Gare du Nord

Langston Hughes graduated from Central High School in Cleveland in 1920 and spent the following year in Mexico with his father. Around this time, Hughes’s poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” was published in The Crisis magazine and was highly praised. In 1921 Hughes returned to the United States and enrolled at Columbia University, where he studied briefly, and during which time he quickly became a part of Harlem’s burgeoning cultural movement, what is commonly known as the Harlem Renaissance. The…

William Edward Burghardt “W.E.B.” DuBois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on February 23rd, 1868. DuBois achieved many accomplishments throughout his life such as, co-founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founding the Niagara Movement, becoming the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and becoming a writer who published many works. W.E.B. DuBois crafted his literature works during the late 19th century and…

Black Folk,” by W.E.B. Du Bois details the author’s understanding of the status of African-Americans in the Early 20th century. Recounting Emancipation and suffrage effect on black people’s consciousness - namely the transformation from double to self-consciousness - Du Bois explains the importance of education in the fight to limit inequality. By asking the question, “how does it feel to be a problem?” and communicating the different ways in which people ask this question, Du Bois explains the…

One of Nelson Mandela’s famous song lyrics is “It seems impossible until it’s done” Elie Wiesel & Langston Hughes are both authors of a book and poem about their lives of discrimination. The author’s use of imagery and tone help the reader understand what they felt and their attitude towards their experience. The novel and poem have many similarities through imagery and tone. Using imagery both authors describe their attitudes during their experience. In the novel, “Night” by Elie…

“Harlem” (page 915) by Langston Hughes is my favorite poem I have read. This poem in particular was super descriptive, straight to the point, and most intriguing to me. While reading this poem it left me with curiosity and wonder. The writer uses amazing words that drag my attention into the poem allowing me to read beyond just the words, giving me the opportunity to put myself in the writers shoes. By doing this I did a little background research of the poet. In order to understand this poem in…

Web Du Bois was a black nationalists that took several forms of the most influential pioneers and advocacy of the Pan-African-ism. Du Bois was the leader of the first Pan-African conferences leaders in London in the 1900. The architect of four Pan-African congressman's was in London between the 1919 and 1927. This doctrine became important during the economic catastrophic of the 1930 and was appreciated by an ideological struggles within the NAACP events. Du Bois had originally believed in the…

In the Langston Hughes’ poem “Theme for English B,” he writes about an African American college student who is given a writing assignment. This student is instructed to write a page of something truthful from himself. Through the poem, he considers his own personal truths and he questions whether his race makes his preferences differ from that of other races. He concludes that everyone is connected and that we all can stand to benefit from each other. Hughes uses apostrophe and understatement in…

Langston Hughes’ poem, “Harlem [Dream Deferred],” is filled with imagery to help him communicate the general theme. Throughout the entire poem, Hughes’ ultimate goal is to express what happens to the African American dream in Harlem. The African American community was promised equality but have not received it in the way as promises. African Americans post World War II were still struggling just as before. Hughes asked specific questions and is able to create images in the readers head to…

Imagine, the feeling of receiving the news that your child has been killed for something as small as cat calling a women. In the case of fourteen-year old Emmett Till, this was an actual occurrence. In his poem, Johannesburg Mines, Langston Hughes admits that the fact of the mistreatment and abuse of black miners in South Africa can hardly be turned into poetry. It is indeed an exemplar poem that includes implications in different fields, creates similar appraisals, analyses, and representations…

Langston Hughes is considered to be one of the quintessential voices of the 1920s and ‘30s Harlem Renaissance movement. Utilizing a wide range of motifs and subject matters, Hughes became a voice for working class Black Americans who were excluded from mainstream American society. In this paper I will attempt to analyze Hughes’ first published poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Written when he was only seventeen, the poem helped establish his reputation among African American writers, and…