How did Langston Hughes argue for a new Black literature in “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”?

In his 1926 manifesto, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Langston Hughes argued for the creation of a confident, uniquely Black literature that embraced the African American experience without seeking validation from white society.12

Hughes contended that Black artists should express their “individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame,” asserting that their work should be judged on its own merits rather than by white standards. He explicitly sought to combat what he termed the “urge within the race toward whiteness,” encouraging writers to find inspiration in the lives, aesthetic sensibilities, and folk traditions of the Black masses—including the working class—rather than attempting to conform to traditional, often Eurocentric, literary forms.123

By championing this independence, Hughes advocated for an artistic movement that was unapologetically authentic. He famously declared that if white people were pleased by this new literature, it was welcome, but if they were not, their displeasure was irrelevant; the same standard applied to the Black community, emphasizing that the artist’s primary duty was to their own creative truth.12