African American In The 1920s English Literature Essay

How were African- Americans really treated in the 1920’s and how did they feel about their treatment? African- Americans were mistreated and abused. African-Americans wanted freedom and respect. Life as an African- American in the 1920’s was extremely difficult and is easily explained through poetry. Poetry explained the feelings of poets such as Claude Mckay, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes. They all explained different types of emotions like love and hate. They also explained what freedom meant to them and what they would do for freedom. Jean Toomer was a poet who believed it was all up to plant/machines and he was optimistic about this crisis, he had faith. As explained in “Conversion”, he says African Guardian of Souls, Drunk with rum, Feasting on a strange cassava, Yeilding to new words and a weak parabola of a white-faced sardonic god- Grins , cries, Amen” (“Bloom” pg.43). The poets felt that the “African- American religion had suffer under Christian colonization and ancient gods have become weak preachers and leaders of the African-American communities”. (“Bloom” pg.45) Claude Mckay and Jean Toomer poems kind of related to each other. They both took an account from the NAACP documentation on lynching in the South and both explained their secretiveness. Claude Mckay’s “The Little People” protested in opposition to the Paris Peace Conference to take action in decolonizing Africa. “The Little People of the troubled earth, The little nations that are weak and white- For them the glory of another birth, For them the lifting of the veil of night. The big men of the world in concert met, Have sent forth their power a new decree: Upon the old harsh wrongs the sum must set Henceforth the little people must be free!” (Bloom pg.45) Jean Toomer and Claude Mckay both remained outsiders to the Harlem Renaissance but their early poetry shows the different pressures of a literary field that had not yet been stabilized around Harlem. Langston Hughes work in the early 1930’s was in three distinctive registers targeted for three relatively discrete audiences and this division of Hughes work into three basics modes can be seen as a reflection of the relative flaws of the Left within the broader African-American community in the beginning of the 1930 at the same time that the political, cultural, and economic impact of the Great Depression and a new communist party engagement with Negro Liberation drawed African Americans intellectuals and artist further in the circles of the communist. One mode of Langston Hughes writing was what might be thought of as African American uplift. That mode included large dramatic monologues such as “The Negro Mother,” The Colored Soldier,” and the “The Black Clown.” Those readings was large at African American institutions and were mostly attended by middle-class African-American audiences. This material included large formal conseritative poems of black pride and perseverance leavened by a piece such as “Broke”. All of these poets explained their feelings on how life as an African-American felt and affected them.

What type of feelings did the poets and African- Americans have? The poets had felt all different types of emotions. Emotions like love and hate. They loved each other but hated the way life was for them. “Oh when I think of my long-suffering race, For weary centuries despised, oppressed, Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place In the great life line of the Christian West; And in the Black Land disinherited, Robbed in the ancient country of its birth, My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead, For this my race that has no home on earth. Then from the dark depths of my soul I cry To the avenging angel to consume The white man’s world of wonders utterly:” (“Mckay” pg 1). Claude Mckay explains the feelings that are going on in the inside of African Americans. The lifestyle African Americans were living really sickened them. Blood, sweet, and tears wasn’t even enough to change the way life was for African Americans. They cried plenty of times because of their treatment. African- Americans wasn’t even treated like their human beings and that’s very stressful to be treated with such little respect. They felt like their freedom was stolen from them. “Sure, call me any ugly name you choose– The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives, We must take back our land again, America!” (“Hughes” pg1). In the poem” Let America Be America ” Langston Hughes discusses on how he wants free will and how African-Americans were shot down because they were defending for something they believed in and dreamed of having one day. Having no freedom rights frustrates him and affects African-Americans and they all want is a change. African- Americans wanted their property back and they were willing to do anything it takes to get it back. All they wanted was their freedom and land back! In Jean Toomer’s “November Cotton Flower” it explains the late blooming of the flower and it becomes emblematic of a freedom from psychic death, the freedom to love. “Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold, Made cotton-stalks look rusty, seasons old, And cotton, scarce as any southern snow, Was vanishing; the branch, so pinched and slow, Failed in its function soil had caused the soil to take All water from the streams; dead birds were found In wells a hundred feet below the ground- Such was the season when the flower bloomed. Old folks were startled , and it soon assumed Significance Superstition saw something it had never seen before: Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear, Beauty so sudden for that time of year.” (Bloom pg.4)

Are there other ways that African American expressed their feelings, if so how? The African Americans also expressed their feelings through singing. Singing was kind of a way to release stress and express yourself without really being punished. “Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll!” (“Toomer” pg.1) African Americans would sing songs that show their religious belief. They had so much faith in God and was always optimistic about things. “God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll!” (“Toomer” pg.1) “Cotton Song” is a work song singed by field workers bailing cotton. It describes Judgment Day, when people will be set free of slavery. The chant also expresses a fear of God and the need to be a good quality soul prior to Judgment Day. “I am a reaper whose muscles set at sundown. All my oats are cradled. But I am too chilled, and too fatigued to bind them. And I hunger. I crack a grain between my teeth. I do not taste it.

