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The Voice of Hughes, Harlem, and Racism in Langston Blues by Jericho Brown

Analysis of Langston Blues: A Deeper Dimension of Langston Hughes's Voice

The ensuing impact that Langston Hughes had devised during his lifetime is still undeniably prevalent among the community of literature today. Being one of the most notable pioneers of the Harlem Renaissance, a monumental rebirth of African-American culture in the 1960s, Hughes is perpetually celebrated by numerous poets and artists, including Jericho Brown. Brown remarked that he was heavily inspired by the battles and ventures Hughes had faced which he channeled through his poem, Langston Blues (Gail O'Neill, 2020). This poem undertook Hughes's iconic work of When a Negro Speaks of the River and vocalized another perspective from Hughes' point of view. In this analysis, the writer will be examining another dimension of Langston Hughes's voice, past-life, and movements, exhibited through Jericho Brown's Langston Blues.

From the very beginning, multiple words and objects, incorporated into the poem, that allude to Hughes' personal past life are served to your sight. In Langston Blues, Brown was deeply embodying Hughes by creating references to his peers and family members, along with relevant experiences involving these two characters. The first reference can be found within the second and third line of the second stanza and the first line of the third stanza :

"Repeating invocations pure

And perfect as a moan

That mounts in the mouth of Bessie Smith."

These lines mentioned Bessie Smith, the most influential African-American blues singer that helped the genre propel into popular culture in the 1930s (Maureen Mahon, 2019). Smith was one of Hughes's fellow artists during the Harlem Renaissance, publicly favoured for her exceptionally smooth voice. In this context, Brown was creating a reference of Hughes's friend and a connection of their associations with Hughes's wish for his invocations to be conveyed perfectly like Bessie Smith's voice.

Another example to examine can be taken from the second and third lines of the fifteenth stanza and the first and second lines of the sixteenth stanza :

"……And my daddy was

Too dark for America. He ran

Like a man from my mother

And me….."

In these particular lines, Brown was initiating a reference to Hughes's father. His father, James N. Hughes, was an African-American. During Hughes's writing period in 1930, America was actively implementing racial segregations, separating blacks and whites (James Gregory, 2009). African-Americans encountered endless degrading insults based on their skin color, which is a solid reference as to how his father was 'too dark for America'. Meanwhile, the latter part of the lines indicates Hughes's father's absence during his early age. His father separated soon after his birth and as a result, Hughes was raised by his grandmother and mother (Floyd Cooper, 1994). Through these lines Brown had successfully adopted various aspects of Hughes's personal past life in the process of manifesting this poem scrupulously.

This poem also effortlessly epitomised the cultural phenomenon of the Harlem Renaissance through several references. Harlem Renaissance, a historical movement initiated by Langston Hughes and his associates, was set as a milestone of African-American cultures in arts and literature. It was the rapid increase of black artists and the development of the Harlem neighborhood as the black cultural mecca. One of Langston Hughes's popular works that are made as a pillar in Harlem Renaissance literature birth was When a Negro Speaks of the Rivers, which Brown interconnected to this poem. One of the examples can be seen in the third line of the seventeenth stanza and the first line of the eighteenth stanza :

"When I was 18, I wrote down

The river though I couldn't win

A race…"

These lines referred to the beginning of Langston Hughes's participation in the genesis of the Harlem Renaissance. Brown was elaborating on how Hughes wrote When a Negro Speaks of the River, in which he rephrased into 'the river', when he was 18 years old, making it one of the most substantial work in Harlem Renaissance. Another example can be taken from the first to the third line of the thirteenth stanza :

"When I say Congo, I mean

Blood. When I say Nile, I mean blood.

When I say Euphrates, I mean…"

These lines were an intimate reference to Hughes's outlook on the Harlem Renaissance. Brown was creating a bridge between the symbolization of 'river' used in When a Negro Speaks of the River, with the cultural power which African-Americans hold. He took the country and river names: Congo, Nile, and Euphrates, which was drawn from Hughes's poem, and inserted renewed interpretations of the original work. Hughes positioned 'river' as a prominent symbol of African-American culture. It signifies the neverending flow of black culture which became the foundation of the Harlem Renaissance's birth: to perpetuate and sustain African-American cultures, arts, and resources.

This poem also reflected America's systemic racism through several lines. It is public knowledge that the neverending racism in America has been emerging since the colonial era up until this very present. Racism, an act of discrimination against various groups of ethnicity or race puts those with higher white proximity to a superior placement. European Americans or white Americans are allowed access to privileges and rights that can be denied to other minorities, in this specific case, African-Americans. The whites are given some advantages in education, citizenship, immigration and etc. while African Americans or black people are faced with limitations in matters of social, economic, and political freedom. In his poem, Brown displayed frequent references to this prevalent issue. The first reference can be found in the fourteenth and the fifteenth stanza

"If only you knew what blood

We have in common. So much,

In Louisiana, they call a man like me

Red. And red was too dark

For my daddy. And my daddy was

Too dark for America."

In these lines, Brown was referring to one of the prominent racist behavior of their past white folks. They call black people 'red', a degrading term to identify an African-American during Hughes's era. His dad was also deemed 'too dark for America' and received continuous unjust treatment solely for his skin color. A similar reference can be found in the second and third line of the eighteenth stanza:

"A race, climbed a tree that winter, then

Fell, flat on my wet, red face. Line.."

In the end, Brown wrote "there was nothing I could do about race" which conveys the unalterability of their ethnicity. Despite the incessant discrimination aimed at black communities, they cannot change their skin shade nor their race, if it were to be an option they wished to explore in achieving a better livelihood. This addressed the strength and intensity of the racism and discriminations targeted at African-Americans from Hughes's point of view.

In conclusion, through Langston Blues by Jericho Brown, a deeper dimension of Langston Hughes's personal life and his impact on today's society for African-Americans is dissected and projected into a compact form of art. It is a timeless homage to the Harlem Renaissance and the tremendous emergence of black artists up to this very moment. Jericho Brown had successfully captured Langston Hughes's voice, rebirth of the black culture, and the systemic racism of his state from an alluring and artistic point of view.

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Source: https://medium.com/perceive-more/the-voice-of-hughes-harlem-and-racism-in-langston-blues-by-jericho-brown-823584620ba1

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