18 pages • 36 minutes read
Langston HughesI, Too
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1926A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
The Harlem Renaissance and the Black Experience in America
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement centered in Harlem, New York, during the 1910s and 1920s. The movement gave birth to artists like Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes. It also included innovations like the expansion of jazz music, which eventually took the country by storm and became the most popular music genre for decades.
The Harlem Renaissance was the natural progression of Black cultural thought and expression building up for 60 years since the Civil War. The Black community found itself at a number of crossroads as more Black people left the oppressive South and as the country modernized, especially leading up to and after the First World War. Some of these crossroads included the role Black people saw for themselves in American culture, how best to fight for and secure civil rights, relationships with the white community, and how to view America’s present, its past, and its future.
While these were and continue to be complex issues, Hughes took some strong positions. Hughes believed in and loved Black culture, including the progressive culture of the Harlem Renaissance and the jazz scene. He included the vocabulary, flow, and rhythm of jazz in his poetry, and he did not shy away from speaking and writing about all aspects of the Black experience in America, good and bad. Hughes also believed in economic socialism, and saw it as the best way to achieve economic equity for all people. And Hughes celebrated the rich history of African American culture and voices. He believed it was important to give voice to the ancestry and legacy of his people, and he did so in his poetry and other creative endeavors.
Whitman
Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” (1860) acts as the inspiration for “I, Too.” While Whitman was against slavery and was, for his time, progressive on the issue of race, his poem excludes Black people. In the poem, Whitman describes the various voices he hears when he walks through the country. His focus is mainly on the working class: He includes carpenters, mechanics, masons, boatmen, shoemakers, woodcutters, mothers, wives, and daughters. While Whitman does not mention race, one has to wonder why there is no mention of slavery. The simple answer is that the poem tries to celebrate America during a horrific time in the country’s history. Right after the election of 1860, the Civil War began. Whitman was writing in the midst of great strife and conflict, and his poem seeks to unite people under the banners of brotherhood and commonality.
Near the end of the poem, Whitman writes, “Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else.” (Whitman, Walt. “I Hear America Singing.” 1860. Poets.org.) The line suggests America is a place where one earns only what one deserves and where one has autonomy over one’s own labor and body. Obviously, this was only true for some people. Whitman, as an abolitionist, overlooks the glaring problem of slavery in America, as it completely contradicted his poem’s rosy image.
Hughes uses “I, Too” as a chance to insert himself and his people into the image Whitman created. Hughes’s poem is a criticism of Whitman’s poem while also maintaining that America does indeed have potential for harmony. Hughes wants the reader to understand that his voice is just as valuable as all of the voices Whitman included.
Related Titles
By Langston Hughes
