Black nationalism in Hughes, Baldwin, Wright, and Ellison

Black Experience in American Culture

This is a paper that analyzes the black experience in American culture as presented by Hughes, Baldwin, Wright and Ellison. It has 20 sources in MLA format.

African-American authors have influenced American culture as they have come forward to present issues that the society would rather have forgotten. Authors such as Richard Wright Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes and James Baldwin have come under fire as they have written about the racial and biased experiences throughout their life [Capetti, 2001] and through their narratives they have forged a link between the past, the present (themselves) and their future (the unborn generation).

These literary works are an effort on their part to prove to their nations that regardless of the perceived realities their existence and lives have valuable. The slave past some of these authors have had created a void in their lives that at times left then feeling ashamed and wary of their life experiences. These works were then an effort to wipe out shame and abashment associated with a part of their life that they could not control. By presenting the true essence of their potentials as an industry, as folks with rich traditions and high values they made themselves a 'productive citizen.' Thus, it can be said that African-American culture has been dominated by the struggle from isolated individuals towards the creation of a self-confident social figure. [Okafur-Newsum, 1998].

African-American Authors

Langston Hughes

To comprehend Langston Hughes literary efforts a deep insight is required of the concept of nationalism. After 1880, the concept of nationalism was widespread and focused on the fact that people with the same race; common language, ethnicity etc. constituted a nation. Internationalism on the other hand lay forth the opposite of nationalism that is the unity of workers of different races, languages and ethnicity etc.

With this concept the Black Americans with leaders like Garvey in lead were able to develop the fact that they were equal to the American and the Indian-American; that they were, after all, the inhabitants of the same land and each in lieu of this belief suggested that each and every social aspect of their existence needed reanalyzing [Dawahare, 1998]. During the 1920's many poets and Black authors were affected by the nationalism that followed World War I. It must be noted that many authors embraced Black Nationalism in order to contest the racism deep rooted in the American society. They took this step to replace this racism by inculcating and restoring black culture providing the African-American a new platform to feel at home with.

According to Charles.J. Johnson [Dawahare, 1998] the poetry written by many black authors was more than mere experimentation, it was the acknowledgement of a race. That is not the usual meaning associated with black poetry but one which is free from all kinds of discrimination, one that honors the lives and struggle of the African-American community [Dawahare, 1998].

Poems like 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers', 'Our Land', 'Danse Africaine' and 'I, too', reflect Hughes exactly the way Johnson described [Louis and Gates, 1993]. He appears to have been reincarnated with the developed sense of self-affirmation, self-consciousness and confidence. In his 'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain', Hughes talks about dominance of America White Culture (referred to as the Racial Mountain) over those who represented the 'race' [Hughes, 1940]. He decries the content with which middle class Black Americans have adhered to the American White culture defying their true identity. But he appreciates that the working class blacks can still purvey the artists with life, can present them with the tools to base their works on, in order to establish their own identity.

The expression (jazz, rock, and blues) and the lives themselves are substances for the artist who is ready to paint them with words. Hughes directs his peers to the aim of expressing without shame or guilt what they are and who they are. In the 1930's Hughes shifted from his aesthetic blues sense that was associated with political struggle and where he seemed to challenge contemporary artists and their struggle in terms of literary efforts to analyze their concept of politics and poetry [from Thurston, 1995]. He simply identified the fact the not only were politics and poetry are poles apart but also that he could not stick to his initial expression of nationalism he so fondly followed.

The effects of Depression dominated the shift of Hughes to the left. It was after all, useless to believe that the white man dictated his own fate when its working class was either unemployed or underemployed. [Hart 249]. This effect is visible in his 'the Blue Sea' [1926] in which he describes New York winters as uncomfortable, with so many people helpless and hapless in wake of the depression.

The publication of "Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria" (1931) was an attempt to express his agony over the depression that caused class inequality. The poorer kept getting poorer while the wealthy got wealthier. He has depicted the advertisement as one for the homeless and hapless and that Waldorf is a luxury hotel only for them. By 1932 Hughes was shifting from his nationalism beliefs as a Harlem Renaissance writer and towards a deep-rooted concept.

