(BBHT) Lesson Topic 4: Langston Hughes

Lesson Topic 4: Langston Hughes

James Langston Hughes was born in Missouri on February 1, 1902 to parents who soon separated. Langston's childhood was spent in the care of friends and relatives throughout the Midwest and northeast. He moved frequently and felt abandoned.

In an attempt to deal with his loneliness, Langston began to write poetry. He was a frequent visitor to the local library. Langston believed in books more than people.

While attending high school, Langston was active in many extracurricular activities including the school magazine. Many of his published poems showed the influence of his favorite poets, Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman. The themes were often of social injustices and what it meant to be black.

Realizing he couldn't depend on his parents for financial support, he began to work and save his money for college. He published his first poem in Brownies Book, a new magazine for black children. Soon Crisis, a companion magazine that targeted black adults, published several of his poems.

Crisis was published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was a forum for blacks to share their struggles. The editors were Jessie Fauset and W. E. B. Du Bois. Both were among a growing number of black artists and intellectuals in Harlem, New York. Langston established his position in the group before arriving in Harlem from Mexico.

Harlem in the 1920s was the largest and most influential black community in the United States. Intelligence and the arts were the focus of change, often referred to as the Harlem Renaissance. Concerts, lectures, and black-only private clubs invited African Americans to migrate to Harlem.

Hughes finally arrived in New York on September 4, 1921 to attend Columbia University. Langston felt frustrated at Columbia due to the coolness of his white peers. His grades began to suffer and finally, he quit and looked for a job.

 

"Daybreak in Alabama"

"Daybreak in Alabama"
by Langston Hughes

When I get to be a colored composer

I'm gonna write me some music about

Daybreak in Alabama

And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it

Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist

And falling out of heaven like soft dew

I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it

And the scent of pine needles

And the smell of red clay after rain

And long red necks

And poppy colored faces

And big brown arms

And the field daisy eyes

Of black and white black white black people

And I'm gonna put white hands

And black hands and brown and yellow hands

And red clay earth hands in it

Touching everybody with kind fingers

Touching each other natural as dew

In that dawn of music when I

Get to be a colored composer

And write about daybreak

In Alabama.

 

"Daybreak in Alabama" is an example of a free verse poem. Free verse is a form of poetry that does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern. It tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.

See if you can identify the theme of social injustice or what it means to be black in Hughes's poem. Are there examples of alliteration or assonance?   What are they? What do you think are Hughes's hopes and dreams for the future now that you have read "Daybreak in Alabama?"

 

 

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