UNIT 18: COUNTEE CULLEN’S

LINES TO MY FATHER AND

LANGSTON HUGHES’ LET
AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN
Structure
18.0 Objectives
18.1 Introduction
18.1.1 Genesis of the African-American Community in America
18.1.2 Overview of the Changing Position of the Community
18.1.3 African-Americans in the Twentieth Century and Harlem Renaissance
18.1.4 About Harlem Renaissance
18.2 About Langston Hughes
18.3 “Let America be America Again”: Analysis
18.4 About Countee Porter Cullen
18.5 “Lines to My Father”: Analysis
18.6 Check Your Progress: Possible questions (with answer keys)
18.7 Summing Up
18.8 Select Reading List

18.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit you will be able to:
●● Know about the history of African-American community’s arrival in
America
●● Become familiar with the history of this community’s struggles
●● Connect the movement known as Harlem Renaissance with these
struggles
●● Identify the two major strains of writers involved with Harlem
Renaissance
●● Close-Read the two poems mentioned above

18.1 INTRODUCTION
18.1.1 
Genesis of the African-American community in
America
As suggested by the very name, the community of African-Americans is
a hybrid ethnic group. They are born out of a mixing of two ethnic groups
who reside at a distance of nearly nine thousand miles. Looking at the sheer
enormity of this distance the first question that arises is what actually led to
this crossing over? The historical accounts of this community suggest that
it was a result of a forced migration. The documentary entitled The African
Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr tells: “In the
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360 years between 1500 and the end of the slave trade in the 1860s, at Countee Cullen’s Lines to
least 12 million Africans were forcibly taken to the Americas - then known My Father and Langston
Hughes’ Let America Be
as the “New World” to European settlers. This largest forced migration in America Again
human history relocated some 50 ethnic and linguistic groups”. For their
shippers these migrated lot might be simply Africans but in reality they were
members of different African tribes marked by their individual cultures. In
the soil of America these people of diverse nature were actually forced to
lose their unique tribal identities and get transformed into a new hybrid
ethnic group- the African-Americans. These people did consist of members
of Native American and European lineage but they were predominantly a
pan-African group residing in America.
18.1.2 Overview of the Changing Position of the Community
The community did begin as slaves at its initial stage but along with
time their position in America underwent a remarkable change. Harlem
Renaissance is certainly one of the manifestations of this changing position
hence before talking about this event itself, it seems important to explore
the events preceding it that had a significant impact on the community’s
liberation. From 1619 to 1808, the importing of Africans to America for
slavery continued officially. Though this importing was outlawed in 1808,
the practice had already gathered millions of slaves. As the white population
of America, especially the Southern people, were unwilling to accept these
Africans forced to live in America as free citizens; the condition of these
coloured people did not improve at all by the stopping of slave importing.
Gradually these Africans living in America started revolting and America
witnessed a number of reactions against the discrimination against the black
people throughout the nineteenth century. People like Nat Turner or John
Brown attempted to fight the perpetrators of slavery by force and though
both were hanged after killing a few opponents, their revolts certainly
gave the growing agitation against the slave owners a definite shape. The
abolitionists started protesting against slavery in an organized way and this
movement took a significant turn from the 1830s with the beginning of the
publication of The Liberator by William Lloyd Garrison. Another notable
instance of the rising of the black people was the case of the slave named
Dred Scott who sought help from the legal system for gaining freedom. The
biased Supreme Court did deny Scott his due but their hypocrisy infuriated
the northern Americans and made them aware of the oppressed state of the
blacks in a vivid manner. After the Civil War of 1861 the emancipation
of the slaves finally got a legal sanction but during the post-slavery era
further agitations against the blacks began when laws like the Black Codes
were passed during 1865. The white supremacists formed notorious groups
like “Ku Klux Klan” for fighting the blacks during this time. In short, the
nineteenth century, especially its second half was a time of attacks and
counterattacks for the blacks.
18.1.3 
African-Americans in the Twentieth Century and
Harlem Renaissance
During the early years of the twentieth century the African-Americans saw
the rise of a few men of their own community as influential persons. Unlike
