Monday 23 February 2015

LANGSTON HUGHES: Once Again...Negro "Simple" Speaks HIS MIND From HARLEM.







NEGROES:

Sweet and docile,
Meek, humble and kind;

Beware the day
They change their MIND...

I got the Weary Blues,
And can't be satisfied;

I got the Weary Blues,
I can't be satisfied!

(Langston Hughes)







AMERICAN CULTURE before the 1920's, was dominated by white folk.

The white artist sat comfortably in the chair of Music or Theatre or Literature, almost like 'God'.

At that point in history, the negro was nothing but like the biblical 'Prodigal Son' - lost in oblivion.

However, a turning point came during the 1920's with the emergence of "The New Negro", according to Alain Locke.

This was an era, acclaimed by James Weldon Johnson, to be characterized by "a flowering of Negro Literature" in the United States.

The black artist stepped out of his cocoon, as it were, with 'a prolific pen' inking forth a prodigious amount of WORK:

Prose, Poetry, Drama and Music that resounded eloquently in farther reaches like Africa and the Caribbean like: 

"Tambourines of Glory" !

The New Negro strove to re-establish his independence and maintain a racial identity - that was dignified;

As opposed to the erstwhile derogatory stereotypes attached to being 'black' in America.




I TOO Sing America.

I am the darker brother,
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes ;

But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow well,
And Grow Strong;


TOMORROW:

I'll be at the table
When company comes;

Nobody'll dare say to me,
'Eat in the kitchen', then.

Besides, they'll see
 How BEAUTIFUL I AM.

And be ashamed -
I TOO SING AMERICA.

(Langston Hughes)





The New Negro Movement, otherwise known as the HARLEM RENAISSANCE, set in motion a period of supreme relief.

And for writers, including LANGSTON HUGHES who himself echoed the era as "God's Trombone";

It was a period "Not Without Laughter".

The HARLEM RENAISSANCE was "Simply Heavenly" !





With EBONY HANDS
 On each ivory key,

He made
 that poor piano moan
-With Melody-

O Blues!

Swaying to and from
 his rickety stool,
He played that raggedy tune;

...SWEET BLUES!

Coming from a BLACKMAN'S SOUL.

O Blues!





In the "Roaring Twenties", HARLEM was in vogue.

Located in the northern aspect of the City Borough of Manhattan, New York City, Harlem was named after the Dutch settlement called 'Haarlam' (in the Netherlands).

In that period, Harlem, the enclave nicknamed  "Black Mecca" or "Heaven" became the hub of many middle-class blacks.

For instance in 1910, Fifth Avenue and 135th Street were bought by various African-American realtors and churches.

Specifically, the Residence @ 20 East 127th Street which has become a U.S Landmark, has earned its due respect as:

"Langston Hughes Place".





JAMES MERCER LANGSTON HUGHES, born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri State is our:

'MAN in the Mirror'.

HARLEM, almost now native to the black folk of America, is also the birthplace of the Black Cultural Re-awakening.

Reminding us of "BLACK NATIVITY", Harlem is our:

'PLACE in the Mirror'.

"I have discovered in LIFE that there are ways of getting amost anywhere you want to go, if you r-e-a-l-l-y want to go", urges Langston Hughes.





HARLEM...HARLEM,
Black, Black Harlem;

SOULS of Black Folk...
Little grey restless feet...

City of Refuge!

Don't damn your body's itch...
'Nigger' Heaven...

Hey!...Hey!

Say it brother, say it...

(Frank Horne)





HARLEM...

Welcome to Harlem; the historic native home of the New Negro Movement or Black Radicalism, which focussed mainly on the cultural re-acclimatization of blacks-

In one part, a Pursuit of "Artistic Excellence".

In February 1926, coincident with the year of inception of the Negro History Week (now the Negro History Month) by Dr Carter G. Woodson;

Yet another prominent African-American by name William Edward Burghardt DuBois sponsored a symposium titled:

"The Negro in ART".

According to him, "All ART is propanganda" ; a weapon for Race Advancement.

In the same vein, James Weldon Johnson, also one of the major players in the Harlem Renaissance, opined unequivocally, that ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT was key to the PROGRESS of African-Americans.

In another part, the Harlem Renaissance was aimed severely at re-aligning the battered racial identity of the Negro - at large - into mainstream American Respectability.

For R.E.A.L !

In 1903, in an address "To Nations of the World" and also during the launch of his epoch-making treatise "The Souls Of Black Folk", W.E.B DuBois emphasized inter alia that:

"The Problem of the 20th Century was the Problem of the COLOR-LINE."




In my own country,
For more than a century;

I've been nothing,
BUT a nigger.

(W.E.B DuBois)





THE FOUNDING FATHERS of the Harlem Renaissance, apart from W.E.B DuBois and James Weldon Johnson:

Included men like Hubert Harrison and Negro League Baseball star, Johnson Matthew Kotleslu.

Unlike Booker T. Washington who was in favour of the "accommodationist movement", as a proposed African-American approach to Racism;

These fathers of the Negro Literary Renaissance advocated a "militant approach".