I have been in the fields all day. My throat is dry. I hunger. My eyes are caked with dust of oatfields at harvest-time. I am a blind man who stares across the hills, seeking stack’d fields of other harvesters. It would be good to see them . . crook’d, split, and iron-ring’d handles of the scythes. It would be good to see them, dust-caked and blind. I hunger.” (“Toomer pg.8) In the song poem “Harvest Song” Jean Toomer is a reaper in the field, who is starving and exhausted at the day’s end. His throat is dried out and his face covered with dust. The dust in his eyes makes him incapable of seeing others reapers in the field. He longs to see others like him. He is terrified to call out to his fellow workers because he does not want them to propose him their harvest. He does not want to awaken his need for food. The reaper’s ears are also filled with dust, and he cannot hear. He wants to hear other reapers singing in the fields. He acknowledges his hunger and thirst again. Jazz and blues were admired in Harlem as a result of the migration from the South. Paul Lawrence Dunbar had skilled national acclaim as a black writer before the turn of the century and was a huge inspiration on later African-American literary artists. World War I saw the skills of Claude McKay as a poet and writer and James Weldon Johnson as a black fiction writer.

African Americans just like any other regular human beings dreamed! They dreamed for freedom and equality. “For all the dreams we’ve dreamed, And all the songs we’ve sung, And all the hopes we’ve held, And all the flags we’ve hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay– Except the dream that’s almost dead today.” (“Hughes” pg.1) African Americans were willing to die for this freedom they dreamed of. In the poem “Freedoms Plow” Langston Hughes feels that it is best to die free than to be alive as slaves and by that he meant he would rather die and be free than to live and be a slave. Langston Hughes really displayed how passionate he was about life as an African- American in the poem, “BETTER TO DIE FREE THAN TO LIVE SLAVES,” he says “ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN WITHOUT HIS CONSENT. BETTER DIE FREE, THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.” (“Hughes” pg.1) He is saying its better to be dead and free than to be alive and suffering. From this suffering comes with depression and if you are depressed and alive then you might as well just die and be happy, that’s basically what Langston Hughes is saying. That’s how all African- Americans felt during that time unhappy and depressed from slavery. “I SHALL return again; I shall return To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes At golden noon the forest fires burn, Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies. I shall return to loiter by the streams That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses, And realize once more my thousand dreams Of waters rushing down the mountain passes.” (“Mckay” pg.1) Claude Mckay is saying that one day African-Americans will get their freedom back and will be able to what they want without any consequences.

In conclusion African- Americans were mistreated and abused. African-Americans wanted freedom and respect. Life as an African- American in the 1920’s was extremely difficult and is easily explained through poetry. Poetry explained the feelings of poets such as Claude Mckay, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes. They all explained different types of emotions like love and hate. They also explained what freedom meant to them and what they would do for freedom. Jean Toomer was a poet who believed it was all up to plant/machines and he was optimistic about this crisis, he had faith. As explained in “Conversion”, he says African Guardian of Souls, Drunk with rum, Feasting on a strange cassava, Yeilding to new words and a weak parabola of a white-faced sardonic god- Grins , cries, Amen” (“Bloom” pg.43). The poets felt that the “African- American religion had suffer under Christian colonization and ancient gods have become weak preachers and leaders of the African-American communities”. (“Bloom” pg.45) Claude Mckay and Jean Toomer poems kind of related to each other. They both took an account from the NAACP documentation on lynching in the South and both explained their secretiveness. Claude Mckay’s “The Little People” protested in opposition to the Paris Peace Conference to take action in decolonizing Africa. “The Little People of the troubled earth, The little nations that are weak and white- For them the glory of another birth, For them the lifting of the veil of night. The big men of the world in concert met, Have sent forth their power a new decree: Upon the old harsh wrongs the sum must set Henceforth the little people must be free!” (Bloom pg.45) Jean Toomer and Claude Mckay both remained outsiders to the Harlem Renaissance but their early poetry shows the different pressures of a literary field that had not yet been stabilized around Harlem. Langston Hughes work in the early 1930’s was in three distinctive registers targeted for three relatively discrete audiences and this division of Hughes work into three basics modes can be seen as a reflection of the relative flaws of the Left within the broader African-American community in the beginning of the 1930 at the same time that the political, cultural, and economic impact of the Great Depression and a new communist party engagement with Negro Liberation drawed African Americans intellectuals and artist further in the circles of the communist. One mode of Langston Hughes writing was what might be thought of as African American uplift. That mode included large dramatic monologues such as “The Negro Mother,” The Colored Soldier,” and the “The Black Clown.” Those readings was large at African American institutions and were mostly attended by middle-class African-American audiences. This material included large formal conseritative poems of black pride and perseverance leavened by a piece such as “Broke”. All of these poets explained their feelings on how life as an African-American felt and affected them.

Work Cited

Bloom, Harold. African-American poets . New ed. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism/Chelsea House, 2009.

Bloom, Harold. African-American poets . New ed. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism/Chelsea House, 2009.

April 19, 2011: <http://poemhunter.com>.

April 19, 2011:< http://poemhunter.com>.