the chief leaders of the previous century, these new generation of African-
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Early Twentieth Century Americans had either financial strength or the reputation of a scholar. They
had managed to become voices to reckon with following different paths
and revolutionary changes started to appear when they tried to impart
their mantra of success to their fellow African-Americans. For instance,
Booker Taliaferro Washington, who had become a known face amongst
the circle of wealthy Americans insisted that the blacks should develop
skills as technicians or workers of various industries for becoming a part
of the American core population occupied by the whites. He tried to make
the community become one with the whites but did not speak about the
importance of the individuality of the blacks. William Edward Burghardt
Du Bois drew their attention to the need for considering their community as
an individual one instead of merely thinking themselves as an extension of
the whites. Du Bois was a scholar. He was the first of these black Americans
who earned a doctorate degree and moving a step ahead from Washington,
he suggested that salvation lay in embracing education and nurturing a
unique culture. When Du Bois acted as one of the main founding members
of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
in 1909, he had the educational and cultural development of his fellow
people as his chief goal. These seeds sown by Du Bois soon evolved into
what is known as Harlem Renaissance today.
18.1.4 About Harlem Renaissance
Looking at the impact of the event on the African Americans, it seems better
to call it a revolution rather than a renaissance. For these people of African
origin it brought a change that was hardly seen previously. Hence it was
less a ‘re-awakening’ and more an awakening that occurred surrounding a
particular place in the 1920s. Stephen Matterson descibes the event saying:
“The renaissance mainly involved a group of writers and intellectuals
associated (often loosely) with Harlem, the district of Manhattan that during
the Great Migration of African Americans from rural South, became the
major centre for urbanized blacks”(96). Matterson’s entries inform that by
1930s no less than 2 million black people had migrated to north. In the urban
space of northern America they could be free from the brutalities of the South
and as a result of their proximity to the gloss of cities, they started updating
themselves in a remarkeable manner. This movement took place at a time
when the entire world of Western literature was undergoing a sea change as
a result of the emergence of Modernism. These African American writers
too joined the wave of embracing novelty in their own ways. Practitioners of
Modernism in general considered the mixing of the traditional and the new
an integral part of their agenda. In the hands of these African Americans,
this agenda became an effective medium of portraying their African heritage
and Americanness together. For white writers like Eugene O’ Neill, African
American identity was mostly related with primitivism, as shown in the play
The Emperor Jones(1920). Harlem Renaissance helped in developing the
awarenes that urbanity too had become an integral part of African American
culture. Alain Locke’s essay, published as an introduction to the collection
entitled The New Negro(1925) gave voice to this movement for the first
time. The term “New Negro” became synonymous with the movement
and it referred to the newly developed awareness in the African Americans
about their unique identity. For them, being black no longer meant being
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backward. They started believing in their own culture like never before. Like Countee Cullen’s Lines to
many other movements, however, Harlem Renaissance too had exponents My Father and Langston
Hughes’ Let America Be
who had their differences. While a section of this movement insisted that America Again
the only purpose of an African American writer should be the voicing of the
problems faced by their community, a second group intended to establish
themselves not just as African American writers but writers dedicated to
universal concerns. The key strain of thoughts of these two groups maybe
understood from the poetry of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen,
respectively.

18.2 BOUT LANGSTON HUGHES (1901-1967)

This Missouri born poet is called a “poet laureate of the race” for African-
Americans by Lisa Hollenbach. He introduced an interesting form of poetry
to the American poetry in general which eventually became known as “Jazz
Poetry”. He fused syncopated rhythms, a coded and figurative language
referred as “Jive language” which, for example described a guitar as “Belly-
Fiddle”, to poetry that used colloquial language as far as practicable in order
to develop this fusion of Jazz music and poetry. He wrote more than fifteen
collections of poems along with a notable number of novels, plays, short
stories, essays and children’s literature.

