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Black Poetry: Langston Hughes and the New Negro Model of Equality

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Term Paper

 

Langston Hughes and
the ‘New Negro’ Model of Equality

 

In this paper I seek to explore in some detail how equality for African Americans developed in the United States and I will therefore raise some crucial questions such as: What is meant by equality? Or more importantly, who is equal to whom? Is there such a thing as same chances and equality applicable to every individual on the planet? According to the dictionary entry, equality is the prevailing term of providing ‘equal opportunities’ which should be guaranteed by the legal liability to implement the same rights for everyone and therefore not being discriminated against on the grounds of a certain group membership as for example sex, religion, race, belief, sexual orientation, or age. Yet, the process of gaining equal rights is one of the most often discussed and disputed issues of society, today, as back then in history. Equality is deemed to be a fundamental right as well as an essential liberty which, to my mind, should be considered as something that every human being anyway possesses from the outset. This is admittedly a commendable approach but still it is an issue that needs a lot of improvement. A desirable objective would be to gain equality and respect for each human being in the world especially today that we are heading for a future of a globalized world, what leaves no room for egocentric beliefs such as one race being superior to any other.

 

Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the development of equality for African Americans considering the influence of the cultural movement of the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ that took place in the 1920s in the United States. First, I will generally define the term ‘equality’ and analyze how it is linked to the ‘civil rights’. Then I will discuss the history of Black People in the U.S. and how this relates to the origin of the ‘New Negro’. Next, I will illustrate what exactly the movement of the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ implicated and who was involved and I will forge a link to one of the most influential writers of the ‘New Negro Movement’, Langston Hughes and discuss some of his poems. To conclude I will examine the status of ‘Negro education’ today to find out what and if something has changed regarding the status of African Americans in the U.S. The reason why I chose the Harlem Renaissance to be the focus of my analysis is that I believe that by all appearances countries need culturally ‘uprisings’ to actually evolve. If the movement of the Harlem Renaissance had not occurred in the U.S. to my mind, the United States would not be (especially for African Americans) what they are today.

 

What is equality?

 

"Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe."

Langston Hughes

 

Before I discuss individual points of the process of equality I first of all want to define the term and apply it to the history of the United States. Considering the U.S. there was one movement I will discuss in greater detail that has taken a huge step in the right direction regarding the establishment of equal opportunities for Black People, namely the famous ‘Harlem Renaissance’. To understand why it was so difficult for African Americans to be accepted as equal, one has to examine the historical development of the Black People which makes it easier to understand the impact this movement had on the society of the United States. Therefore I will at first take short look at the legal situation in the U.S. and the definitions of the terms used in this paper. The question which arises is whether equality can be regarded as a civil right or not? Accordingly, I want to compare the terms ‘civil rights’ and ‘equality’:

 

‘Civil rights’ are the rights that every person should have, such as the right to vote or to be treated fairly by the law, whatever their sex, race, or religion.

 

       (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 2003:267)

 

Equal/equality:

Same rights/chances: having the same rights, opportunities etc. as everyone else, whatever your race, religion, or sex.

(ibid: 527)

 

As one can see, both terms resemble each other very closely, for ‘civil rights’ referring to the fundamental rights and freedoms that should be ensured to all members of a community, state, or nation by the law whereas the term ‘equality’ is used in a more general context. There are various kinds of freedoms and rights granted by law such as: freedom of speech, of the press, the practice of religion, and the fair and equal treatment of all human beings which are considered to be their basic civil rights. Looking at the constitution of the United States it contains a Bill of Rights in which general liberties and rights are determined and should be insured to every person being a citizen of the United States. Although the Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution, civil rights were not always respected to all human beings, especially not to women and Black People. When the constitution was first written, many Americans interpreted the meaning of the famous formula of ‘all men are created equal’ to imply that all white males were to be seen equal, pushing African Americans and women to the back of their minds. As a result, Blacks were enslaved and persecuted throughout the history of the United States.

