ductivity and power that the African-American has the capability to possess, while the acknowledgment that “they lynch [him] still in Mississippi” (16) speaks for the anti-Black resentment of this power. In his journey toward higher art, Hughes even makes mention of the institution of art as a facet of Negro identity: “I’ve been a singer: all the way from Africa to Georgia I carried my sorrow songs. I made ragtime” (10 - 13). Hughes combines these diverse elements of African-American identity -- slavery, workmanship, artistry, victimization -- to portray Blacks as many do not wish to see them: intelligent, hard-working, artistic, and unjustly oppressed. This poetic depiction both forces the African-American into a multi-dimensional state of being and exalts those qualities which have typically been considered negative or inconsequential. Hughes accomplishes these objectives while claiming his identity with beauty and poise: “I am a Negro: black as the night is black, black like the depths of my Africa” (17 - 19). In a similar vein, Hughes demonstrates an astute, attentive, descriptive voice in his poem “The South,” which examines “the lazy, laughing South with blood on its mouth” (1 - 2). Hughes exhibits an extremely refined sense of language in his descriptions: “beautiful, like a woman, seductive as a dark-eyed whore, passionate, cruel, honey-lipped, syphilitic -- that is the South” (13 - 17). In his accurate attribution of these qualities to Southern society, Hughes creates an intense awareness of both the seductive charisma and the severely problematic nature of the South; he thus calls the reader’s attention to the oppressive elements of Southern society as well as elevating the African-American -- and simultaneously, his art -- by engaging in an intelligent, perceptive quest toward “the cold-faced North, for she, they say, is a kinder mistres...
