Langston Hughes helped advance black literature in the United States more than any other writer. As a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, Hughes also wrote fiction, plays, and a newspaper column-anything that would express the status of blacks in American society.
His story "Cross" describes a person that is a son to a white father and a black mother. He compares the two in ways that put the white male above the black mother drastically. He says, "If ever I cursed my white old man, I take the curses back. If ever I cursed my black old mother and wished she were in hell, I"m sorry for that evil wish and now I wish her well." To me this means that discipline was coming to the son if he did not repent of cursing his old man. Yet if he was to do it to his mother, the only bad thing that would happen to the son was his own conscience making him feel bad for doing so. The son also describes his old man dieing in a fine big house, and the mother dieing in a shack. This obviously means that the white people were far better off when it came to wealth at this time in society. The last two lines are also a cause for thought. He says, "I wonder where I"m gonna die, being neither white nor black?" If this happened to me at this time, with me having mixed parents, it would very confusing. In some places you wouldn't be accepted because you weren't completely white, yet on the other hand you could perhaps go to places where blacks weren't accepted because you might be so light skinned that you could get away with it.
Hughes major contribution is his attempt to capture the character of blues music and the rhythms of jazz. "The Weary Blues" is a good example of standard blues rhythms combined with lateral thinking associated with jazz music. He also talks about the relationships between the races in "Theme for English B." He recognizes that all are brothers under the skin.
Many of Wright's early experiences form the material for his early fiction, most notably in Uncle Tom's Children, a collection that includes an autobiographical sketch "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow" and five stories.
