TEXT: Hughes (1926, 1951), Brooks (1960)
- Three short, mostly free-verse poems with repetition, alliteration and some rhyming
- Each published as part of collections by influential Black poets during periods of civil rights struggle: Great Migration and Harlem Renaissance (1920s), Double V campaign during WWII (1940s), Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Emmett Till lynching (1955) and modern civil rights movement (1950s and 1960s)
CONTEXT: Civil Rights
“So much of the energy and character of the sixties emerged from the civil rights movement, which won its greatest victories in the early years of the decade. The movement itself was changing. Many of the civil rights activists pushing for school desegregation in the 1950s were middle-class and middle-aged. In the 1960s, a new student movement arose whose members wanted swifter changes in the segregated South. Confrontational protests, marches, boycotts, and sit-ins accelerated.” —American Yawp, Chapter 27
SUBTEXT: Civil Rights: Hope or Despair?
- Does Langston Hughes shift from hope to despair between “I, Too” (1926) and “Harlem” (1951)?
- Why does Gwendolyn Brooks adopt the voice of the teenagers skipping school at the “Bronzeville” neighborhood (south side) Chicago pool hall?