Jamell Grimes 1 
Jamell Grimes
English 2100
November 16, 2014
Harlem Renaissance
Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, and novelist who also was the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He was well-known for his poetry in the early 20th century, in which most of his work reflected the oppression experienced by blacks in the south. Such as poems “crossed” and “song from a dark girl”, in which the two poems are similar in tone, language, and symbolism. The tone in both poems are of distress and confusion which derived from the discrimination towards blacks in the early 1900’s. Both poems expresses a great amount of sorrow due unjust racial discrimination imposed on blacks at the time. Lines such as “they hung my black lover” and “I wonder where I’m gone die, being neither white or black” exemplifies the distressfulness in the tone of both poems. In the poem “a song for a black girl” a African American girl expresses her sorrow over her dead black lover, who was hung, which we can assume was done by whites; because of the racial discrimination and segregation between blacks and whites in the south. Similar to the distress the author of the poem “cross” is experiencing, in which the writer is “mixed” with a white father and black mother. The author is angry and confused about his racial identity because of the heavy racial basis and segregation in the south, placing him in a purgatory area, not knowing if he’ll die as a white man or black man.
According to Billing, “the poem Song for a dark girl is a description of the distressful emotions felt by an African American girl during a time of brutal treatment towards her black lover, and blacks as a whole, to express how wrong their treatment was” (1). Africans Americans, primarily in the south, experienced an extreme amount of prejudice and discrimination from whites because of their pigmentation in the early 1900’s. Similar to the prejudice the author of the poem “cross” experienced. The description of the poem “cross” is
English 2100
November 16, 2014
Harlem Renaissance
Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, and novelist who also was the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He was well-known for his poetry in the early 20th century, in which most of his work reflected the oppression experienced by blacks in the south. Such as poems “crossed” and “song from a dark girl”, in which the two poems are similar in tone, language, and symbolism. The tone in both poems are of distress and confusion which derived from the discrimination towards blacks in the early 1900’s. Both poems expresses a great amount of sorrow due unjust racial discrimination imposed on blacks at the time. Lines such as “they hung my black lover” and “I wonder where I’m gone die, being neither white or black” exemplifies the distressfulness in the tone of both poems. In the poem “a song for a black girl” a African American girl expresses her sorrow over her dead black lover, who was hung, which we can assume was done by whites; because of the racial discrimination and segregation between blacks and whites in the south. Similar to the distress the author of the poem “cross” is experiencing, in which the writer is “mixed” with a white father and black mother. The author is angry and confused about his racial identity because of the heavy racial basis and segregation in the south, placing him in a purgatory area, not knowing if he’ll die as a white man or black man.
According to Billing, “the poem Song for a dark girl is a description of the distressful emotions felt by an African American girl during a time of brutal treatment towards her black lover, and blacks as a whole, to express how wrong their treatment was” (1). Africans Americans, primarily in the south, experienced an extreme amount of prejudice and discrimination from whites because of their pigmentation in the early 1900’s. Similar to the prejudice the author of the poem “cross” experienced. The description of the poem “cross” is