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European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 04
April 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 2379
Racial Humiliation to Recognition- A Study of Langston Hughes’ Poems
Mr. V. K. Gill
S.D. College
Panipat ,Haryana
Abstract
The chief purpose of this paper is to present the experience of African-American poet Langston
Hughes through the realms of racial humiliation to recognition among the white. The present
research work is an attempt to exhibit the poet how he acquires recognition in America after
passing through different stages of crisis vis-à-vis self-identity. The credit of nourishing the
black literature and inventing the cultural integration goes to James Mercer Langston Hughes
(1902-1967). A streak note of racial humiliation and struggle for self –recognition runs through
the whole poetry of Langston Hughes. The feelings of racial humiliation, struggle for
self-recognition and discrimination lands the poet into a world of double consciousness in which
the poet always hangs in doubt whether he thinks himself an American or an Outsider. The
attitude of the white forces the poet to feel that he is not a native of America but an alien. It
results that the poet suffers from what Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish Philosopher termed as
Existentialism which emphasizes on individual existence, freedom, choice and decision. It is
completely based on the human existence. After passing through a number of difficulties during
his life time, the poet does not lose hope. He remains optimistic and tried to recognize himself in
the white society. The structural elements of Langston Hughes’ poetry (alliteration, rhyme,
assonance and tone) exhibits racial discrimination between the black and the white. The poetry
of Langston Hughes also reflexes the racial discrimination. One can see the glimpse of negritude
and the revolutionary ideas in his poetry that takes the readers into a world of mysticism The
chief purpose of the present study is to exhibit how the blacks were compelled to leave their
Page 2 of 10
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 04
April 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 2380
native countries and were made slaves in certain parts of the world as in America.
Keywords
African-American literature, existentialism, double consciousness, Harlem Renaissance, racial
discrimination, NAACP.
Introduction
Born in Joplin, Missouri on February 2, 1902 Langston Hughes, the foremost American Poet of
the twentieth century is one of African- American poets in the history of American poetry. His
life has been difficult and miserable from the very beginning but his mother taught him to stand
against injustice and racial discrimination. His grandmother inculcated the feelings of self-pride
in him. After the death of his grandmother, Hughes went to live with Auntie Reed. Graduated
from Grammar School in Lincon, he composed his first real poems in the fashion of Paul
Lawrence Dunbar and his themes were love, steel mills and slums. In the beginning of his poetic
career, he could not show his poems to any one as he thought of them very serious and was
afraid that people would dislike his poems because of his inclination for the identity of his race.
In Harlem, the regeneration of black culture and ethnicity took place in the 1920's and they
became race conscious to a great extent. It was termed “Harlem Renaissance" by the critics and
scholars who became interested in it and its values. Harlem embodied bourgeois values for the
Negroes and became the Mecca of migrants. This place had become the biggest and brightest
spot in a promised land for the black. The Negro slavery system was introduced to the new world
by a Dutch who sold twenty one slaves to the colonist of Virginia in the year 1619. The study of
the poet understands the problems and internal psyche of the African-Americans. It surveys the
history of The Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement also known as New Negro Movement
in the city Harlem, New York in the year 1920s. This Movement produced an unprecedented
explosion of literature in the field of poetry, drama and novel created by African-Americans. An
intense study of Hughes’ poetry also exhibits the role of ‘Antebellum Press’ in abolishing slavery
and NAACP exhaustively which make the readers aware of the longevity of blacks in America.
This will also discusses how southern blacks rushed into America and brought the debate on
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European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 04
April 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 2381
racial identity to the forefront which finally helped the black in forging a future for the black
masses through recognition or existentialism. His first collection of poems The Weary Blues,
published in 1926 suggested a sense of superficiality of the white. He imparted a powerful
expression to the liberation of the black identity in his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers". His
second anthology “Fine Clothes to the Jew” published in 1927, Not without Laughter in 1930,
Shakespeare in Harlem in 1942, Fields of Wonder in 1947, One Way Ticket in 1949 and Jim
Crow's Last Stand in 1960 had achieved worldwide recognition and fame.
Literary Review
Jemie Onwuchekwa, Milton Meltzer, Jean Wagner, Saunders Redding, Faith Berry, Tish
dash, and Calvin Hernton guides us how to read Langston Hughes. Onwuchekwa proclaims that
Langston Hughes was a writer who faced opposition both from the white and the black. The
above mentioned critics consider the poet not only a product of significance but also undervalued
forces of his time. Langston Hughes also attempts to follow the principles of Dunbar, Chesnutt
and Jean Toomer. The poet himself declares,” Most of my poems are racial in themes. His theory
of existentialism emphasizes individual existence, freedom, decision and choice. Arnold
Rampersad and Onwuchekwa also try to prove how the poet transforms his journey from a
journey of frustration and humiliation to recognition. Langston Hughes’ poems such as The
Negro Speaks of Rivers, Aunt Sue’s Stories, Negro, As I Grew Older and A Black Pierrot
appeared a real condition that happened to the black. A streak note of racial humiliation and
identification runs through the whole poetry of Langston Hughes. The feelings of humiliation
and recognition landed the poet into a strange world of double consciousness. He hangs in doubt
whether he thinks himself an American or an outsider. Thus the structural element of his poetry
shows racial discrimination between the white and the black. Based on the aspects of racial
discrimination the poetry of Langston Hughes resulted inequality and ethnicity. Racial
unification against oppression, slavery and racial discrimination are observed in the poem “Sun
Song”.
