Introduction to Twentieth-Century Literature Tcl17.Blogs.Rutgers.Edu

Introduction to Twentieth-Century Literature tcl17.blogs.rutgers.edu

Prof. Andrew Goldstone ([email protected]) (Murray 019, Mondays and Wednesdays 2:30–4:30)

March 8, 2017. Hughes (2).

1 / 17 Crisis 25, no. 2 (December 1922): 87. Modernist Journals Project.

2 / 17 THE NEGRO SPEAKS 71

change for a brown slab and a drink of sometimes notices in Negroes. No, these cider. mountain Negroes were just "people," like Though there is separation among the any others, calling for no especial comment blacks and whites in the mountains to a except on the score of their color. THE CRISIS certain extent, there is nothing like real seg- O f course some change is to be noted in regation; yet very little miscegenation re- the attitude of the white population to the A RECORD OF THE DARKER RACES sults from the ordinary promiscuity of race Negroes today. The mountains themselves relations. Certain mountain families are are changing, and this aspect of primitive reputed to have a trace of Negro blood, but PUBLISHED MONTHLY AND COPYRIGHTED BY THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE life much pass away in the course of time, ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, AT 70 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW Y O R K CITY CON- while I have heard of an occasional case of DUCTED BY W . E. BURGHARDT D U BOIS; JESSIE REDMON FAUSET, LITERARY EDITOR; with all the rest. The mountaineers are "be- illicit intercourse between blacks and whites, AUGUSTUS GRANVILLE DILL, BUSINESS MANAGER. ginning to learn, from the outside world, such seems to be exceedingly rare today. which is coming so much closer, that it is Vol. 22—No. 2 JUNE, 1921 Whole No. 128 I have spoken of the Negroes in the not "good form" to associate with Negroes mountains as being, to all intents and pur- on terms of such neighborliness and even poses, black mountaineers. In all their intimacy. Already the Baptist Church is PICTURES Page ways of living, dressing and conducting being criticised locally for its laxness in themselves, they are indistinguishable from this respect, and doubtless certain reforms COVER. Drawing by H. Curtis Brown. their white neighbors and friends. Their will take place in the near future. Some THE CHARLESTON COMMITTEE 59 speech is the mountain speech, also, rather day perhaps it will be impossible to spend THE PHILLIS WHEATLEY CLUB 63 than the Negro dialect familiar in other the night at a farm house on Carr's Fork MEN OF THE MONTH 7 3 parts of the South. Above all, their bearing and see a small black boy, working on the PARLIAMENT HOUSE, HAITI 77 is equally free from obsequious servility or farm, roll into bed with the white boys of DOLL WIG FACTORY 33 effrontery. I never saw a pleasanter spec- the family. Berea College was forced, by tacle than the dancing at the mouth of legislative enactment, sustained by a de- ARTICLES Horse Creek, near Manchester, on the cision of the Supreme Court of the United Fourth of July. A platform had been erect- States, to terminate its experiment of racial COLORED TEACHERS IN CHARLESTON SCHOOLS 56 ed there, and all day "sets" were run, first coeducation, and this was the entering O N THE BOOK SHELF. Jessie Fauset 60 white, then black, while a mixed crowd wedge to bring Kentucky, as a whole, back NEGROES IN THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS. W. K. Bradley o9 of whites and Negroes stood around and into the "solid South" on the Negro ques- THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS. A Poem. Langston Hughes 71 watched and drank lemonade supplied by a tion. There are those who will feel that colored family. I talked with many of the the state lost a great and singular oppor- DEPARTMENTS Negroes, just as I did with the white people, tunity to become the centre for the spread- OPINION 53 and it was difficult to realize that they were ing of a more enlightened sentiment and NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED of a race generally regarded as "inferior." policy through the country at large, and PEOPLE 65 That they were such had never seemed to who will regret the passing, in the moun- MEN OF THE MONTH 72 occur to them. At the same time, there tains themselves, of an attitude almost THE LOOKING GLASS 74 was none of that self-conscious effort to idyllic in its naturalness and simplicity. THE HORIZON 79 establish recognition of their equality one THE JULY CRISIS

The July CRISIS is our annual education number. We want news and photographs of gradu.-.tes. THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY; ONE DOLLAR AND A HALF A YEAR LANGSTON HUGHES FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS TWENTY-FIVE CENTS EXTRA

