Even as the great migration of the twentieth century was happening, during the building and collecting of colored folks, colored artist gathered in the hull of New York City’s Harlem; when forming the renaissance that it was, there was brewing a more organized way, a concentrative effort to be cohesive in framing the black American experience, with help and funding (of course from the white dollar) that the Harlem Renaissance be an authentic black art form. Black music and art had its stable place in America had carved out its own voice and now the writers gather poets, politicians, playwrights and storytellers alike and it was evident that there was a distinctive black voice but just like with music not so much art behavior and attitudes had to be weeded out, there needed to be a cohesive front, that wanted and needed to be heard, appreciated and assimilated enough to be taken seriously in the literary world, there was a need for a black aesthetic. Both Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston became members and residence of Harlem and if not the most popular and well-known of the Renaissance for a time when it began and most certainly now caused a stir in what black writing was. One would continue to produce the artwork that was most passionate to his idea of being black in America much to some of the members’ discontent and the other would be driven into obscurity and out-of-print for nearly decades for writing her truths of black life and possibly displaying colorism in the American Black lives. In the brewing, the collecting and publishing of The Harlem Renaissance, the sentiments of the Black Arts Movement was forming and building steam and would eventual split the Harlem members in half and emerge as the New Negro which then lead to the movement, echoing the political movement.
Langston Hughes despite the disagreement from fellow Renaissance member wrote like Romare Bearden(another Harlem Renaissance member) once quoted; “I think the artist has to be something like a whale, swimming with his mouth wide open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs,” and recorded through his poetry every aspect of black life from his southern life to city, music and love with an added measure or dreams and hopes. In Hughes work is a theme that no matter of the facts and circumstance, that there is always a ray of "hope" possible. Hope and I think dreams are a major theme in many of his writings and for many of the poems suggested hopes and dreams was used interchangeable. In many cases of the poems we read of Hughes the repetition of words and lines played a part in his representation of musical elements in his writings, they mainly played a role for his blues or blues like poems, to demonstrate that feelings of the people of the blues singers and musicians as in Trumpet Player , Miss Blues'es Child in the latter poem Hughes also plays with rhyme words that also gives hints of the blues music. So I see Hughes gives us enough to show I know how to use the language and then he gives us the people use, i feel authenticity and this is where he and others disagreed on. Hughes didn't talk this way, he was college and comfortably lived and learned, so why the use of the vernacular and how does that change your view of his use? This is such a good example of slang/not slang and how the structure and rhyme scheme moves the flow of the poem along. How do you think the reading or the flow would change if he said instead of "my old man" but father or "my ma" but mother? The flow doesn't really change does it? it is the personality of the poem, he could have used slang in other places too in this poem instead of "If I ever" why didn't he go full with slang using ifn? or "Being neither" I ain't? He doesn’t because he wants to show the duality of the speaker really shines here and like you said, the reader get a good feel of the personality in this piece The Cross (p 158). Three poems stood out to me, Theme for English B, Who But the Lord and Deferred, that address lack or limited access to a good education, police violence towards blacks, and just the weight of the black conditions in America. The best example of the double consciousness of blacks in America is Freedom’s Plow where Hughes declares, “Who is America? You, me!/ We are America!” (pg. 297) Hughes recording of black life, realism, in dissecting is full of duality in love and hate relationship with America, full of social and political ills and seeding with dreams and hopes.
It isn’t until we read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston that we are emerged in Colorism prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group." colorism within the black community has been a serious emotional and psychological battle" which is rampant in this novel and have been the subject matter through African American literature and is still an issue today. One direct example is the conversation between Mrs. Turner and Janie;
You’se different from me. Ah can’t stand black niggers. Ah don’t blame de white folks from hatin’ em’ cause Ah can’t stand em’ mahself….Always laughin’! Dey laughs too much and dey laughs too loud. Always singin’ ol nigger songs! Always cuttin’ de monkey for white folks. If it wuzn’t for so many blacks folks it wouldn’t be no race problem. De white folks would take us in wid dem. De black ones is holdin’ us back. Pg. 141.
even the islanders were some form of others and the scene with the Indians passing was a great example they repeating no doubt what they heard the white man saying about Native Americans. Hurston gives us nanny and her talk about no count niggers, she gives us Jody and his indifference to towns people (and Jody was of darker skin) displaying a prejudice through a cast system (imagine), she gives us the two police men in was it Tampa or the city above the muck, she gives us the court room scene with the whites running the court and the blacks watching and listening in and she also gives us the women on the porch (sometimes the hardest and most heart-breaking judges is the person/people of the same race And same gender).
The thing about Jody some of his actions were seen as uplift, but think about how he was to Janie? What kind of husband was he, how was he seen in the eyes of the community and how did he see the community? Also, look again at uplift yes he built the community brought some things to the community, but did he profit more? Is capitalism the goal of uplift? Many black men saw this as a attack on their (black men) character from Hurston, ok you maybe copying what you think is uplift but who and what are you uplifting, when you are looking down and taking advantage of the people?
And even though Tea Cake open Janie to most of her heart desire, was the love of her life and was the source of Janie "exhale" he also beat her and her first husband is a "no count" so what is she implying about black men and the way they relate to the world, their community and their women? Let’s think again about the word "uplift," and what Hurston is saying about the relationship between the black man and the black woman? With all these social issues Hurston still intertwined black life and their connection to nature and some of the most lyrical verses in prose one could ever read;
Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something felled off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over...She had no blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals use to be. She had found she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about....She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them. pg 72
It is the art of storytelling no matter the race or gender just plain (not plain) great story telling!!! The language is beautiful, and so is the imagery! And even if it is exploring the black woman’s struggle it is more than likely any woman’s struggle who have once though they had captured love and security from that perfect man.
Both Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston made the commitment to write for the sake of Art and follow their passion and although they choose a path that moved in a different direction of the black aesthetic, is their writing far from upliftment? Both writers put a mirror up to the black race, showing that assimilation, injustice, jobs or the lack there of is not the only problems the race need to confront. Both authors in several different venues offer much to the black race, then politics, social concerns about proper behavior but none of those things are lacking in their work even if their words are colorful, lyrical and in some for of the mouth of color folks.
Yes, the complex issues of past and present Black America echo in every aspect of todays society. Langston, one of my favorites, brings to life [some] Black circumstances. There are many. As a light skinned Black man (yes, part Native America, and yes, part White) i see and experience all parts of "our" America.