18.3 “LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN”:

ANALYSIS
One of the most iconic poems by Langston Hughes, “Let America…” was
written during the 1930s which is infamously known as the Depression era
in American culture. However, rather than being a dated text, the poem’s key
argument eventually became one of the most popular slogans of American
leaders like John Kerry. The key ideas of the poem will be analyzed in this
section. Though written as one undivided text, the poem appears to have
three distinct yet interrelated sections in it and this section will analyze it
using the same.
1) The first sixteen lines show interplay between a prayer that asks for
returning America to its ideal state and a voice captured in parenthesis
that keeps reminding that America was never great for this individual
speaker or a certain group that this individual speaker is a representative
of. In these lines America of the glorious past is described as a land
of liberty, equal opportunities, and a space where the time honored
traditions of exploiting the common people has been done away with.
These assertions are followed by short yet very strong interjections
that remind that America has never really been an ideal land for the
speaker of these interjections.
2) The first portion is followed by a longer and descriptive portion running
nearly fifty lines that reveal the identities of the people represented
in the interjections mentioned above and their respective sufferings.
These people are requested by the narratorial voice to reveal their
identities and they inform that they are literally a multitude of sufferers.
They consist of poor white men, black people, the natives of America
described by the ruling white people as “Red”, and all the immigrants
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Early Twentieth Century that ever arrived in America. All of them had come to America or
hoped sincerely that America will make a difference but in reality
they saw the gradual rise of the cruel, inhuman, exploiters all around
who simply imitated the scheme of the tyrants that centers around
the exploitation of the poor. Apart from these minority groups, the
voice is described to be a representative of the young men, the farmer,
the worker, and the black slaves. All of them are strong and capable
enough for leading America to a bright future but the select few who
run the nation never allow them to proceed. Instead the potential, the
power of these honest workers are sold cheap and put at the service of
the greedy rich people. Ironically it is these exploited and mishandled
people who are the pillars of the dream about America’s greatness. In
short, these lines explain why America is no longer the America of
“American Dream”.
3) Finally, the concluding section wraps the poem with the hope of a
better future despite all the hopelessness. It addresses the exploiters
and informs with great confidence that they can brand these exploited
people who are now declaring a war for reclaiming America as
abhorrent or evil but they will not stop. They will bring a revolutionary
change that will ultimately have the American Dream realized all over.
The last section mentions the source of sufferings for the exploited and
ends very confidently with an assurance that America will definitely
become great again. Overall, the poem reflects Hughes’s strong belief
in the ideals of Harlem Renaissance as well as his Marxist ideology.
Though written primarily for the black people, this poem ultimately
speaks for every single person who has been affected by the selfish
rich people who turned American dream into a nightmare.

18.4 ABOUT COUNTEE PORTER CULLEN

(1903-1946)
Details of the early life of Countee Cullen are quite obscure. Name of his
real father is still unknown. The surname “Cullen” became a part of his
identity after he got adopted by Reverend Frederick Cullen. His consistent
achievements as a student make him look no less than a prodigy. Apart from
earning degrees in challenging courses like classical literatures, Cullen drew
the attention of many for his talent in creative works like writing poetry,
delivering speeches, etc. His maturity as a writer earned him the opportunity
to become an associate editor of his school’s journal The Magpie. His first
collection of poems known as Color was published the same year he became
a graduate. The poem by Cullen featured in this module, that is, “Lines
to My Father” belongs to Cullen’s second collection of poems known as
Copper Sun (1927). Subsequently the poem was anthologized in My Soul’s
High Song: The Collected Writings of Countee Cullen (1991).
As mentioned before, Cullen’s poems represent a section of Harlem
Renaissance writers that attempted to engage with issues outside the
African-American struggle for emancipation. The poem “Lines to My
Father,” however, serves not just as a representative text depicting Cullen’s
attempts to move beyond the recurrent thoughts that dominated the writings
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of Langston Hughes and the like. Rather, the poem appears to be a subtle Countee Cullen’s Lines to
voicing of the African-Americans’ sufferings beneath philosophical musings My Father and Langston
Hughes’ Let America Be
that have a universal significance. America Again

