Racial Mountain Langston Hughes

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Langston Hughes argues throughout the article “Negro Artist and The Racial Mountain” that everyone black person should accept and hold on to their culture and to also put it together with their own rare character. Also, in the article Hughes claims that many African Americans think that whites are better and that they are more high-class of them, which is very untrue. His goal is to show that African Americans can and should ‘excel’ over white people and try to appreciate their own culture instead of the white culture. The symbol Langston Hughes uses is the “mountain”. The mountain is an illustration of what we African Americans have to climb over because it divides blacks from our true talent and skill. African Americans have to learn…show more content…
It was supposed to boost them to have joy in their diverse black culture. He also wrote novels and stories for teenagers. According to Professor Wallace Best of Princeton University “Langston Hughes is widely regarded as “the Bard of Harlem” for vividly capturing the literary ethos and artistic spirit of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 30s. He was one of the most prolific black writers of the twentieth century and possibly the first to earn his living entirely by means of his craft”. Langston Hughes is clearly one of the most vital writers in the last 100…show more content…
The ‘racial mountain’ is an example of what African Americans have to climb over because it divides blacks from our true capacity and abilities. As years have gone by, racism is not as bad it was during Langston Hughes time, but, it is still an issue today. Langston Hughes quotes in his poem “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”. Tom-tom refers to the beat of a drum. I believe that reference means that Hughes just wants us (African Americans) to follow our hearts and to be ourselves and to be just of where we come
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