With their Ultimate Goals being - Cultural Self-expression; Economic Self-dependence; and Progressive Politics.

In fact, Hubert Harrison has been popularly hailed as the father of "Harlem Radicalism", having himself founded the Liberty League (1917).

It MUST also be noted that most of the key functionaries of the Harlem Renaissance were also deeply rooted in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), with W.E.B DuBois  as a co-founder.


The NAACP is a Civil Rights Organization    founded on February 12, 1909 in Baltimore, Maryland.

It evolved from the Niagara Movement founded by W.E.B DuBois, a black Harvard University grad.




The function of
 The UNIVERSITY:

Is not simply to teach
 bread-winning,
Or to furnish teachers
 for the public schools,
Or to be a centre of polite society;

It is ABOVE ALL
 To be the organ of
 -that fine adjustment- 

Between real life 
and
 The growing knowledge of life;

An adjustment which forms
The Secret of Civilization.

(W.E.B DuBois)




The primary objective of the NAACP was "To ensure the Political, Educational, Social and Economic equality of RIGHTS of ALL PERSONS and eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination."




Here in lies 
-the tragedy of the Age-

Not that men are poor;
All men know 
something of poverty.

Not that men are wicked,
Who is good?

Not that men are ignorant,
What is truth?

Nay, but that men
 -know so little of Men-

(W.E.B DuBois)





IN RECOGNITION of Black Achievement in America, it confers the annual NAACP Image Awards in the fields of ART and Entertainment;

 As well as the Spingarn Medals to achievers in other fields of human endeavour.





And yet this very
 -Singleness of VISION-

And thorough
 -Oneness with his Age-

Is the MARK of
The Successful Man.

It is as though Nature 
-Must make men narrow-

In other to give them a force.


The WORKER must work
-For the GLORY-

Of his HANDIWORK;
Not simply for pay.

The THINKER must think,
-For TRUTH-

Not for fame.

(W.E.B DuBois)





"God Bless America", proclaimed Irving Berlin.

There is no doubt that the 'Hand of Providence' has ALWAYS been evident in America, from the days of the Pilgrim fathers.

"America The Beautiful", sang Katherine Lee Bates.

But I have so much doubt if America would be this beautiful or this great, if not for WORK or HUMAN LABOUR.

America respects the 'Work Ethic' - which is about making due efforts to rise from the bottom, up the ladder of Progress.

And so does the Negro American - right from the days of the slave trade.

America was built from the ordinary - I mean from the backs of early African slaves and inside the heads of subsequent lettered men;

Men and women, who devoted their every energy and time and cent;

Representing more than a million-dollar's worth in REAL WORK, dedicated to making the United States of America, extra-ordinary!




LANGSTON HUGHES, is our "One-Way Ticket" to Harlem; being the famous "Dream Keeper" of the HARLEM RENAISSANCE.

But the Story Begins like this...ordinary:

Like..."When A MAN Starts Out With Nothing".

Langston Hughes, like America, started out 'ordinary' as a negro living on the fringes of the American Dream:

You could as well call him "Mr Simple".

He was 'so ordinary' that even White America refused to call him 'Mr'; 

Rather, they referred to him as 'nigger' or 'boy'!

Hughes, later to become the great African-American Poet of the Negro Literary Rebirth (which peaked in the 1924 - 1929 period), began from 'nothing':

As a 'bus-boy' in a Washington D.C hotel; and at another time, as a 'steward' on a steamer making sail to Africa.

Then sometime later, as a staff writer on board the Journal of Negro Life And History, which was founded and headed by Dr Carter G. Woodson (as editor).




When A MAN starts out
With nothing;

When a man starts out
With his hands empty, but clean;

When a man starts out
To build a world;

He starts
 FIRST WITH HIMSELF!

And the FAITH
That is in his heart-

The strength there,
The WILL there
To build.

First in the heart is
The D.R.E.A.M.

Then the MIND starts
Seeking A WAY:

The eyes look out on the WORLD,
The great wooded WORLD;

On the rich soil of the WORLD,

On the rivers of the W.O.R.L.D.

(Langston Hughes)




Coming from a divided household, very much reminiscent of the divorce patterns or single parenthood of today's Black America, Hughes was pained by the loss of co-existence of his parents.

It was this loneliness that drove him "to books, and the wonderful world of books".

He started writing poems from the 8th grade, and became the Class Poet in Central High School, Cleveland.

Amongst his early influences were writers like Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Claude Mckay and Carl Sandburg.

Calling himself "a literary sharecropper", he hailed poet Carl Sandburg as "my guiding star";

Because the latter represented the Modernist Aesthetic.

In fact, Hughes enjoyed whatever was modern, as well as aesthetic.

His interests ranged widely from books, to travel, to leisure, to work and to God.

He explored several cultures - Africa, Asia, Europe - and for leisure, he would visit the pubs and the clubs in Harlem.

Listening to the blues and jazz, he'd regain his wandering muse and write us some beautiful poetry.



I've known rivers:

I've known rivers,
Ancient as the world;

And older than the flow
Of human blood,
In human veins.

My soul has grown deep
Like the rivers.

