“Hers was distinctly a poetry of protest, as has been most Negro poetry for two hundred years—which has limited its appreciation in America to a comparatively small circle of readers.”

Observing how protest can give poetry urgency while narrowing its acceptance · Essay, 200 Years of Afro-American Poetry

• Poetry
• Truth

“Once liberated, he continued to protest in writing concerning the sad fate of the black man on American shores, in slavery or out.”

Presenting writing as a continuing instrument of witness after personal freedom was gained · Essay, 200 Years of Afro-American Poetry

• Freedom
• Poetry
• Truth

“Horton had to wait until the end of the Civil War to become a free man.”

A stark reminder of the limits that even literary achievement could not overcome under slavery · Essay, 200 Years of Afro-American Poetry

• Freedom
• Poetry
• War

“She wrote herself to freedom, modeling her verses after those of Milton, Dryden, and Alexander Pope, as was the fashion of her times.”

Describing how Phillis Wheatley's literary achievement became inseparable from her journey out of enslavement · Essay, 200 Years of Afro-American Poetry

• Freedom
• Poetry

“And they accept what beauty is their own without question.”

Praising an unselfconscious acceptance of one's own culture and beauty · Essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

• Beauty
• Truth

“Whereas the better-class Negro would tell the artist what to do, the people at least let him alone when he does appear.”

Contrasting social pressure with the creative freedom offered by ordinary audiences · Essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

• Art

“They furnish a wealth of colorful, distinctive material for any artist because they still hold their own individuality in the face of American standardizations.”

Valuing individuality as a defence against cultural uniformity · Essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

• Art
• Truth

“These common people are not afraid of spirituals, as for a long time their more intellectual brethren were, and jazz is their child.”

Locating musical creativity in a community willing to embrace its own traditions · Essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

• Art
• Music

“Their joy runs, bang! into ecstasy. Their religion soars to a shout.”

Evoking the intensity with which ordinary life can become joy and spiritual expression · Essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

• Faith
• Joy

“They do not particularly care whether they are like white folks or anybody else.”

Admiring people whose sense of self is not governed by imitation or social approval · Essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

• Truth

“But then there are the low-down folks, the so-called common element, and they are the majority—may the Lord be praised.”

Celebrating ordinary people as a vital source of cultural life and artistic material · Essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

• Art
• Joy

“Well, everyone knows, except us, that all Negroes have rhythm, so they elected me as class poet.”

Turning an imposed stereotype into a wry account of his beginnings as a poet · Autobiography, The Big Sea

• Childhood
• Poetry

“I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry.”

Recalling with irony how a racial stereotype helped lead him towards poetry · Autobiography, The Big Sea

• Childhood
• Poetry
• Truth

“Something about my grandmother’s stories (without her ever having said so) taught me the uselessness of crying about anything.”

Describing an early lesson in resilience absorbed indirectly through storytelling · Autobiography, The Big Sea

• Childhood
• Hope
• Memory

“Nobody ever cried in my grandmother’s stories. They worked, or schemed, or fought. But no crying.”

Remembering family stories that presented hardship through endurance and action · Autobiography, The Big Sea

• Childhood
• Memory

“Hundreds of colored people. I wanted to shake hands with them, speak to them. I hadn’t seen any colored people for so long.”

Remembering the powerful sense of recognition and community he felt on reaching Harlem · Autobiography, The Big Sea

• Joy
• Memory

“I can never put on paper the thrill of that underground ride to Harlem.”

Recalling an excitement so strong that even a writer found it difficult to capture · Autobiography, The Big Sea

• Joy
• Memory

“Harlem was like a great magnet for the Negro intellectual, pulling him from everywhere. Or perhaps the magnet was New York, but once in New York, he had to live in Harlem.”

Remembering Harlem's extraordinary attraction for Black writers and artists · Autobiography, The Big Sea

• Art
• Memory

“Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I'm still pulling.”

Describing life as an inexhaustible source of people, experiences and material for art · Autobiography, The Big Sea

• Art
• Time

“The will to live and laugh in this city of over a million people under fire, each person in constant danger, was to me a source of amazement.”

Marveling at ordinary people's resilience and humour in the midst of danger · Autobiography, I Wonder as I Wander

• Hope
• Joy
• War

“Hardly had I climbed into a rickshaw than I saw riding in another along the Bund a Negro who looked exactly like a Harlemite.”

Capturing the unexpected recognitions that accompanied Hughes's travels · Autobiography, I Wonder as I Wander

• Memory

“After all, I suppose how anything is seen depends on whose eyes look at it.”

A succinct reminder that perception is inseparable from the observer · Autobiography, I Wonder as I Wander

• Truth

“Moscow dental customs, the unveiling of the harem women in Turkestan, and the disappearance of the color line throughout Soviet Asia, are the three achievements I remember best of the whole USSR.”

Recalling the aspects of Soviet life that most strongly remained in his memory · Autobiography, I Wonder as I Wander

• Memory

“The system under which the successful live—left or right, capitalist or communist—did not seem to make much difference to that group of people, in every city around the globe, who managed by hook or crook to live well.”

Observing that privilege can survive very different political systems · Autobiography, I Wonder as I Wander

• Truth