The Mother of the New Negro Movement in "the Negro Mother"

The Mother of the New Negro Movement in "The Negro Mother"

"The Negro Mother" is a poem written by Langston Hughes in 1931. The publication date of the poem indicates that the poem is one of the works of Harlem Renaissance. In the poem, the persona is an African American mother who addresses to her children. Langston Hughes uses the mother for the entire African American ancestry, who is the representation of African American experience as slaves. Therefore, the poem is a good example of Harlem Renaissance Literature with its themes, its emphasis on the New Negro and its tone.

To begin with, the poem becomes a good example of Harlem Renaissance with its themes. The common theme of Harlem Renaissance- slavery and its effects on African Americans- is recurrent in the poem. For example, the Negro mother tells her children that she and other slaves were stolen from Africa to work in the fields of white people and they worked hard for "three hundred years" (Hughes 288). She states that her life was hard and her husband and children were taken away from her by the whites. She also tells that she could not read and write, she had to work long hours under the sun, she was beaten; she was not respected by the whites and punished for nothing. Secondly, the theme of American Dream for African Americans is clear in the poem because the mother says that she has hope throughout the poem. For example, she says that she has "the seed of the free" in her body and she can achieve "the seed of the coming Free" through her children (Hughes 288). So we see that Langston Hughes wants to show the white reader of his time that African Americans have also American Dream which God puts in their souls "like steel" (288). Therefore, the mother achieves her aim with her children who are free now- the New Negroes. So another theme of the poem becomes the desire for freedom and equality. The mother regards her children as "young and free" but regards herself as slave throughout the poem (288). So we see that the New Negroes want to gain social and intellectual freedom because their ancestors suffered a lot in the past, which is implied by the hope of mother of the New Negroes.

Furthermore, the Harlem Renaissance writers focus on the New Negro who is sophisticated, intellectual, self-confident, and against racism. Langston Hughes shows the New Negro identity from the eyes of the mother. While the mother talks about life as a slave, she advises her children to remember what their ancestors lived as slaves. Also she says that her children should stand against racism in white society and not to allow whites to make African American social or intellectual slaves again. So the reader gets the idea that the children of the mother are now the New Negroes who are against racism, sophisticated and educated unlike their mother, who could not read and write in the