The American Dream was just that for that for some of the Blacks who were struggling or living in New York during the Harlem Renaissance. Living the “American Dream” was something most thought they would never see or have the pleasure to enjoy. Working a good job, being treating fairly and being able to own a nice house and buy nice things was all a dream that they believed would never become a reality. One could say those were the thoughts of the Blacks who didn't have faith or hope or the drive to make the “American Dream” their reality. And this is because Black was thought so little of. They were thought to be ugly and worthless and inferior to the “Americans”. With this constant negative reminder, it was easy for Blacks to self-hate or to hate someone of the same race but a darker shade or of a different social class. However all Blacks did not feel that way. For instance, writers like Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston and Elise Johnson McDougald knew that better days were coming and they too would be able to do the things the Whites thought they were not worthy of. They loved the skin that there were in and was not going to allow anyone to tell them otherwise. These three writers along with others believed that change was coming and their prayers and cries would soon be answered. Their struggling and fighting would soon all be worth it and the Blacks who came before them and fought to get them where they currently were would have not died in vain. Langston Hughes expresses this in his poem Let America Be America Again.
In this poem Hughes writes “I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars / I am the Negro, servant to you all” (20-31), these lines state that he understands that his ancestors too had to fight for chang...
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...egro’ Womanhood”." Journal of Narrative Theory 42.1 (2012): 46-68. Web. 14 May 2014.
Hughes, Langston. "Let America Be America Again." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 14 May 2014.
Hughes, Langston. "Trumpet Player by Langston Hughes." Trumpet Player, a Poem by Langston Hughes. Poets Love Poem at Allpoetry. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 May 2014.
Hughes, Langston. "I, Too." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 1
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Hurston, Nora Zeale. "How It Feels to Be Colored Me." 1928. Back to the Lake. Ed. Thomas
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Hurston, Zora Neale. There Eyes Were Watching God. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1990. Print.
McDougald, Elise Johnson. ""The Double Task" The Struggle of Negro Women for Sex and Race Emancipation." Harlem, Mecca of the New Negro. New York: Survey Associates, 1925. 689-91. Web. 14 May 2014.
The civil rights movement may have technically ended in the nineteen sixties, but America is still feeling the adverse effects of this dark time in history today. African Americans were the group of people most affected by the Civil Rights Act and continue to be today. Great pain and suffering, though, usually amounts to great literature. This period in American history was no exception. Langston Hughes was a prolific writer before, during, and after the Civil Rights Act and produced many classic poems for African American literature. Hughes uses theme, point of view, and historical context in his poems “I, Too” and “Theme for English B” to expand the views on African American culture to his audience members.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1990.
Williams, Shirley Anne. Forward. Their Eyes Were Watching God. By Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Bantam-Dell, 1937. xv.
"A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes." Library System - Howard University. Howard University, n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel. New York: Perennial Library, 1990. Print.
Hurston, Zora N. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1937. Print.
---. "Review of Their Eyes Were Watching God." Zora Neale Hurston - Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. A. Appiah. New York: Amistad, 1993
Racine, Maria J. "African American Review." Voice and Interiority in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God 28.2 (1994): 283-92. Jstor. Black's Women Culture Issue, Summer 1994. Web. Dec. 2013.
Williams, Shirley Anne. Forward. Their Eyes Were Watching God. By Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Bantam-Dell, 1937. xv.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their eyes were watching God: a novel. New York: Perennial Library, 1990. Print.
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) absorbed America. In doing so, he wrote about many issues critical to his time period, including The Renaissance, The Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, the Black Power movement, Jazz, Blues, and Spirituality. Just as Hughes absorbed America, America absorbed the black poet in just about the only way its mindset allowed it to: by absorbing a black writer with all of the patronizing self-consciousness that that entails.
4. Hurston, Zora Neal. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Collins, 1937. Print.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Harper Perennial Modern Classics: Reissue Edition 2013
Hurston, Lora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1990.
The reason I say African American’s dreams is because the author published this poem in 1951, the time period where there was much racism and civil rights violations against African Americans. Another reason is that the author is an African American himself. Finally, the biggest reason is that the author named the poem “Harlem.” Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American cultural and business center. It was associated for much of the twentieth century with black culture, crime and poverty. It is the capital of African-American life in the United States. The author named this poem “Harlem” because he was addressing mainly the black community. Still, the poem’s message is very clear: if one postpones his/her dream(s) it can have a damaging affects.