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For Langston Hughes, best known as the "poet laureate" of the Harlem Renaissance, racism is a mindset that blinds both black and white Americans to their common interests in creating a better
life. Hughes had a deep sense of racial pride and an abiding concern to faithfully represent the experiences and feelings of African Americans. For inspiration, he looked to African
cultural traditions, as well as to the folk traditions of black America. One of the ways that Hughes honors black American folk culture is by adapting into many of his poems the popular blues themes and
rhythms of African American musicians. In the early 1930s, Langston Hughes turned his attention from composing blues poetry to write the powerful series of short stories, The Ways of White Folks
(1934). This publication explores the strained and changing relationships between blacks and whites in early 20th century America.
Hughes wrote these stories during the years following the Stock Market Crash of 1929, a period during which millions of Americans lost their jobs and newspapers regularly carried
stories of "hunger deaths." As someone who had spent a lot of time in working-class black communities, Hughes had an intimate knowledge of the economics of racial prejudice; he
understood that one person's poverty is another's prosperity. Not surprisingly, like many other writers of the period, Hughes became actively involved with the American Communist
Party, which criticized the class structure of American society as the central cause of poverty and racial discrimination.
During the Great Depression, sometimes referred to as the "Red Decade," Hughes wrote numerous poems, stories, and essays to express his growing conviction that "white folks"
usually treat blacks badly either because they feel economically threatened or find it financially profitable. In "Cora Unashamed," the protagonist is a black woman who works
as a maid for the Studevants, a wealthy white family. Hughes begins the story by describing Cora's poor treatment. To her employers, she is virtually a slave, and thus she is
continuously demeaned and treated "like a dog." The reader may wonder why she puts up with such abuse. The narrator explains that Cora "had to stand it..." As a poor black
woman in America, she had few opportunities. According to Hughes, "there was something about the teeth in the trap of economic circumstances that kept her in their power practically all her life..." Despite her oppressive circumstances, however, Cora stands strong and tall "like a tree," resisting the hatred and indifference of her environment. While the whites may have had a
perceived power over her, they could not dominate her spirit. Cora, relying upon the internal strength of her roots, remains "unashamed."
Dr. Dawahare is an English professor at California State University, Northridge, in California.
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