Black People and Great Migration Essay examples

Submitted By Meganstark21
Words: 1048
Pages: 5
Open Document
Langston Hughes was born in Joplin Missouri and raised by his grandmother in Lawrence Kansas, Hughes graduated high school and spent one year in college before setting off to experience the world. As a black man living in southern America in the late nineteenth century he witnessed the great migration in which half a million blacks left the south, many heading north. Slightly prior to the great migration the term ‘The new Negro’ appeared describing a growing sense of political awareness and search for empowerment amongst the black people, this along with the great migration to the North was known as the new Negro renaissance. Hughes drew on his experiences in regard to the ‘New Negro’ renaissance in much of his work, including ‘Bound No’th the Blues’. Hughes participated in the New negro renaissance by joining the African American expression of modernity. Although Hughes was not radically experimental in his form, like writer such as Pound and Eliot, there is something inherently modern about his text un that it couldn’t have been written before. Hughes adopts the American idiom in his poem using colloquial language such as ‘lawd’, The use of dialect was problematic in that it became associated with the minstrel tradition which involved whites dressing up as African Americans, thus the dialect became associated with stereotypes. Critic such as Johnson felt that dialect could only be used for humour and pathos reinforcing the idea of it creating stereotypes. Hughes, however felt that it had become instilled in African Americans that they must become white in order to succeed, he wanted to discard such a notion and so resisted American standardisation in his poems as a means of celebrating African American culture. Hughes seems to avoid techniques used in modernism such as impressionism and fragmentation. Furthermore unlike Eliot, Hughes doesn’t look to tradition to find order, it could be questioned, then, whether ‘Bound no’th the Blues’ fits with modernism. Despite in some senses being traditional and not being radically experimental in its technique, there is something very modern about Hughes’s poem. Hughes represents the oral tradition in his poem this clear through his use of repetition: ‘Walk...an’ walk...an’ walk. ‘This also links to the blues, by using the blues in poetry is experimental in its self; by using the blues Hughes celebrates African American culture, the blues links with the jazz age which fused white and African American culture together, through using the blues in his poetry Hughes is perhaps alluding to ideas of equality and the idea that brilliant things can be produced when cultures come together and work together in harmony. Furthermore whilst Hughes abandons Eliot’s notion of looking to past tradition as a means of finding order and coherence he uses dialect and the blues to create something out of the contemporary, making an alternative tradition that is not based around the canon. Hughes was certainly distinctly modern in that such poetry could not have been written before.

As well as reflecting the blues, the repetition in the poem connects with the idea of movement and journey, although it may be boring and monotonous he is moving towards something, this could certainly be an allusion to the great migration of 1910 when many of the African American community headed north for work. However it could also be metaphorical of the journey out of repression, Hughes is perhaps implying that it may be a slow, boring process, but eventually equality will come. Hughes create the sense that he doesn’t know what to expect, this is clear through the lack of rhyme scheme. When a poem has a clear rhyme scheme we know what sounds to expect on the coming lines where as when a poem fails to have a rhyme scheme we do not, Hughes is depicting how when the blacks were travelling north they didn’t quite know what to expect, furthermore they didn’t know what was coming
Show More

Related Documents: Black People and Great Migration Essay examples

The Great Migration Research Paper

most of your life? The Great Migration was an opportunity for african americans to get away. A time where you have just enough to get by. In this paper the author will discuss where the Great Migration originated, where you would end up, and how people of color reacted to starting over. The Great Migration was an event the gave people of color a chance to start a new. A chance to go somewhere that they were appreciated, and people don’t care about your color. Many places people only cared about what…

Words 892 - Pages 4

Causes Of The Great Migration

Before the Great Migration actually occurred, the Civil War was coming close to an end. There was still an Union and Confederate side of the United States of America. Many of the African Americans were slaves in the Southern Confederate side, while many were free in the Northern Union, Midwestern, and Western United States, where the southern slaves dreamt of coming to. Before the Civil War, African Americans in the South were considered nothing and even more after that, but the Civil War changed…

Words 628 - Pages 3

Great Migration Research Paper

southern blacks migrated to northern and western cities, culture, economics, and political beliefs were drastically changed. Whether you realize it or not, without this movement, your life would not be the same as it today. Your world has been positively impacted because of the movement that took place during the Great Migration. Without it, you might not have been able to enjoy the freedom of political beliefs, and astonishing aspects of culture that you are able to today. As a whole, the Great Migration…

Words 1163 - Pages 5

Summary: The Second Great Migration

The Second Great Migration in the United States was a result of World War Two. Since there was an abundant need for cheap labor in factories to keep sending supplies to the U.S. Army, millions of blacks from the South migrated to the North and moved into neighborhoods where historically only whites lived. This caused anger from the white community. After seeing that their communities were increasingly becoming more and more black, they decide to move out of the cities and into the suburbs. The White…

Words 975 - Pages 4

Harlem Renaissance Essay

Harlem Renaissance Imagine a movement of thousands of African Americans from the demeaning and undermining South to the more accepting and opportunity filled North. This was a migration made soon after being freed from slavery in the South in hopes of finding better job opportunities in the Northern parts of America. The African Americans had finally received their opportunity to equalize themselves with the white population of the United States and show the country what their lifestyle…

Words 552 - Pages 3

Harlem Renaissance Essay

what Alain Locke named it. The Harlem Renaissance was centered in Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Encompassing the new African American cultural expressions, and introducing black literacy and music culture years after the Civil War. Contributing factors that lead to the Harlem Renaissance were “The Great Migration”, education and politics. First, let’s explore the background behind Harlem leading up to the Harlem Renaissance. With the ending of Slavery African Americans began to strive to…

Words 1116 - Pages 5

Examples Of The Great Migration In To Kill A Mockingbird

represented in the book, was an example of The Great Migration. The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the rural southern United States to the Urban Northeast. The Emancipation Proclamation being signed is what caused the Migration. In 1863, less than 8% of the African Americans population lived in the Northeast or the Midwestern United States. By 1900, 90% of the African Americans still lived in the southern states. The 90% of people who lived in the southern states, then moved…

Words 368 - Pages 2

Essay On The Great Migration

The Great Migration In U.S. History we are talking about the 1920s, different events happened in only 10 years. One of those events was The Great Migration this all began in 1917 but it follow through upon the 1920s till the early 70s. I’m gonna talk to you about why it happened, how they migrated, and where they went and why. Congress passed the Selective Service Act on May 10, 1917, which required all men ages 21 to 31 to register for military duty. On registration day more than 700,000 black men…

Words 633 - Pages 3

Summary: The Second Great Migration

most prominent employers was the Pullman company, which managed the Calumet Shipyard in Chicago. The shipyard was a wartime plant to build ships “under contract for the United States Navy” (“Black Workers”). In fact, about 25% of the production workforce at Calumet was made up of African Americans in 1941 (“Black Workers”). Beyond the Pullman Company, the shortage of men on the Homefront left company owners nationwide searching for skilled laborers. However, many young able bodied men were fighting…

Words 435 - Pages 2

Miss Cynthie and City of Refuge Comparison Essay

Pedro Rodriguez Exam #1 The Great Migration reshape of American History Rudolph Fisher in the story Miss Cynthie and City of Refuge does a great job by exploiting the different characters of the Great Migration. For example, for immigrants that has just arrived to Harlem Fisher highlights Miss Cynthie and Gillis. For immigrants that are established in Harlem Fisher highlights two characters headed in two different directions; one is David an established artist, second is Uggam a person involved…

Words 1754 - Pages 8