18.5 “LINES TO MY FATHER”: ANALYSIS

The poem is apparently a brief message to a person the speaker calls his
(though it is not clear whether this anonymous speaker is male or female,
keeping the poem’s connections with the poet’s life or the condition of his
community, which the following paragraphs will explain, it seems proper to
assume that the speaker is male) father. This poem is comparatively more
symbolic than the other poem discussed in this unit and these symbols have
a Christian overtone.
To begin with, the poem alludes to the biblical saying about sowing
and reaping. The Second Epistle to the Corinthians featured in the New
Testament proclaims: “… whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly”
(9:6) and the opening line of Cullen’s poem alludes to it with a twist. Unlike
the biblical line it speaks of a discrepancy between the people who sow and
the people who reap. According to the poem sowing, the comparatively
more laborious task of the two, is done by many but reaping, which though
tiresome, is definitely more satisfactory in terms of immediate gains, is
done by a select few. Though universal in tone, this statement appears to
be grounded in the discriminatory situation that African-Americans were
placed during Cullen’s time. The African-Americans would do the hard
work for the development of America but the benefits would mostly be
enjoyed by the whites.
After this poignant beginning the poem continues to speak of the sufferings
of hard-working people. The poet beautifully maintains the obliqueness by
making the lines speak of universal as well as the sufferings of his own
community. In continuation with the idea of the sufferings of the people
engaged in sowing, the poem starts speaking of the minuscule presence of
relief and joy in the lives of these hard-working people. They can enjoy the
soothing moments of rest only when the daytime gets shortened and night
gets lengthened by prolonged darkness, that is, only when due to the natural
conditions they get to cease their work earlier than their schedule, they get
to rest and soothe the “smart” that is “pain” of otherwise consistent grief of
their daily lives. These laboring people, according to the poem, have very
little expectations from life. All it takes is a slight sign of a good harvest to
make them ecstatic. They are so habituated to “indigence” meaning their
sufferings; that the arrival of a single flower makes them happy. In short,
they live for working and know nothing beyond hard work.
After these meaningful descriptions about these hard-working people the
poem shifts its focus on the speaker’s father. This section of the poem reveals
significant details about the identity of this “father” and further explicates
the poem’s central idea. The speaker requests his father to take a look around
and witness the impact the seeds he had sown have had. It is important to
note that the speaker associates his father with people engaged in sowing at
this point. Just like them, the speaker’s father too had sown seeds and as a
result trees bearing ripe fruit with golden hue, signifying these fruits’ purity,
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Early Twentieth Century have grown in abundance all over. After this sensuous description of the
trees and fruits, the speaker explains the actual nature of the system that his
father has created. This system is entirely based on hard-work. The father
has set things in motion by sowing seeds and the subsequent generations
must keep the rhythm of creation sprung thusly by way of hard-work. In
return they will definitely get a beautiful world filled with ripeness but they
must earn it. The system the father has created will never let them simply
inherit things from idle wishful thinking. The speaker adds a note of praise
for his father stating that the father has hired these people who need to work
for continuing the father’s good work, only after he became sure about their
capabilities. The use of capitalization in the line “From One Who holds His
servants worth their hire.” sums up the questions about the father’s identity
by implying that the speaker is addressing God himself.
Towards the end the poem takes an interesting turn by pointing out that this
great harvest that the father’s sowing has given birth to was not really desired
by the father without any doubts. Rather, it was “the shyest” of his dreams,
meaning the father, the Almighty too was not really sure that someday the
earth will look so beautifully ripened. Yet this dream has come true and
more importantly, the dream does not at all look fragile. Instead, it looks
solid as rock. This dream, according to the speaker, can be “impregnated,”
that is grown further but it will require the involvement of hard-working
people. Hence, the conclusion that the poem features in between the lines
insists that the people enjoying undue advantages, mentioned in the opening
line, will fall short of the capability required for carrying on the father’s
work. Overall, the poem carries a universal significance by allegorically
highlights the importance of hard-working people in general and yet it
speaks volumes about the African-Americans too. It is a poem of hope and
though the messages of hope it imparts are meaningful for readers across
time and culture, the true significance of these rays of hope is definitely
perceived better when seen through the lens of contemporary African-
American history.

