Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights movement was a time of extreme change and protest as African American people fought for their freedom.

One author that helped drive that movement is Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes was an African American poet from Missouri that grew up with tremendous racial pride during a time of racial oppression. Hughes helped the Civil Rights movement with his inspirational poems. Hughes’ poems not only had beat and were enjoyable to read, but they also had a message. His message was everyone has the right to equality and there was no time like the present to fight for equality. Hughes expresses his idea of fighting now instead of later when he states, “I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.

I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.” Hughes was intent on trying to rally people to act now instead of later because he realized that with the support of the whole nation there was no way they could be stopped from gaining freedom. Another way Hughes was influenced to write was to write about how anything is possible if you put your mind to it. Hughes writes, “My hand! My dark hands! Break through the wall! Find my dream!” Hughes added that into his poem to express that even with a disadvantage, like being black in the early 1900’s in America, anything can be done with hard work. Hughes was influenced to write inspirational poems during the Civil Rights movement.

Hughes wanted people to feel empowered and to feel that anything is possible, such as gaining freedom and equality in America. All of Hughes’ work affected the people of the time to want to act and start the movement; to fight now for their freedom. Hughes made people want to work for something they believed in just as he did with becoming a successful black poet in a time of racial oppression. All of the events that occurred during the Civil Rights movement helped shape our views on racial equality. With the help of Langston Hughes, and many other activists, we now view each other as equal, instead of one race being inferior to the other. Hughes helped lead a movement that shaped everything that we as Americans believe about racial equality.

Without Langston Hughes our world would be very different.