Harlem+Renaissance

Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance as Post-Colonial Phenomena




 * The first major movement of African-American literature, beginning around 1923 and flourishing until the depression, but providing a stimulus that lasted through the 1940s.**

The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that included many writers from the Carribean whose post-colonial voices form a choir with the children of American slaves. It follows that to the sextent English language post-colonial literature and poetry is an important voice in 21st century writing the poets of the Harlem Renaissance are still to be reckoned in thinking the Future Poetry.

The poem by Hughes below ironically echos Whitman. Following the article on Hughes is a piece on the Harlem Renaissance as post-colonial phenomena:

I, Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed– I, too, am America. ……. The Negro Speaks of Rivers I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Source: New York Public Library