, his militant tone, and through expressing the role that the establishment of cultural ties plays in society.

Langston Hughes was known for his poems of black activity in America since the 1920’s to the 1960’s, which was the time of the Harlem Renaissance. “My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.” Throughout Langston’s life he has seen and experienced racism. He used these experiences to give him ideas of things he could write about. Back then white people were the majority in Harlem, but then once the blacks started to come they dispersed. “We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.” Langston knew that blacks should express themselves no matter what color they are and not be ashamed of it. Some white people may like that they are expressing themselves, on the other hand, some white people may not accept that the

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural and social movement that occurred due to black migration to the north increasing the social and economic boom. Langston Hughes is one of the influential African Americans that contributed to the Harlem Renaissance, by writing about events and his surroundings, his work was able to help struggling African Americans. Langston Hughes was born in February 1, in 1902 in Missouri. He began writing poetry while living in Lincoln, Illinois and years later he launched his literary career with his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Most of his writings were influenced by his upbringing in New York City’s Harlem, which was a predominantly black community.

Audre Lorde’s poem shows the reader the prevalence of racism and inequality during the early twentieth century. The poet describes the brutal murder of Emmett Till, an African American boy, for whistling at a white woman. This directly reflects how many white people felt toward African Americans during Audre Lorde’s early life. Audre Lorde mentions the location of her poem is Jackson, Mississippi (Lorde 47). For modern readers, this is another direct way that the poet references racial inequality and the attitudes of people because it is common knowledge

The Harlem Renaissance was a time of great commotion spanning the 1920s, also known as the “New Negro Movement.” One of the more well-known movers and shakers of the Harlem Renaissance is Langston Hughes. He amongst other artist brought new forms of black cultural expressions into urban areas that had been affected by The Great Migration. Harlem was the largest area affected by said Great Migration. Though the Harlem Renaissance was centered in Harlem the power and strength contained in the words of artist such as Langston Hughes reached Paris and even the Caribbean. Langston Hughes was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance movement. His vast amounts of work are what brought attention to the struggles and realities of the time

Langston Hughes seemed to be the “Father of the Harlem Renaissance”. Some of the poems that he wrote were some of the most famous of the movement. He was the first poet to capture what was going on in his poems. He had the capability of colorfully portraying black life during this time period through his poetry. Hughes would not differentiate between his experience, and

Langston Hughes was a well known poet during the 1920s who was a main part of the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote 60 books including poems, novels, short stories, plays, children's poetry, musicals, operas, and autobiographies. Langston drew inspiration from his grandmother to write. Langston Hughes wrote poems about inequality and a sense of hope about how things would change. Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri.

Langston Hughes, a gentleman of color who was a leader to the African American community is a poet, who according to an editor of “Harlem Renaissance” portrayed the truth rather than a sugar-coated version of how life was in Harlem, the hub of the black community. Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem” describes how colored people live in poverty, in the poem “Dream Variations” Hughes’ dream was symbolized by nature, and in the short story “Slave on the Block,” racism and life of a domestic slave are shown from his point of view. The time when these pieces of work were created was an era when black artistry was opening the eyes of white America to how poorly Afro Americans were treated; this movement was called the Harlem Renaissance, as said in “Harlem Renaissance”. In this movement, Hughes was a force of nature that pursued equality among all races, yet still maintaining integrity and pride. White America was not a welcoming place for people of melanin, white people were not sentimental or generous with them so people say it was more described as, “The cold, uncaring atmosphere of the United States were for blacks discrimination, racism, and often brutal treatment were a feature of everyday life” (“Dream”). Not only did Hughes have to endure the pain of this treatment but so did all colored people.

During the 1920’s a new movement began to arise. This movement known as the Harlem Renaissance expressed the new African American culture. The new African American culture was expressed through the writing of books, poetry, essays, the playing of music, and through sculptures and paintings. Three poems and their poets express the new African American culture with ease. (Jordan 848-891) The poems also express the position of themselves and other African Americans during this time. “You and Your Whole Race”, “Yet Do I Marvel”, and “The Lynching” are the three poems whose themes are the same. The poets of these poems are, as in order, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude Mckay.

The passage I chose was a short poem by Langston Hughes. Song for a Dark Girl. Which tells a story of two young black lovers being torn apart, by a town torn by racism. Dixie which is the historical nickname for the South. They may be in Mississippi, Alabama, or Georgia. It could be any state from South Carolina to Texas. Her heart has been broken because a mob or someone has lynched her young dark lover, who is a black. Not only did they lynch him but they hung his body on the tree hanging over a crossroad which could imply that it is a two way street. His death could’ve been caused because of his actions, or because it was simply a racist killing. But the hanging him on the crossroad tree so everyone would see him. It’s almost like they are

There are only a few times in one’s life where he or she may read, hear, or observe words that shake his or her world to its core. For me, the words sung by Billie Holiday and a poem written by Langston Hughes created such an instance. Both of these messages draw up a darkly morbid image in an attempt to shine a light on a series of grim atrocities. Of the two instances to which I am referring, one is the poem Georgia Dusk by Langston Hughes, and the other is the jazz standard Strange Fruit sung by Billie Holiday.

Most of this was caused by the Ku Klux Klan, but at the same time there were angry mobs mostly white southern farmers that disliked many African Americans for gaining some political power that is why there were these lynching that happened. Besides this song there were also many other ways in which white southerners expressed there "satisfaction" of killing these innocent African Americans, and that is taking photos and making postcards out of them to send to others in their family as a type of gift. Thus it shows that at one point in time lynching became one part of American culture whether it be in a song or with gifts, lynching was definitely a scar that provided the fear that still lives within people