Langston Hughes Ballad Of The Landlord Summary

Langston Hughes has penned a protest poem in The Ballad of the Landlord . The protest is in the form of a tenant's fight against a landlord who is only interested in earning the rent on the leased out property and is not interested to participate in its maintenance cost. The poem talks of social protest literature that can be traced back to the African American literature tradition which prevailed during the Harlem Renaissance ( 1920-1929) of which Langston Hughes was a practitioner. The poem reflects on the problems associated with African American tenants who are denied equal justice when faced with issues of tenant eviction , rent protests on grounds of social injustice, color discrimination and communal inequality.

The poem says about