Shannon, Alexander. The Negro in Washington: A Study
in Race Amalgamation.New York: W. Neale, 1930.
Ways of White Folks, The Langston Hughes
(1934)
A collection of 12 startling short stories by poet and
political activist LANGSTONHUGHES. The title is
reminiscent of THESOULS OFBLACKFOLK,the sem-
inal work by W. E. B. DUBOIS, and Hughes scholars
suggest that the author was inspired by that work
when he devised the title. It was translated into sev-
eral foreign languages. Hughes donated a copy of the
French version, entitled Histories de Blancs,to the
FISK UNIVERSITY Library when his close friend
ARNABONTEMPSwas head librarian there.
Hughes completed the manuscript while living
in the Carmel, California, beach home of Noel Sul-
livan, a wealthy, outgoing gay man who had trans-
formed a former family property that had belonged
to Robert Louis Stevenson and then become a
home for Carmelite nuns into a writers’ sanctuary
and gathering place. Hughes dedicated the volume
to Sullivan, who became a close friend and gener-
ous supporter. In the letter to Sullivan that accom-
panied a draft copy of the manuscript, Hughes told
his friend that he had “helped... with them...
listened to many of them before they were ever
written... read them all, given me the music, and
the shelter of your roof, and the truth of your
friendship, and the time to work” (Berry, 201).
CARL VAN VECHTEN, who received the
manuscript from Blanche Knopf, “tackle[d] it with
a great deal of hope” in December 1933. In one of
his many letters to Hughes, he told “Dear old
Langston” with much gusto that “all my hopes
were realized.” He advised Hughes to include two
works that Hughes was completing and then cele-
brated his friend’s accomplishments with the tri-
umphant last line, “Laurel wreaths to you, brown
Genius!” (Bernard, 115).
Published by the New York–based company
Knopf in 1934, the volume included “Cora
Unashamed,” “A Good Job Gone,” “Berry,” “Pass-
ing,” “Father and Son,” and “Red-Headed Baby,”
stories that explore the shocking racial and social
dynamics of the times. Hughes grapples with the
pain of rejection, hypocrisy, and intolerance. He
also considers, to great effect, the underlying
threat of violence that seems to plague interracial
relationships. In “Red-Headed Baby,” a white sailor
named Clarence returns to find that Betsy, his
African-American lover, has borne their child.
Clarence, a man already beset by his world, can
barely grapple with the fact that his son not only
possesses red hair but also is deaf and dumb. The
gripping tale in “Father and Son” spirals out of
control as the mixed-race and illegitimate son of a
white plantation owner and his African-American
housekeeper returns home and refuses to be com-
promised by the oppressive racial codes of the
South. The family is completely devastated
through madness, suicide, and LYNCHINGand ends
with a stunning message about the kind of self-
denial required in order to survive in America.
Hughes continued his explication of unyielding
and unsatisfying American domesticity in “Cora
Unashamed.” The story revolves around Cora Jen-
kins, a 40-year-old woman who works as a domestic
in the emotionally repressive household of the white
Studevants family. Cora is a “maid of all work—
washing, ironing, cooking, scrubbing, taking care of
kids, nursing old folks, making fire, carrying water.”
Despite the fact that the family holds her in
bondage, Cora also becomes an indispensable source
of love for Jessie, the Studevantses’ only child. The
outraged, omniscient narrator of the piece suggests
that Cora’s lack of autonomy is due to “the teeth in
the trap of economic circumstance that kept her in
[the Studevantses’] power practically all her life.”
Cora’s own home life is desperate; her mother has
eight children, and her father is a “closet-cleaning,
ash-hauling and junk-dealing” man, one whose
wages tend to go toward “the stuff that makes you
forget you have eight kids.” Cora weathers the
painful loss of Josephine, the child borne of her only
love affair, an encounter with a young white man
named Joe, who came to Melton, “was some kind of
foreigner... [h]ad an accent, and yellow hair, big
hands, and grey eyes.” Eventually she becomes an
ally for Jessie, who falls in love with a young immi-
grant boy of whom her parents do not entirely ap-
prove. When Jessie becomes pregnant, is forced by
her mother to have an abortion, and then dies as a
result of the procedure, Cora finally speaks out
against the oppressive hypocrisy that she has both
witnessed and endured in the household. The story
was adapted for television and premiered on PBS in554 Ways of White Folks, The