The modernist era was one of the most tumultuous in recent world history: two world wars and the worst economic recession in recorded history, the great depression. In the United States in particular, this period also marked a very productive period in both literature and in the performing arts. In fact, in can also be argued that the modernist era was the most productive era in the creative arts. This era gave us The Great Gatsby, the Jazz Age, Ernest Hemingway and so forth.
For the African American community, the modernist era granted amazing opportunities for creativity. There is no doubt that blacks wrote, sang and danced their hearts out. Very fascinating. though, was the intersection of creative artistic voice, and the quest for self-actualization and economic empowerment. I cannot afford to not mention the contributions of numerous women artists who not only shattered barriers in the domestic arena but took their trade all the way to Europe. So groundbreaking was the reach of their influence that conservative writers took to the print media to warn that “Moral disaster is coming to hundreds of young American girls through the pathological, nerve irritating, sex exciting music of jazz orchestra” (p. 1492). Yet another lasting gift of this era was the birth of the consumer culture in which the burgeoning print media played an important role (p. 1495).
For the average human, at any given time, the need to have a sense of belonging can have a very powerful pull. It might just be a matter or comfort, dignity, access to opportunity, or in the case of many Blacks in the American South, a matter of life and death. As Langston Hughes points out, Blacks were being so dehumanized that some were invariably saying, “I would like to be white” (p. 1537). I imagine that Blacks of the modernist era, especially those in the South nursed the desire to be white because the voices that have spoken to them and the hand with which they had been dealt had made it clear to them that they were not equally human, if at all. The discourse about American Dream is usually framed in terms of the desire to acquire material wealth, and rightly so. But for a people that saw their kind being randomly lynched for exciting entertainment, or for any manner of frivolous accusations, I cannot imagine that their desire for material possessions was anywhere near the desire for dignity.
Enter Langston Hughes. Born in 1902 and very much a product of the modernist era, Hughes realized how important and pervasive the reach of an artist can be –a weaponized voice. Hughes appeared on the scene, battle ready to stand up for his people. The firs salvo was fired by essayist, George Schuyler. Schuyler argued that there could be no such thing as “Negro Art” in the United States.
Langston Hughes could well have said that his dream was “to see the work of a growing school of colored artists who paint and model the beauty of dark faces and create with new technique the expressions of their own soul-world” (p. 1539). That achievement will indeed serve as an inspiring voice that every black person would love to hear. But to get there, they must first feel that they were human enough. That is the foundation upon which any self-appreciative art could be built. For Blacks of the Modernist Era, the question of human dignity was still the ultimate American Dream, the realization of which would make every negro ask, “Why would I want to be white? I am a negro –and beautiful” (1540).