18.6 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS (QUESTIONS

WITH ANSWER KEYS)
a) Describe the socio-historical background of Harlem Renaissance.
Ans: Your answer should begin mentioning the history of African-American
community’s development and growth in America. Thereafter, you
need to explain how the change in this community (in the form of
literacy, participation in power structure, etc.) gradually led to the
development of Harlem Renaissance.
b) Assess the contribution of Langston Hughes as a poet of Harlem
Renaissance.
Ans. You should start by outlining Hughes’ life and his involvement with
the movement. In terms of his contribution, stress should be given
to how his poems spoke for bringing about revolutionary changes to
America. Along with the poem on your syllabus you should also refer
to a few other poems by Hughes, namely “Harlem,” “I, Too,” etc.
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c) Critically comment on the central idea of the poem “Let America Be Countee Cullen’s Lines to
America Again”. My Father and Langston
Hughes’ Let America Be
Ans. You should close-read the poem and sum up its contents following the America Again
leads given above. Conclude your answer by relating the poem’s idea
of bringing the true face of American nation back with the Harlem
Renaissance’s notion of uplifting the African-Americans.
d) Assess the contribution of Countee Cullen as a poet of Harlem
Renaissance/ Assess the distinctive features of Cullen’s poetry that
gives him a unique position amongst the poets of Harlem Renaissance.
Ans. You have to outline the key differences between Cullen and other
writers of Hralem Renaissance like Hughes by explaining how Cullen
refused to indulge in out and out political and propagandist writings.
You should substantiate your arguments by referring to the poem on
your syllabus. However, references to other poems like “Yet do I
Marvel,” “The Wise,” “The Loss of Love,” may also be given.
e) Explain the Christian symbolism used in “Lines to My Father”.
Ans. You should refer to the discussion on the poem mentioned above.
You can also attempt to relate the poem’s central ideas with Cullen’s
childhood upbringing in the house of his foster father who himself
was a devout Christian.

18.7 SUMMING UP
As stated above, after going through these discussions you should now be
able to:
●● Explain the factors behind the rise of Harlem Renaissance
●● Distinguish between the two major strains of writings associated with
Harlem Renaissance
●● Critically explain the poems on your syllabus in the light of Harlem
Renaissance
●● Comment on the images used in the poems on your syllabus

18.8 SELECT READING LIST

The Cambridge Companion to the Harlem Renaissance Edited By George
B. Hutchinson, Cambridge University Press, 2007
A Langston Hughes Encyclopedia by Hans Ostrom, Greenwood Press,
2002.
Langston Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past And Present Edited by Henry
Louis Gates Jr. and K.A. Appiah, Harper, 2000.
Montage of a Dream: The Art and Life of Langston Hughes Edited by John
Edger Tidwell and Cheryl R. Ragar, University of Missouri, 2007.
Countee Cullen by Alan Shucard, Twayne, 1984.
Harlem Renaissance by Nathan Huggins, Oxford University Press, 2007.

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Early Twentieth Century Countee Cullen papers, 1900-1947, Amistad Research Center,
http://amistadresearchcenter.tulane.edu/archon/?p=collections/
controlcard&id=41
“Langston Hughes’s Cold War Audiences: Black Internationalism, The
Popular Front, and The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1949” by John Lowney,
JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26434716?seq=1
“The American Dream of Langston Hughes” by James Presley, JSTOR,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43467552?seq=1
“The Poetic Philosophy of Countee Cullen” by Bertram L. Woodruff,
JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/271989?seq=1
“The Poetics of Conjecture: Countee Cullen’s Subversive Exemplarity” by
Jeremy Braddock, JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3300283?seq=1

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