Readings for 2/26/09

Readings for 2/26/09: Interesting piece about Langston Hughes it was supposed to be his biography but there was never any talk about whether or not he ever got married. I heard rumors that he was gay but don't know the validity of that assessment. Langston Hughes helped define the spirit of an age. Hughes has two other relatives that have made a mark on history his grandmother's first husband died at Harpers Ferry in a slave revolt, his maternal grandfather was prominent in Kansas politics during Reconstruction, and his brother was one of the famous Black Americans from the 19th century as a congressman from Virginia and the founding dean of the Law School of Howard University. He lived a life traveling and experiencing different cultures. In Mexico and abroad in Europe. The Negro Speaks of Rivers is a poem about the black man's soul that has grown across the ages from the time in Africa building huts to the time on the Nile building a pyramid. How it heard the Mississippi River sing when a young Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans and decided that one day he would end slavery. The poem Harlem speaks of a dream that is postponed and how does it spoil because of it being postponed or does it explode like a stick of dynamite. This dream they are referring to is the civil rights of the black man. Theme for English B speaks of how a colored student in an all white class is writing a page and wonders if his page will be colored that he writes because of his race. He likes the same things that white people do (Bach) but ponders this question. Also speaks of how the white instructor does not want to be a part of the African American student and the student does not want to be a part of the white instructor either but it is something they can't control because they are both American.