Langston Hughes Work During The Harlem Renaissance

The lifelong teacher of Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan once said that, "Every renaissance comes to the world with a cry, the cry of the human spirit to be free." The Harlem Renaissance is no exception to that. Each artist, writer, and philosopher's work during the Harlem Renaissance was a way for them to be free from the prevalent racism in the United States at that time. There is much debate on when the Harlem Renaissance actually began with most saying it started in the 1910s and ended in the mid 1930s when the stock market crash hit and the Great Depression settled in. It was sometime during World War 1 when the need for workers in industrial factories in Northern cities began to rise. Many African-Americans headed out to these urban cities to escape the poverty, racism and segregation in the rural south. Moving to Northern urban cities such as New York brought in a flood of intellectuals and artists to Harlem where cheap housing, education, and job opportunities were available. It was in Harlem that many African-Americans settled and writers, artists and
For example, Hughes' poem, "I, Too" from the Norton Anthology of American Literature, is told from a first person point of view, possibly from Hughes' as the speaker. It tells of the racism that many black people encounter but it's message is shown as optimistic. He says, "I am the darker brother,/ They send to me to eat in the kitchen.../ Tomorrow,/ I'll be at the table/ When company comes./ Nobody'll dare/ Say to me,/ "Eat in the kitchen,"/ Then"(lines 2-14, 1038). These lines from the poem tells of the segregation that black people encounter in everyday places such as restaurants where they were not allowed to eat with white people but Hughes expresses his view that he will not conformed to the idea of being a second class citizen. He believes that segregation will not last and that someday he will be viewed as someone who is an