Langston Hughes, an African American poet and civil rights activist during the civil right era in the United States. He wrote many poem in order to express the unjust treatment that people experience in this time. Poems he used that this theme where “The Backlash Blues”, “Let America be America Again”, “You and Your Whole Race”, “I too”, and “Merry go round”. Langston Hughes uses imagery, diction, and repetition in his poems in order to convey his ideas of hardships and difficulty people dealt with at his time.
Langston Hughes uses imagery in his poems in order to convey his ideas of hardships and difficulty people dealt with at his time. For example in the poem “The Backlash Blues” Hughes writes, “You give me second class houses/Seconds class schools/Do you think colored folks/Are just second class fools?” (lines 4-8). This gives the reader images of homes and schools that are awful but had the potential to be normal or average if the speaker was not of colored. Another example of this is in the poem “I too”. Hughes writes “When company
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For instance in the poem “You and Your Whole Race” Hughes writes, “And be ashamed that supine poverty exists there” (line 7) He uses the word supine to convey how the moral weakness of the middle class African American lead them to the downfall and continuous downfall of poorer African Americans. Another example of diction in Hughes’ poems is in “I too”. “They’ll see how beautiful I am/ And be ashamed-/ I,too, am America” (lines 16-18) . Those who opposed him eating when company came was due to his complexion. Instead of saying “They’ll see how similar we are,” he uses the word beautiful to show how this complexion is different but alluring. Hughes also hopes that those opposing him eating when company arrives feel ashamed. He hopes they realize their acts based off someone’s pigment is