For him the concept of class inequality was more profound and important than race alone. In Scottsboro Limited (1932) he speaks of the Scottsboro incident in a verse-play. Here the dialogue is between anonymous black boys who converse stating that the elite white does not care for the poor be it the black or the white. He identified that the blacks had been specially categorized for discrimination in terms of economy and social aspects under capitalism. In Let America be America Again (1938) Hughes has exploited the failure of the American Dream that was deeply affected by the aftermath of the Depression, racism and the struggle against, the deviation of the white man from his roots to an undefined destination (American Dream). He states that the 'true democratic and egalitarian America has never existed due to class disparity'. Those who were discounted and misrepresented were the Native Americans, the Blacks and the working white man. [Anthony 1995; Eric, 1996].

James Baldwin

Critics of [Ohi 1999] of James Baldwin often categorize him as a symbol of black sexual transcendence as can be seen in the narrative, 'Another Country' where Baldwin addresses the issue of oppression disguised in the form of sexual harassment.

However, many critics have shunned his attempts for according to Andrew Shin [1998] Baldwin has not presented such a theory. In fact Shin upholds that Baldwin resisted the black experience and nationalist approach. He chose to explore the finding of true identity. In Baldwin's autobiographical "Go Tell it on the Mountain" (1952) and "Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone" (1968), one sees that Baldwin explores the concept of white man's and black man's homosexuality. His views are influenced by Wright's Native Son. It is in "But in Just Above My Head" that Baldwin confronts and present to his readers the implication of the taboo of black homosexuality on his home ground [Shin, 1998].

Conclusion:

One way or the other all four authors were able to instigate a deep insight within the black individuals ability to recognize that they had to come to an understanding og their heritage in order to regain their lost identity. They learned to incorporate their cultural heritage in music such as jazz exploited by Ellison and social aspects such as sexuality by Baldwin and yet, Wright preferred to present his own childhood and experience to illustrate the amalgam of thoughts that inspire the forcingly insipid life of black Americans.

These authors have successfully dominated the presence of black culture with the onset of heroes and hopes that led to the struggles reviving the past, polishing the present and promising a better future.

Reference:

1] Sundquist, Eric J. who was Langston Hughes? Relevancy: 100; (Commentary) 12-01-1996

2] Buttitta, Anthony. "A Note on Contempo and Langston Hughes." London: Cunard, 1934. 141.

3] Langston Hughes on Scottsboro. College Literature, 10-01-1995, pp. 30(20). Vol. 22

4] Okafor-Newsum, Ikechukwu, of Dreams Deferred, Dead or Alive: African Perspectives on African-American Writers.. Vol. 29, Research in African Literatures, 03-22-1998, pp. 219(12).

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6] Murray, Hugh T., Jr. "Changing America and the Changing Image of Scottsboro." Phylon 38 (1977): 82-92

7] Baker, Houston a. Jr. The Journey Back: Issues in Black Literature and Criticism. Chicago: U. Of Chicago P, 1980.

8] Woolf, Virginia. The Waves. London: Harcourt, 1931.

9] Ellmann, Maud. The Hunger Artists: Starving, Writing, Imprisonment. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993.

10] Lynch, Michael F. "Beyond Guilt and Innocence: Redemptive Suffering and Love in Baldwin's Another Country." Obsidian II: Black Literature in Review 7.1-2 (1992): 1-18.

11] Langston, Hughes. The Weary Blues. New York: Knopf, 1926.

12] Podhoretz, Norman. What Happened to Ralph Ellison. Commentary July, 1999.

Ellison, Ralph. "Introduction to the Thirtieth-Anniversary Edition of Invisible Man." 1981.

13]. Griffiths, Frederick T. Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and the Case of Angelo Herndon.(Critical Essay) African-American Review Winter, 2001.

14]. Ohi, Kevin, "I'm not the boy you want": sexuality, "race," and thwarted revolution in Baldwin's 'Another Country.'. African-American Review Summer, 1999.

15] Shin, Andrew. Beneath the Black aesthetic: James Baldwin's primer of Black American masculinity. African-American Review Summer, 1998.

16]. Wright, Richards. "The Man Who Lived Underground." 1945. Eight Men. 27-92.

17] -- . "Memoirs of My Grandmother." Unpublished ms. No date. Courtesy of Julia Wright.

18]....-.Native Son. 1940. New York: Harper & Row, 1960.

19] Cappetti, Carla, Black Orpheus: Richard Wright's "The Man Who Lived Underground.," Melus, 01-01-2001, pp 41.

20] Louis, Henry and Gates, K.A. Appiah. Langston Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Ed New York: Amistad, 1993, 213-36.

21] Thurston, Michael, Black Christ, red flag: Langston Hughes on Scottsboro.. Vol. 22, College Literature, 10-01-1995, pp 30(20).