{"id":27362,"date":"2021-02-01T11:56:30","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T16:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=27362"},"modified":"2021-02-01T12:26:44","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T17:26:44","slug":"monday-morning-moment-poet-langston-hughes-on-life-and-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=27362","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Moment – Poet Langston Hughes on Life and America"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo Credit: The Wisdom Daily<\/a><\/p>\n

American poet Langston Hughes<\/a> was born in 1902. His life as a black man in such a time as this gave voice to that of many in America. Especially blacks, but to others as well who also found themselves marginalized by the powerful and influential of their day. He died much too young at 65.<\/p>\n

I discovered his poetry in 2020…very late to the party or revolution.<\/p>\n

Raised by a loving, Godly mom, I was taught to be color-blind regarding races of people. It turns out that didn’t prove to be healing to black friends, neighbors, and strangers on the street. Blacks whose lives had been deeply and darkly affected by a racism I simply had not learned or experienced. How could that be? Yet, it is true.<\/p>\n

[My mom had a pure heart; I’m sure of this. She wanted to believe that there was only one race, the human race. She grew up poor, worked hard all her life, mostly making minimum wage, held her family together, and kept her faith. Much like the black women who lived in that distant, unknown part of town. She just didn’t know what was happening in government and the private sector that divided us…and diminished some. All of us, by degrees.]<\/p>\n

Racism is wrong and must be exposed and wrestled down. I don’t believe that what has happened in the US over 2020 will move us in that direction.\u00a0 I could be wrong. For sure.<\/p>\n

Still…I’m so thankful for people who, despite the wrongs done to them or around them, have flourished. Like the rising tide, raising all boats<\/em><\/a> in its wake. My desire is to recognize and support those who resist street-level thuggery and use platforms that don’t divide but draw us all in.<\/p>\n

Langston Hughes is an example of that sort of person. [Now, he died during a pivotal time in the Civil Rights Movement, a year before Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed. Had he lived longer, I don’t know how his thinking or poetry would have changed.]<\/p>\n

I’d like to let just a few of Langston Hughes’ words speak for him:<\/p>\n

\n
\u201cLooks like what drives me crazy
\nDon’t have no effect on you–
\nBut I’m gonna keep on at it
\nTill it drives you crazy, too.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\u201cI swear to the Lord,I still can’t see,Why Democracy means,Everybody but me. \u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.\u201d
\n\u2015 Langston Hughes<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

On this day, commemorating Hughes’ birthday, a friend of mine posted on Facebook the two following poems (one by Walt Whitman followed by a poem of response by Langston Hughes):<\/p>\n

I Hear America Singing – Walt Whitman<\/a> – 1819-1892<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

*I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,<\/span><\/p>\n

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,<\/span>
\n The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,<\/span>
\n The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,<\/span>
\n The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,<\/span>
\n The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,<\/span>
\n The wood-cutter\u2019s song, the ploughboy\u2019s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,<\/span>
\n The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,<\/span>
\n Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,<\/span>
\n The day what belongs to the day\u2014at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,<\/span>
\n Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.”*<\/span><\/p>\n

I, Too – <\/span>Langston Hughes<\/a> – 1902-1967<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI, too, sing America.<\/p>\n

I am the darker brother.
\nThey send me to eat in the kitchen
\nWhen company comes,
\nBut I laugh,
\nAnd eat well,
\nAnd grow strong.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow,
\nI’ll be at the table
\nWhen company comes.
\nNobody’ll dare
\nSay to me,
\n“Eat in the kitchen,”
\nThen.<\/p>\n

Besides,
\nThey’ll see how beautiful I am
\nAnd be ashamed–<\/p>\n

I, too, am America.\u201d*<\/p>\n

Hughes wrote about America and life as a black person in America. Especially as it related to freedom of expression:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America \u2014 this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.<\/span>..Then there are the low-down folks, the so-called common element, and they are the majority \u2014 may the Lord be praised!…These common people are not afraid of spirituals, as for a long time their more intellectual brethren were, and jazz is their child. They furnish a wealth of colorful, distinctive material for any artist because they still hold their own individuality in the face of American standardization. And perhaps these common people will give to the world its truly great Negro artist, the one who is not afraid to be himself.\u201d – <\/span><\/em>L<\/span>angston Hughes,<\/span> The Weary Blues<\/span><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Here, on the first day of Black History Month, in a more somber America 2021, I salute the great poet Langston Hughes. May we learn from him and from each other.<\/p>\n

[May we also beware of those who “seem to be influential”<\/em> in our culture today – those who would divide and diminish us – when we have the capacity and capability to help each other flourish…all of us. – This warning coming of all places from my reading in the Bible this early snowy morning, Galatians 2<\/a>.]<\/p>\n