Blue Bayou By Langston Hughes Analysis

Langston Hughes felt very strongly about racism and how it played a role in everyday life as well as throughout American history. His concern with racial issues in America are what led to much of his work. He used several historical events to talk about racial issues to strengthen his poems. Hughes wasn’t only fighting racism, but he wrote about how he was proud to be African American as he talks about major events in history being led by his African ancestors.
Hughes wrote about racial injustice he felt was present in everyday African American life, and how the “American Democracy” was faulty in that it didn’t favor the masses or poor. In “Blue Bayou” Hughes wrote, “White man/ Makes me work all day/ And I work too hard/ For too little pay” (7-10). He writes in those lines how the white man takes advantage of African Americans by giving them the worst jobs in the worst conditions for the least amount of pay. Hughes writes later in the same poem “Then a white man/ Takes my women away… Put him on a rope/ And pull him higher! This is his view on how
In the poem “Negro” Hughes writes, “I’ve been a slave:/Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean. /I brushed the boots of Washington. /I’ve been a worker:/Under my hand the pyramids arose. /I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.” (6-9). This Poem is very multi-faceted in that it shows a couple themes Hughes was known for. He writes about how he has been a slave for the likes of Caesar to keep his door step clean or how he kept clean the boots of Washington, but when he says “I” he is referring to Africans throughout history. He uses historical events to also show his pride for his people and how far they have come from slaves to the 1920’s even if he still faced prejudice. In “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” Hughes writes “I looked upon the Nile and raised pyramids above it. / I heard the singing of Mississippi when Abe Lincoln/ went down to New Orleans…”