Alain Locke (1886-1954), The New Negro

Negative and Positive Mythologization of Africa

Langston Hughes (1902-1967), Christ in Alabama

[according to old African American folklore tradition, Black Americans’ sufferings are identified with those experienced by crucified Christ]:

Christ is a nigger, Beaten and black: Oh, bare your back! Mary is His mother: Mammy of the South,Silence your mouth. God is his father: White Master aboveGrant Him your love. Most holy bastardOf the bleeding mouth, Nigger Christ On the cross

Of the South

Spirituals (19^th c.) Go Down, Moses!

Go down, Moses, Way down in Egyptland Tell old Pharaoh To let my people go.   When Israel was in Egyptland Let my people go Oppressed so hard they could not stand Let my people go.   Go down, Moses, Way down in Egyptland Tell old Pharaoh, “Let my people go”.

“Thus saith the Lord,” bold Moses said, “Let my people go; If not I’ll smite your first-born dead Let my people go.   “No more shall they in bondage toil, Let my people go; Let them come out with Egypt’s spoil, Let my people go”.   The Lord told Moses what to do Let my people go; To lead the children of Israel through, Let my people go.   Go down, Moses, Way down in Egyptland Tell old Pharaoh, “Let my people go”.

Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America (late 18^th c.)

[the first Black woman to have her poems published]

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Taught my benighted souls to understand

That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

Their colour is a diabolic die."

Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,

May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

(An Early American Reader, Washington, D.C., 1992, p.613)

Langston Hughes (1902-1967), The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1921)

I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln

went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy

bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

(The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, N.Y., 1997, p.1251)

Transition from stereotyped Black images to New Negro during the Harlem Renaissance (1910-1920-і рр.)

....the Old Negro had long become more of a myth than a man. The Old Negro, we must remember, was a creature of moral debate and historical controversy. His has been a stock figure perpetuated as an historical fiction partly in innocent sentimentalism, partly in deliberate reactionism. The Negro himself has contributed his share to this through a sort of protective social mimicry forced upon him by the adverse circumstances of dependence. So for generations in the mind of America, the Negro has been more of a formula than a human being – a something to be argued about, condemned or defended, to be “kept down”, or “in place”, or “helped up”, to be worried with or worried over, harassed or patronized, a social bogey or a social burden. The thinking Negro even has been induced to share this same general attitude, to focus his attention on controversial issues, to see himself in the distorted perspective of a social problem. His shadow, so to speak, has been more real to him than his personality...The day of “aunties”, “uncles” and “mammies” is gone. Uncle Tom and Sambo have passed on...

(The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, N.Y., 1997, p.961-962)

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