The Negro And The Racial Mountain - 976 Words

Langston Hughes was an African American poet, social activist, novelist, and playwright. His works are still studies, read, and, in terms of his poems and plays, performed. He is best known for being a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Within his works, he depicted black America in manners that told the truth about the culture, music, and language of his people. Besides his many notable poems, plays, and novels, Hughes also wrote essays such as The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain which Hughes gives insight into the minds of middle-class and upper-class Negroes. Prior to reading this essay, I never heard of, nor did I know, Langston Hughes composed essays, much less an essay that outwardly depicts aspects of life that most are accustomed to and see nothing wrong with. The Negro and the Racial Mountain formulated this view that Langston Hughes was more than a poet who wrote about jazz music as he is depicted within grade school textbooks, but instead, a man who had a great passion for the African American race to develop a love for themselves and for non-African American audiences to begin to understand how the African American race can be strong and creative despite struggles that may be occur. There is a possibility that this essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, is not more commonly known because it has the ability to make the reader uncomfortable, no matter if he is an African American or white. For the African American, one can find himself reflecting backShow MoreRelatedThe Negro Artist And The Racial Mountain878 Words   |  4 Pages† and â€Å"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,† he describes the social and economic disconnect between white and black Americans that he observed and experienced throughout his life. Both essays highlight the strong feeling of â€Å"otherness† that black culture felt—there is a clear divide between black and white cultures. â€Å"Who’s Passing for Who?† tells the story of a white couple who are pretending to be part black in an attempt to experience an authentic night out in Harlem. â€Å"The Negro Artist andRead MoreThe Negro Artist And The Racial Mountain873 Words   |  4 Pagesâ€Å"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain† (1926) The article â€Å"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain† by Hughes (1926), the author shows a situation that the African Americans felt underestimated for being black and attempted to embrace whites’ culture. This was because white people looked down on them during that era. He shows this by expressing his disappointment with a statement made by one of the most promising of the young Negro poets who says that, â€Å"I want to be a poet not a Negro poet,†Read MoreChallenges in The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain by Langston Hughes2027 Words   |  8 Pages In the words taken from the essay â€Å"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,† Langston Hughes offers insightful statements that verge on the boundary of being, in a sense, challenges. He is directly confronting the implicit wariness of social stratification in that he dismisses the societal need for humans to conform and to adopt personalities and views for themselves that are significantly molded by the outside world. Langston Hughes is saying that humans, no matter their circumstance or originRead MoreAnalysis Of Langston Hughes s The Negro Artist And The Racial Mountain ``1075 Words   |  5 Pagescollaboration and publishing while simultaneously establishing the ideal era for artists to fight for the unification and acceptance of black identity. Therefore, in this context, Langston Hughes’s animosity toward Countee Cullen in â€Å"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain† seems eloquent and justifiable when Hughes obscurely claims that the black poe t who wishes he were a poet is subconsciously saying, â€Å"I wish I were white† by means of supporting black progress. Hughes argues that his desire to be â€Å"aRead MoreThe Negro Artist And The Racial Mountain : The Manifesto For Artists Of The Harlem Renaissance1787 Words   |  8 PagesBowen 7 Sunteasja Bowen Harlem Renaissance Dr. Bracks 2 March 2017 The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain: The Manifesto for Artists of the Harlem Renaissance ​The Norton Anthology of African American Literature suggests that the Harlem Renaissance was the â€Å"irresistible impulse of blacks to create boldly expressive art of a high quality as a primary response to their social conditions, as an affirmation of their dignity and humanity in the face of poverty and racism† (953). The Harlem RenaissanceRead MoreAnalysis Of Langston Hughes Poem, The Negro Artist And The Racial Mountain Essay1402 Words   |  6 Pagescanon of poetry, especially those influenced by different racial and ethnic backgrounds. To demonstrate my point, in this essay I shall be discussing in detail Langston Hughes and his piece Poem and why it should be included in the Norton Anthology of Poetry. I will contrast and compare it with Christina Rossetti’s Remember, and back up my arguments with selected quotes from Langston Hughes’ essay ‘The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain’. To begin, Langston Hughes’ ‘Poem’ is an example of howRead MoreThe Negro Speaks Of Rivers1548 Words   |  7 Pagesintroduced him to the poetry of Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman, both whom Hughes would later cite as primary influences. By the time Hughes was enrolled at Columbia University in New York, he had already launched his literary career with his poem â€Å"The Negro Speaks of Rivers† in the Crisis, edited by W.E.B. DuBois. He also committed himself to writing mainly about African Americans. Leaving Columbia in 1922, Hughes spent the next three years in a succession of menial jobs and traveling abroad. He returnedRead MoreWhat Is The Negro s Racial Identity?940 Words   |  4 PagesNegro’s Racial Identity? Racial identity growth has speedily increased and reshaped during the Harlem Renaissance as some blacks writers were coming to terms with the fact that there some differences among the black community. Two writers created their own personal translation concerning the Negro in the course of these years. In Alain Locke’s essay, The New Negro, he presents the variation of the â€Å"new† and â€Å"old† Negro. On the other hand Langston Hughes essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial MountainRead MoreLangston Hughes : The Face Of Harlem Literacy1147 Words   |  5 Pagesblack Americans were never popular because of the lack of originality the artwork had (Leach 36). He believed black art was so unsuccessful in America because of its lack of originality and distance from the artist. In his essay â€Å"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain† he expresses his ideas on the black artist. Langston Hughes was brought up by his grandmother, Mary Langston, in Joplin, Missouri where he was born on February 1st, 1902. (Leach 1) His father had moved to Mexico after he and his motherRead MoreThe I Have A Dream Speech By Martin Luther King Essay1323 Words   |  6 Pagesthe Martin Luther King Speech More than 40 years ago, in August 1963, Martin Luther King electrified America with his momentous ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, dramatically delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. His soaring rhetoric demanding racial justice and an integrated society became a mantra for the black community and is as familiar to subsequent generations of Americans as the US Declaration of Independence. His words proved to be a touchstone for understanding the social and political