 

To focus on the relevant time-span for this paper and to consider the issue of the fate of Black People in more detail I want to take you on a journey almost one century back in time, namely in the 1920s, into a time that has been a rather conflicting period in the history of the U.S. in which considerable changes occurred within the country.

 

The metamorphosis of the ‘Old Negro’

 

To find the origins of the term ‘New Negro’ I want to examine the movement I already mentioned above that is closely related and partly interdependent to the term, namely the ‘Harlem Renaissance’. This term labels a movement which occurred in the United States of the 1920s and is considered to be one of the most influential cultural movements in the history of the United States, especially for U.S. citizens with African roots.

 

During the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ Black People started to consolidate and fight against being treated as second-class citizens. It was the time in which African Americans seized the opportunity to finally become accepted, following a long way of searching equality, freedom and grandstanding by contributing their own heritage to the society of the time. Because of the long history of the Black community being oppressed and subjected to slavery, the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ was the time to emancipate and fight for the right of being accepted as a substantial and valuable part of the American society. Some factors that caused this ‘uprising’ can be found within the history of the United States itself and the way how the white community treated (not to say mistreated) African Americans from the very beginning of their arrival in the ‘New World’. In the mid-nineteenth century Black People were still considering as being servants rather than human beings. The white community still thought of Blacks being the cotton workers for which they were originally brought to the U.S. from the African continent. To anticipate a bit I want to picture this attitude of the ‘White Man’ by providing a good description of how Black slaves were mistreated when working in the fields of the South, illustrated in Langston Hughes’ poem Negro:

 

I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.

[…]

I’ve been a worker:
Under my hand the pyramids arose.
I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.

[…]

I’ve been a victim:
The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.
They lynch me now in Texas.

 

(The Collected Works of Langston Hughes 2001 Vol I: 22)

Since the white community still believed that Blacks were no more than savages they initially tried to adjust to the norms of the white society what led to some of them almost completely lose the awareness and appreciation of their own heritage. Although already in the years of the Civil War, as Nathan Huggins points out in his book Voices from the Harlem Renaissance, Abraham Lincoln accomplished extraordinary deeds for Blacks, still the image of Black People did not really change. It was due to Lincoln’s efforts to establish equal rights for Black and White People that a certain shift preceded, away from the belief of the inferiority of the black race. Nevertheless, the minds of the people were not ready to actually belief in the equality of the races illustrated by Huggins when he argues that "The Emancipation Proclamation had been a grudging pronouncement by President Lincoln, subsequently denied in effect". (cf. Huggins 1976: 4)

 

The ‘Emancipation Proclamation’ was an order Abraham Lincoln issued in the year 1863, a time the U.S. approached its third year of bloody Civil War. This proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." as John Franklin proposes in his book From Slavery to Freedom (1974: 223). According to Franklin the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation right away but nevertheless it touched the hearts and the changed perceptions of millions of Americans and essentially transformed the character of the Civil War. (ibid 224ff)

 

Even though the outcomes of Civil War imparted freedom for all Black People, still the mistreatments perpetrated by the Whites were deeply burned into the heads and souls of the Black People. So, despite the fact Black People finally being considered as being ‘free’, things have not changed a lot as they were still forced continuing their work at the cotton fields. As Huggins puts it: "The traditional 'place' of Blacks was in the South, where sharecropping and tenant-farming locked them into the peonage of the post-Reconstruction era" (1976: 5). Slavery was finally abolished in the second half of the 19th century, still intolerance and prejudices remained within the minds of the white community.

