poems 581to their affluent neighborhoods, “solutions to the
problem, of course, [have to] wait” (22–23). To those
who are already free, securing the freedom of others
is merely “charity work”—a trivial hobby that can
always wait for another day.
Tanfer Emin Tunc
race in the poetry of Langston Hughes
One of Langston Hughes’s most profound state-
ments on race can be found in “Will V-Day Be Me-
Day Too?” (1944). This poem, which is essentially
a letter written by a black World War II soldier,
“GI Joe,” chronicles the racial injustices faced by
African-American veterans who helped liberate
white Europeans, but face death and destruction in
their own country. As Hughes illustrates, African-
American soldiers freed the Jewish prisoners from
concentration camps, and eradicated fascism from
Germany and France, but for them, V-Day (Vic-
tory Day) will never come, for “Here in my own, my
native land, . . . the Jim Crow laws still stand” (42–
43). The soldier wonders: “Will Dixie lynch me still,
When I return?” Although he believes that “Tan-
skinned Yanks, Driving a tank” still have a long way
to go to achieve racial equality, in his perpetual tone
of optimism, Hughes encourages his fellow brothers,
both black and white, to “stand up like a man, At
home and take your stand, For Democracy.”
In “Minstrel Man” (1954) and “Merry-Go-
Round” (1959), Hughes employs the metaphor of
the carnival to express the absurdity, and danger,
of racial discrimination. “Minstrel Man” conveys
the pain and anguish felt by a black minstrel per-
former who, because of his race, is assumed to be
sub-human—a mere spectacle for the entertainment
of white people. In this case, the minstrel’s black
identity is dangerously trivialized by his clownish
makeup, wide grin, gay songs, and dancing feet.
While on the outside he may seem like a stereo-
typically content “coon,” in reality, he is struggling
with an “inner cry” of desperation brought on by his
socially constructed inferiority. Those who only see
his “feet . . . gay with dancing,” would never be able
to guess that every day “he dies.”
Like “Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too?,” “Merry-
Go-Round” also presents a biting critique of the Jim
Crow system which, for most of the 19th and 20th
centuries, kept blacks and whites entrapped in a
vicious cycle of race-based segregation. “Merry-Go-
Round” conveys the inner turmoil of an African-
American child who wishes to ride the carousel.
However, because of years of racist conditioning—
“Down South where I come from . . . White and
colored . . Can’t sit side by side”(4–6)—he auto-
matically seeks the “Jim Crow” section of the merry-
go-round. As Hughes illustrates, not only has the
child internalized the racist attitudes and practices
imposed on him by whites, but also, as a result,
he has lost his childhood innocence. Because the
merry-go-round is a circular ride, and “there ain’t no
back,” the displaced child asks “Where’s the horse. . . For a kid that’s black?” In a perfect world, such
a question would never be asked, for a black child
would be able to sit on any horse he or she desires.
“Cross” (1959) and “Ku Klux” (1935) also deal
with the burdens of American racism, especially
with respect to miscegenation and white supremacy.
“Cross,” like Hughes’s 1935 play Mulatto (he also
wrote a poem with the same title), interrogates the
“no-man’s-land” of race that is often occupied by
individuals who, as Hughes expresses, are “neither
white nor black.” Ultimately, as Hughes conveys,
race and class are mutually defining; in “Cross,” the
narrator’s black mother “died in a shack,” while his
white “old man died in a fine big house.” As some-
one who is “in-between,” and unclaimed by both
communities, the narrator is left wondering where
he will die. Thus we are left to conclude that racial
hybridity is incompatible with both social accep-
tance and personal fulfillment.
Hughes wrote “Ku Klux” as a reaction to the
second KKK peak, which occurred between World
War I and World War II. The poem chronicles an
encounter between a black man and a white KKK
member who uses violence to force his victim to
“Look me in the face—And tell me you believe
in . . . The great white race” (18–20). When the
black man tries to resist—“Mister . . . I’d believe in
anything . . . If you’d just turn me loose” (5–8)—he
is accused of “sassin’” the Klansman, who viciously
beats him. By portraying the white supremacist as
an irrational and sadistic bigot, and the unrelenting
black man as a brave and non-violent individual who
arbitrarily becomes the target of racist aggression,