Read The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain to understand the Harlem Renaissance writers.
Very often when we think of James Mercer Langston Hughes his poetry comes to mind. "Dream Deferred," "Mother to Son," "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," and many other Hughes poems are certainly staples of African-American literature. He was born in Joplin, Missouri, (in 1902) and moved to New York City in the 1920s, where he became known throughout his life as "the poet laureate of Harlem."
However, we sometimes overlook the fact that Hughes was also a playwright, essayist, fiction writer, anthologist, journalist, and translator. A very prolific writer with over 50 books and major works published or produced, he is generally considered the best known of the Harlem Renaissance authors. His work spans through 1967, the year he died.
One reason for Hughes' importance in the Renaissance is an essay that was published in The Nation on June 23, 1926: "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain." In this essay, Hughes described his view for a new direction in African-American literature and the arts.
Generally, he divided black artists into two camps: those who would, in his view, copy European standards and those who would find their material in the "low-down folks." As Hughes put it: "But then there are the low-down folks, the so-called common element, and they are the majority-may the Lord be praised!"
When you read Harlem Renaissance writers-Toomer, McKay, Hurston and others-you see how they presented characters and stories like those Hughes described. This does not mean that they always agreed with Hughes. However, he was the one who gave voice to the new African-American writer and artist of the 1920s and 1930s when he wrote:
"We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves."
