Langston Hughes and Claude McKay’s influence of Baraka, MLK Jr and Malcom X

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of the article below is to show that their influence on future Black writers such as Leroy Jones (Amiri Baraka) and the Black Art Movement of the 1960s as well as the leaders of movements protesting Black oppression such as Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X is undeniable.

Methodology: This study adopted a combination of methods such as archival research, discourse analysis, poetry analysis and the review of biographies and literary critics. The study is a deepening of a section of our PhD dissertation entitled Black Nationalism in the Poetry of Langston Hughes and Claude McKay, A Comparative Approach defended in 2015 at Dakar University.

Findings: The poems by Langston Hughes and Claude McKay, dealt successfully with the complexities of African American identity and the struggle to end systemic racism and segregation. These themes in fact continues to inspire contemporary African-Americans authors such as the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner in 2020 Jericho Brown whose collection entitled 'The Tradition,' addresses the issues of racial equality and social justice and violence in America. Brown asserts that he cannot imagine how he would have ever known to write his win poems had Claude McKay not written his. (Brown, 2022)

Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The writings of Hughes and McKay decrying the violence and brutality on African-American resonate deeply with the themes of police brutality and abuses which Black Lives Matter movement has been so staunchly denouncing.