 

However, these poor living conditions should change when the U.S. became involved in the events of World War I. Many (white) Americans who had been working in the northern parts of the country had to leave for military service, to fight against the Germans. Hence there was a need of additional manpower so that Black People had the chance to escape from the inhuman conditions in the South. As stated in From Slavery to Freedom the beginning of World War I initiated an economic boom in the North. With most of the white, northern industrial workers been called up for military service the factories suddenly became desperate for people to run their machines. (1974: 349ff)

 

This was the time the (first) ‘Great Migration’ started and gave African Americans fresh hope to live a better life in the end. This wave of migration to the North was one of the biggest movements of people within the country in the history of the U.S., a change that affected not only the economic structure of the country but also its culture. Yet, the decision to migrate to the North brought numerous changes in the Black life, moving from the rural environment of the South to the chaotic, urban cites of the North (esp. to New York). The newly founded African American communities had difficulties to successfully establish at first because the new life as urban workers in the North differed considerably from what they were used to in the rural areas of the South. Unfortunately, the conditions in which Blacks had to live in the North were not at all what they initially expected for many of them believing to move to the “Land of Promise” (cf. Lenz 1984: 226).

 

It was because of the ‘alleged’ freedom and equality that Blacks decided to move to the North hoping to escape from suffering open discrimination and racial violence especially imposed by the members of the Ku Klux Klan. Interestingly, it was in the 1920s (the time of the Harlem Renaissance) that the KKK actually reached the highest membership figures ever.

Within the northern cities African American had to again suffer from the indignities that they thought they had finally left behind. The white community in the North did not receive the Black workers with open arms, on the on the contrary, they had to work in precarious labour conditions. They were even physically delimited by for example being forced to use separate washing rooms as well as to work in the most dangerous places in the factories.

 

To indicate a relation from history to the present day there is, to my mind, a strong connection to the conditions Black People still have to suffer from when, for example working in Austria these days. Needless to say, Austria has never experienced a migration wave of that kind, for the few Black People momentarily living in Austria never had the chance to emancipate. Fact is that that even nowadays, in certain areas of Austria, people believe that someone with a different skin colour (than their own) and therefore belonging to another ‘race’ have to fill underpaid and unattractive jobs, Austrians are not willing to do on their own.

 

Concordantly, back in the U.S. Black People were forced to take over the most exhausting tasks nobody else wanted to do. So again they had to go through the painful experience that discrimination and segregation was literally everywhere in the country they lived in. So it is no wonder that the years of oppression and violence had shaped Black People’s lives for so long and that eventually they decided to not any longer to tolerate the unequal conditions in the system of the white community. Yet, they decided to call the North their new home and therefore started to set against the Whites to show that they were not any longer ductile and that they were entitled to freely live everywhere they “designated as their 'place'”(cf. Huggins 1976: 6)

 

This was the time Blacks developed a new willingness to actually counterpose against the white community and its discriminatory behaviour. This attitude resulted in the development of the ‘New Negro’ (as opposition to the ‘Old’ suppressed one). In retrospect it was the need for unskilled worker in the mining as well as railroad business which led to more and more African Americans occupying jobs in the North and consequently Black People living so numerous in the northern cities that the Whites had no other choice than to accept them as part of ‘their’ culture. The decision of moving to the North was taken quickly because the companies paid imposing wages by the standards of the time and additionally provided that Blacks had an easy way to reach the industrial cities of the North by offering to pay for the Black workers’ journey from the South to the economically booming North. Another reason for African Americans to move to the North was the lack of the voting restrictions. They hoped that when they were allowed to actively participate in political decisions they would finally have the chance weigh in on the prevailing situation and hence inducing a change. This was the hour of birth of the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ because Blacks from all over the world joined together in Harlem not hesitating to represent and display the pride they shared for their Black identity and culture. (cf. Franklin 1974: 543)

 

This new sentiment of independence and the elation about finally being allowed to express their own identity and creativity led to the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ becoming an age of transformation for the Black People. Harlem, the black community situated uptown in New York City, started to literally ‘sparkle’ with passion and creativity. So, this movement portrayed a golden age for the Black community and brought about the interchange of African-American art and ideas displayed all around the world. It was the peak of many decades of the African American fight through the events of slavery and the Civil War.