(Langston Hughes)




This variegated background enriched his style of writing poetry, thereby offering his readers a remarkable journey in Creative Fun.

And this did not only appeal to his target-audience, the blacks; but it also attracted people of other ethnicities.

In fact, Langston Hughes was one of the foremost African-American writers to incorporate the elements of music - blues and jazz- into poetry;

 To explain the perculiar rhythm of the
day-to-day experiences in the lives of black working-class people.

"I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on 7th Street...these songs had the pulse-beat of the people who keep on going", he reflects.

Matching his own personal experiences with theirs, Hughes identified easily with these people who "accept what beauty is their own without question".

This segment of the American citizenry was the examplar of his autobiography, "I Wonder As I Wander":

A solid people who kept on "laughing, to keep from crying".




Drooning a drowsy ,
Syncopated tune;

Rocking back and forth
To a mellow croon;

I HEARD A NEGRO PLAY.

Down Lexon Avenue the other night,
By the pale dull pallor
 Of an old gas light;

He did a lazy sway...to the tune,
O' WEARY BLUES.

(Langston Hughes)




Langston Hughes came from a family background of Revolutionaries - Abolitionists and Civil Rights Activists.

His grand-mother played a recognizable role, early in the American Civil Rights Movement.

His great-grand uncle, John Mercer Langston, was one of the first negro public officials in America.

Apart from the NAACP publication "The Crisis", the Chicago Defender was also a medium by which Hughes expressed his feelings about the colour-line.

Langston Hughes formed an almost permanent attachment to Harlem, the NYC neighbourhood which has remained an emblem of black culture and style.

Like the typical dark skin of the African-American, Harlem represented to Hughes, the "great dark city".




Come
Let us roam the night together,
Singing:

I Love You.

Across the Harlem rooftops,
Moon is shining,
Night sky is blue;

Stars are great drops
Of golden blue.

Down the streets,
A band is playing:

I Love You.

Come
Let us roam the night together,
Singing.

(Langston Hughes)






H.A.R.L.E.M !    H.A.R.L.E.M ! 
 
In the era between 1920 - 1930, popularly referred to in American history as "the roaring twenties", the Negro Literary Renaissance was on.

Of course, "Harlem was in vogue":

It was bursting forth with voluminous creativity as well as a long train of the "New Negro" Artists.

The Roll Call included:
Jean Toomer, Jessie Fauset, Claude Mckay, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Alain Locke, Eric D. Walrond, Countee Cullen, amongst others.

The central theme of their literary discourse was RACIAL CONSCIOUSNESS, the type Langston Hughes emphasized in:

"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926).

Negro writers, musicians and actors used the platform of the Harlem Renaissance to denounce the pervasive negative stereotyping of blacks, by the whites.

The Harlem Renaissance also opened a  window of opportunity, to expose the works of younger black artists, through mainstream publishers.

Says Langston Hughes: 
"It is the duty of the Younger Negro Artist...to change, through the force of his art, that old whispering 'I want to be white', hidden in the aspirations of his people;

" To 'Why should I want to be white?' I AM A N.E.G.R.O and BEAUTIFUL!"

By and large, Hughes is regarded as the MOST PROLIFIC writer of the renaissance period.

He wrote 'free verse' and pioneered 'Jazz  Poetry'.





But JAZZ to me:

Is one of the inherent expressions
Of NEGRO LIFE in AMERICA.

The eternal tom-tom beating
In the negro soul-

The tom-tom of revolt
Against weariness
In a white world.

A world of subway trains,
And WORK, WORK, WORK;

The tom-tom of joy and laughter,

AND PAIN SWALLOWED 
-IN A SMILE-

   (Langston Hughes)





In a career spanning about fifty years, he did a tremendous amount of work:

Sixteen books of poems; two novels; three plays; three books of short stories; four volumes of editorials; three autobiographies;

Some children's poetry; musicals and operas; about a dozen TV and Radio scripts; and about a dozen magazine articles.



Examples include:

# The Ways of White Folks (1934)

# The Big Sea (1940)

# Shakespeare in Harlem (1943)

# A Pictoral History of the Negro in America (1956)

# I Wonder As I Wander (1956)

# Street Scene (an opera) - for which he contributed the lyrics.

# Black Nativity (1961)


 

Hughes possibly had more poetry readings than any other of his contemporaries during the renaissance.

He was also seriously involved in the discovery and promotion of young African-American voices, for example Alice Walker.

FINALLY, his writings shaped the discourse around RACE POLITICS, not just during the Negro Literary Renaissance in Harlem, but throughout the Civil Rights Movement.

Langston Hughes thrust his WORK into that Spotlight called the Harlem Renaissance, looking ahead :

Toward the Next Generation of artists and the public at large.






LIFE is a big sea
Full of MANY fish;

I let down my nets
And pulled.

I AM STILL PULLING...

(Langston Hughes)




THE RETURN from YOUR WORK:

Must be the SATISFACTION,
Which that work brings you;

And the WORLD'S NEED of that work.

With this, life is heaven,
Or NEAR HEAVEN As You Can Get.

(W.E.B DuBois)