ENGL 281 Lecture Notes - Lecture 36: Langston Hughes, Fred Flintstone, African-American Literature
Langston Hughes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnpItYHdP8Q
Considered America’s most important poet alongside one of the most influential
• It is important to look at poets that come After him
• Important to note that Hughes also wrote plays, novel, nonfiction, literary criticism in
addition to being a poet
Wrote most short stories than any other genre
• The Semple Stories: about Jessie B. Semple, a person that anticipates Fred Flintstone, Archie
Bunker
o The only author in American fiction in the 19th century that deserves as much
recognition as Hughes is Clemens
o The insights we get from Hughes tell us about whites, blacks, and America.
Twain taught us about race and racism and gave us context
You get the best that Poe, Twain, Melville, and Langston Hughes accomplishes all of this
1902: when he is born. Both black and white America is longing for the day that we can forget about
the civil war
• There are still groups of people that want to claim that past. See value in it and thinking that
the world was better prior to the civil war.
o The thought that there was a time when the world was better before 1902;
▪ If you are a people that were enslaved, it
▪ Forces you to look back at the times of slavery
It was clear that people that had this position were supportive of the oppressive
times that once were.
• When he is born, he is part of that people where their parents were not slaves
o The black families that had removed themselves from slavery had hopes that their
children would not suffer the same things that they had.
o Each generation has wished the same thing: to wish their lives independent of
whiteness and the structure that that group mainstream America, has placed on
Everyone except white males [aside from the class dynamic]
o It has always been a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight
▪ All of our codes accrued to these men
▪ The only group of people that has never had the law set against them
because these have always been in control of the law
Our hope is that these people in power that would embrace slavery and oppression, would fall out
of power
The irony of ironies, that the nation that imagines it to be the home of liberty and justice, is
constantly fighting for these exact things
1920: Hughes graduates high school
▪ Goes to Mexico for a year to visit his father
▪ Jesse Faucet discovers his poetry and publishes his work in a magazine called the Brownies
o He eventually gets publishes in the NAACP magazine
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
o One of the ironies is that Mason is always gets credited for finding Hughes, when it
was really Faucet, a black woman. who found him when he was just a teenager
1921: enrolls in Colombia University and writes a theme called Theme for English B.
▪ Drops out in 1922 and works in odd jobs in NY before ending up in a Marine vessel in 1924
and travels the world
o Learns about the world firsthand as a young person
o Only 22 years old
o Goes to Washington DC and works as a bus boy here when Vachel Linsday, a white
poet comes in and Hughes recognizes him
▪ Finds a way to get Vachel to see some of his poetry, and this is how he
makes it to NY with his poem, the Negro sings of Rivers.
Part of the youth group of the Harlem Renn.
1. Dubois, Faucet, older, mature adults
2. people in the early 20s: Countee Cullen, Claude McKay
When viewing the Harlem Renn, we forget the older generational writers
Fire! Literary magazine published in 1926 that ended very shortly after its quarters burning down
o as conceived to express the African-American experience during the Harlem Renaissance in
a modern and realistic fashion, using literature as a vehicle of enlightenment
o dealt with real life issues such as racism but also prostitution and homo sexuality, for which
it was very unfavored even by blacks
1926: DuBois writes an essay that talks about propaganda in negro art and that negro art should
have apolitical message
• Same message that one uses to critique hip hop today: trying to recognize power in that art
o Comes down to the responsibility of the artist to use that propaganda to improve the
condition of black families
▪ In response, Hughes writes The Negro
Artist and the Racial Mountain, in which he
disagrees
• Mosaic on the floor of a river, where Langston Hughes’
ashes are buried there.
1967: dies of stomach complications
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, 1926
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hughes/mountain.htm
was a brilliant man that through his writing was able to talk to both sides of America due to his
political writing that was remarkably relatable to anyone
This was the first moment in which a young black writer broke down from a generation the
preceded them
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
•Saying that he understood what that generation wanted of them, but that they would live a different
life
• The New Negro was youthful, prideful and remarkably talented
“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.”
“…And the mother often says "Don't be like niggers" when the children are bad. A frequent phrase
from the father is, "Look how well a white man does things." And so the word white comes to be
unconsciously a symbol of all virtues. It holds for the children beauty, morality, and money. The
whisper of "I want to be white" runs silently through their minds.”
• This idea of blackness being something bad, condemning, whereas whiteness is a virtue that
one must aspire to
o These are the kinds of things that led blacks to struggle so much in embracing their
identity, for they themselves aided in that process.
o Belief that they are not worth anything, not have anything to offer worth giving
The mountain:
The mountain people such as Langston Hughes and other artists struggled with was twofold:
1. whites where not happy because they were producing arts that was “inauthentic” in accordance to
the image white America wanted to keep alive of blacks
2. blacks were not happy because they had not yet come to terms with their own identity and thus
disagreed with the image artists portrayed.
-aspires to whiteness while suppressing their own identities
• Begins to talk about how Chesnutt and Dunbar had so much literary success, and yet he
does not because the times have changed
“The Negro artist works against an undertow of sharp criticism and misunderstanding from his own
group and unintentional bribes from the whites. "Oh, be respectable, write about nice people, show
how good we are," say the Negroes. "Be stereotyped, don't go too far, don't shatter our illusions
about you, don't amuse us too seriously. We will pay you," say the whites. Both would have told Jean
Toomer not to write Cane. The colored people did not praise it. The white people did not buy it.
Most of the colored people who did read Cane hate it. They are afraid of it.”
• His aspirations: “I expect to see the work of a growing school of colored artists who paint
and model the beauty of dark faces and create with new technique the expressions of their
own soul-world. And the Negro dancers who will dance like flame and the singers who will
continue to carry our songs to all who listen-they will be with us in even greater numbers
tomorrow.”
o To live in a moment where identity is not constructed based off of the consumerism
of the country or the expectations of others, but rather shown for what it truly is in a
proud manner
o Get people to see value in the aspects of life that are inherently theirs’; there is no
reason to aspire to whiteness
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Considered america"s most important poet alongside one of the most influential. It is important to look at poets that come after him. Important to note that hughes also wrote plays, novel, nonfiction, literary criticism in addition to being a poet. Wrote most short stories than any other genre: the semple stories: about jessie b. semple, a person that anticipates fred flintstone, archie. Bunker: the only author in american fiction in the 19th century that deserves as much recognition as hughes is clemens, the insights we get from hughes tell us about whites, blacks, and america. Twain taught us about race and racism and gave us context. You get the best that poe, twain, melville, and langston hughes accomplishes all of this. Both black and white america is longing for the day that we can forget about the civil war: there are still groups of people that want to claim that past.
