Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance: Reflections on African American Life

The African American Life Within Langston Hughes’s Literary Works During the early 1920’s, a new movement had begun to stir amongst the African American people within the United States. The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and literary movement in which African Americans began to truly create their own culture and identity. This revolutionary movement had begun in Harlem, New York, but had quickly spread to various parts of the United States. The best known leader of the Harlem Renaissance was a man by the name of Langston Hughes. Hughes generated mass fame through his literary works that depicted the average life, culture, values, and troubles that many African Americans were facing during the 1920’s. Three of

The poem tells of a young black with a writing assignment in which he must simple write a page on whatever he wants. Hughes uses the narrator in this poem to give some insight on the obstacles that he believed stood in his path while he was trying to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. The speaker tells the audience that he is in college and that “I am the only colored student in my class” (Hughes line 10). During that time period, it was very rare for anyone of color to participate in higher education. The speaker tells us he is from the Harlem area, and he identifies with the people of Harlem just as Harlem identifies with him. Hughes understood the feelings and everyday lives of the people of Harlem, New York, and gave his fictional speaker those same understandings. The writer tells his audience of his feelings towards the white American population when he says, “I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like / the same things other folks like who are other races” (lines 25-26). Hughes’s used his speaker to explain how black and whites both want to be writers, but blacks are put at a disadvantage due to the social differences of the two. Langston Hughes wanted his readers to understand the cultural differences of people of color and people on non-color. Jeannine Johnson asserts that “for Hughes, poetry is to some degree about self-expression and self-exploration, especially when the "self" is understood to mark the identity of an individual who is always affected by and affecting a larger culture.” One of the most noted portions of this poem is when the speaker tells his instructor, “You are white / yet a part of me, as I am a part of you / That’s American” (lines 31-33). These lines tell the reader that although whites and blacks have their differences, that regardless of race they are both American. Hughes uses