 

As for my interpretation of the historical events that lead to the approximation of equal rights to every American citizen, I believe that there are certain similarities between the African American Civil Rights Movement (1955-68) and the creation of the ‘New Negro’ during the Harlem Renaissance (1920-30) as they were both aiming at the same goal. The aim was defending themselves against the discriminatory forces to finally gain equality for all Black People living in the U.S. The only difference I observed was in the actual nature of protest that those involved made use of. The ‘New Negro’ movement was conceptualised and outlined to represent an atmosphere of departure of a combative spirit. From the very beginning this movement was intended to clearly illustrate the inequity posed by the white community to suppress a considerable part of people of their country and at the same time to establish a social equality which long before should have been achieved within the U.S.

 

The New Negro movement did not only apply to the arts but also to political issues. Pan Africanism for example for which W.E.B Du Bois, sometimes labelled the ‘father of Pan Africanism’, was highly influential as he helped organising the 5th Pan-African Conference in Manchester, UK in 1945. This was one kind of the explicit, coordinated manifestation of the ‘New Negro’ movement in its rather radical outgrows. Those involved demanded not only economic autonomy in a system in which Blacks still were segregated but it also revealed the struggle for unification of people who initially did not recognise what they had in common. Nevertheless, the Pan Africanism’s attempt failed to call on African Americans to actually return to their ‘home countries’, for the simple reason that they did not belong to the African countries anymore from which they once came from. The original intention of Pan Americanism was to actually separate from the white community via the rediscovering of the Black African heritage. Maybe one reason for its failing was that on the one hand it created hatred against white colonialism or even more generally on most of the White People and on the other hand they forgot to include the actual importance of the American side of the African American People.

 

A more successful concept was developed later on, namely the American Civil Rights Movement which tried to aim at more conciliating ways of obtaining equality. This idea was based upon the concept of coexistence for both Black and White People or to say it in the striking words of Martin Luther King’s Jr. famous speech in 1963, to accomplish the goal of sitting together at the ‘table of brotherhood’. So to my mind, the Civil Rights Movement was the more peaceful but less effective movement, predominantly seeking to end racial segregation and to fight for a successful integration of Black People into a white society. But even before these events, as early as the beginning of the 20th century - W.E.B Du Bois founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and demanded complete equality for Blacks, economically as well as socially.  He believed in the immediate integration of Blacks into the prevailing American life. As I already mentioned before it was the cultural movement of the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ which massively affected the integration process of Black People into the cultural landscape of the U.S. and can therefore be called a turning point in the African Americans’ search of identity.

 

 

Bibliography and further Readings:

 

Bloom, Harold (1988): Langston Hughes. New York: Chelsea House Publishers.

 

Bowles, Frank and Frank A. DeCosta (1971): Between Two Worlds. A Profil of Negro Higher Education. New York: Mc Graw-Hill Book Company.

 

Franklin, John Hope (1974): From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

 

Hughes, Langston. (2001) The Collected Works of Langston Hughes Vol. 1 ed. board: Arnold Rampersad. Columbia and London: Univ. of Missouri Press

 

Hughes, Langston (2001): The Collected Works of Langston Hughes Vol.3. ed. board: Arnold Rampersad. Columbia and London: Univ. of Missouri Press

 

 

Huggins, Nathan Irvin (1976). Voices from the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press.

 

Hughes, Langston (1986): The Big Sea: An Autobiography. Ed.  Alfred A. Knopf.  New York: Thunder's Mouth Press.

 

Locke, Alain. (1977) The New Negro. New York. Antheumm

 

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2003): definition: civil rights

Harlow. Pearson Educated Limited.

 

Lenz, Günter H.(1984): History and tradition in Afro-American culture. Frankfurt/Main: Campus Verlag.

 

O'Daniel, Therman B. (1971): Langston Hughes: Black Genius: A Critical Evaluation. New York: Morrow.

 

 


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