African-American Poetry Studies: The Expression

African-American Poetry Studies: The Expression of Racial Tension in the Work of Hughs, Mccay, Cullen and Brown

The objective of this work is the review the work of four authors, specifically those of:

Langston Hughs - "Democracy";

Claude McKay - "If We Must Die";

Countee Cullen - "Uncle Jim"; and 4) Sterling Brown - "Bitter Fruit of the Tree" and to then discuss how each of these authors expresses within their written work the subject of racism.

Many feelings and emotions are expressed through the art of poetry and this is particularly true of the works of Hughs, McKay, Cullen and Brown in their expressions of racism in the poems studies in this research work.

MCKAY: IF WE MUST DIE (1919)

In 1919 Claude McCay responded to mass riots in which whites assaulted black neighborhoods in approximately '...a dozen..' cities across America. McCay's poem "If We Must Die" states:

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die..."

It is clear that McCay is urging the black community to fight back... Or indeed to die for something other than for merely being a member of the black minority race in America as he states:

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!"

HUGHS: DEMOCRACY

In the poem entitled: "Democracy" the author Langston Hughs states:

Democracy will not come

Today, this year

Nor ever

Through compromise and fear." (Langston Hughs)

As the poem continues Hughs relates that each individual has the same 'right' as one another in terms of independence and the rights to own their own land. Hughs relates that he grows weary of those who abdicate their own rights and encourage others to do so by 'letting things "take their own course" or go as they may stating:

do not need my freedom when I'm dead.

A cannot live on tomorrow's bread." (Langston Hughs)

The poem of Hughs ends by expressing that freedom comes to be needed by those who are deprived the most of freedom.

CULLEN: UNCLE JIM

In the work of Cullen entitled "Uncle Jim" the entirety of understanding this poem is in the first line which states:

White folks is white," says Uncle Jim" (Countree Cullen)