RENEWALS; The date of expiration of each subscription is printed on the wrapper. When the subscription is due, a blue renewal blank is enclosed. I'VE known rivers: I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyra- CHANGE OF ADDRESS: The address of a subscriber can be changed as .ften as desired. I've known rivers ancient as the work! mids above it. In ordering a change of address, both the old and the new address must be gi.en. Two weeks' and older than the flow of human blood I heard the singing of the Mississippi when notice is required. i n human veins. Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, MANUSCRIPTS and drawings relating to colored people are desired. They must be accom- panied by return postage. If found unavailable they will be returned. and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all M y soul has grown deep like the rivers. Entered as second class matter November 2, 1910, at the post office at New York, New golden in the sunset. York, under the Act of March 3, 1879. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were I've known rivers; young. Ancient, dusky rivers. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled M y soul has grown deep like the rivers. me to sleep.

Crisis 22, no. 2 (June 1921). Modernist Journals Project. 3 / 17 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 individ- uality into the mold of American standardization. (692)

“O, 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.” (693)

the racial mountain

4 / 17 the racial mountain

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 individ- uality into the mold of American standardization. (692)

5 / 17 An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose…. We younger Ne- gro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves. (694)

6 / 17 from singing to being

I, too, sing America.

…

Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed—

I, too, am America. (“I, Too,” 1925; appeared as “Epilogue” in The Weary Blues)

7 / 17 ▶ What is difference (consider “I, Too,” too)?

from being to let-being (America never was America to me.)

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek– And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. (“Let America Be America Again,” 1936)

I bathed in the Euphrates… I built my hut near the Congo… I heard the singing of the Mississippi (“The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” 1921)

8 / 17 from being to let-being (America never was America to me.)

I bathed in the Euphrates… I built my hut near the Congo… I heard the singing of the Mississippi (“The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” 1921)

▶ What is difference (consider “I, Too,” too)?

9 / 17 1902 b. James Langston Hughes, Joplin, MO raised by mother and grandmother in KS 1920 after high school, in Mexico with father 1921 “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”; at Columbia 1922 leaves Columbia; NYC odd jobs 1923 sails W. African coast as deckhand 1924 Paris (“I, Too” written in Genoa) 1925 in Alain Locke, ed., The New Negro 1926 The Weary Blues (Knopf); at Lincoln U., PA; “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” 1929 graduates Lincoln 1930 in Cuba (meets Nicolás Guillén); plays Hughes in 1930. 1931 in Haiti; publishes in New Masses Beinecke Library. 1932–33 in USSR, then China and Japan 1937 covers Spanish Civil War for the Afro-American

10 / 17 New Masses 7, no. 12 (June 1932). Marxists Internet Archive.

11 / 17 1940 The Big Sea: An Autobiography picketed in Pasadena for “Goodbye Christ” (1932) 1942–66 Chicago Defender column 1941–53 FBI surveillance (his file) 1943 Jim Crow’s Last Stand 1949 LH and Arna Bontemps, eds., The Poetry of the Negro 1746–1949 ; Guillén, Cuba Libre, trans. LH 1951 Montage of a Dream Deferred 1953 subpoenaed to McCarthy committee; doesn’t implicate anyone 1956 I Wonder as I Wander (autobiography) Hughes in 1946–47 1960 Springarn Medal from the NAACP (detail). Beinecke 1966 World Festival of Negro Arts, Senegal Library. 1967 d.

12 / 17 generation gap

Every time I read Langston Hughes I am amazed all over again by his genuine gifts—and depressed that he has done so little with them….

He is not the first American Negro to find the war between his social and artistic responsibilities all but irreconcilable.

James Baldwin, review of Selected Poems by Hughes, New York Times Book Review, March 29, 1959: 26. ProQuest.

13 / 17 You think It’s a happy beat?

…

Sure, I’m happy! Take it away! (“Dream Boogie”)

new models

This poem on contemporary Harlem, like be-bop, is marked by conflict- ing changes, sudden nuances, sharp and impudent interjections, broken rhythms, and passages sometimes in the manner of the jam session, sometimes the popular song, punctuated by the riffs, runs, breaks, and distor- tions of the music of a community in transition. (Montage, 1951)

14 / 17 new models

You think It’s a happy beat?

…

Sure, I’m happy! Take it away! (“Dream Boogie”)

15 / 17 America again?

You are white— yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That’s American. Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that’s true!

…

This is my page for English B. (“Theme for English B,” 1949, 1951)

16 / 17 next

▶ Beckett, Endgame

17 / 17