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Langston HughesA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
The most significant symbol in Hughes’s essay is the “racial mountain” cited in the title. In the introductory paragraph, Hughes describes the mountain as the “urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible” (Paragraph 1). To Hughes, the internal “race toward whiteness” (Paragraph 1) is part of the two other issues he names here: the tendency of American society to push all people towards assimilation and to minimize racial individuality. American society, to Hughes, is difficult environment for a Black artist who desires to make art that is separate from “American standardization” or that “urge within” to become more White.
To Hughes, the mountain is an inherently inhospitable environment in which the Black artist must overcome both their internal desire to be White. The difficulty of confronting the mountain also involves the external pressures from White people who reward assimilation and from Black people who critique so-called inappropriate expressions of Blackness. Ideally, to Hughes, the Black artist will “stand on top of the mountain, free within [themselves]” (Paragraph 14). Overcoming the racial mountain takes self-acceptance and self-love, which enables Black artists to “express [their] dark-skinned selves without fear or shame” (Paragraph 14).
By Langston Hughes
Children’s Rhymes
Langston Hughes
Cora Unashamed
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Dreams
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Harlem
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I look at the world
Langston Hughes
I, Too
Langston Hughes
Let America Be America Again
Langston Hughes
Me and the Mule
Langston Hughes
Mother to Son
Langston Hughes
Mulatto
Langston Hughes
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life
Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
Not Without Laughter
Langston Hughes
Slave on the Block
Langston Hughes
Thank You, M'am
Langston Hughes
The Big Sea
Langston Hughes
Theme for English B
Langston Hughes
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes
The Ways of White Folks
Langston Hughes
The Weary Blues
Langston Hughes
Tired
Langston Hughes
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