In that period, an important number of Afro-Americans moved to the north, transplanted from the bloody south into the promises offered by the industrial cities of the north. Harlem became the most well known African Americans city, as it represented a kind of Eden, a cultural capital where literature and art symbolized their way of life. Harlem was giving a hope of resurrection to all African Americans in the United States lay awakening the artistic and sociocultural of their community. The Harlem Renaissance was provoked by different movements such as literature, with Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen or Zora Neale Hurston, music

But we are, that's true! …(Hughes 588)

Langston Hughes was exploring a new style of writing, which can be considered as a kind of modernism in the beginning of the century in the Harlem Renaissance period. He introduced a new form to write poetry: “the blues form in his poetry places him in the modernist tradition” (Rampersad). For the first time he held two forms of expression, writing and music, to express himself in his poetry. The Blues was an African American music played for many years in the south and in way singers were expressing themselves. Through the Blues, L. Hughes interpreted his feelings and how the people were living in the South; this was the first step in the resurrection of black poetry.

In the poem Harlem (A Dream Deferred) (1951) Langston Hughes writes about his souvenirs of life in Harlem during the Renaissance. In 1951 the Renaissance was over, and just in the title the poets explains that his dream the Harlem Renaissance was delayed. In the 1950s Harlem had changed since the 20s more then thirty years had past from that Eden period, violence, drugs, and corruption represented Harlem after the Second World War. Through the poem he asks questions, like someone disappointed with something important: “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” (Hughes 587). Each questions he asked focused on one question: Did the dream of all African-American come true or not? The dream of freedom that everyone wanted was still a question. For the author, Harlem has became a big question, and in his poem he asks to everyone the same question: where is the Harlem Renaissance gone? But Harlem in 1951 was no longer what it had been as it now represents more violence: “Or does it explode?” (Hughes 587). Through his poem L. Hughes is missing an important part of his life, which he would never see again. According to Walter C. Farrell, JR and Patricia A. Johnson idea “Hughes expanded the thematic substance of this poem and injected it with powerful social and political connotations.” (221). Hughes wanted to show through the poem that everyone had the right to access to a decent life even if they were colored people. Moreover if you follow Farrell’s and Johnson idea on a Dream Deferred Hughes was fighting for the black community rights through all his poems by using images to illustrate his feelings.

flow of human blood in human veins.

Some topics in this essay:
Langston Hughes, Harlem Renaissance, Alabama…” Hughes, Rivers Baldwin, Patricia Johnson, Theme English, World War, Locke” Britannica, African American, Speaks Rivers, langston hughes, harlem renaissance, black community, dream deferred, twentieth century, hughes 587, world war, black white, white black, life harlem, farrell jr patricia, black white black, walter farrell jr, life harlem renaissance, literature langston hughes,